ClubMed on the Med

          ClubMed on the actual Med

My first visit to a ClubMed resort was at the end of winter in 2019, to one in the French Alps. I wrote about it (April 2019), speculating tongue in cheek about certain possibilities of a Ballardian nature (after the novelist of dystopian middle class violence, JG Ballard).

Having returned from my second ClubMed, in Greece, on the seaside, a resort of beaches and pine groves, I realise that the slightly cultish claustrophobia of the winter ClubMed was mainly due to, well, the winter.

During the day the business of the guests, or almost all of them, was with the snow. As evening drew in, we were all inside the resort building, which proximity magnified both fun and tension.

In summer that enforced concentration of people doesn’t happen. The beach ClubMed is diffusely spread over many acres; all events are outside or in nearly open structures. There’s a clear demarcation between living quarters and the spaces for eating, drinking, entertainment and sport.

The Ballardian possibilities are thus much less in evidence, apart from a couple of features.

The Resort is closed, not very near to any actual Greek village. In classical times, the Greek city-states were forever planting colonies around the Mediterranean. Here, the French have planted a holiday colony. This gated self-containment is certainly a favourite Ballard set-up. 

The other feature is perhaps more regrettable. The resort is built on a mostly flat triangular point jutting into the sea, against the spectacular backdrop of a sheer cliffside. In the 1970s ClubMed put up brutalist concrete accommodation blocks of several floors against the cliff. These buildings are not beautiful (but the Greek landscape refuse to be intimidated), and are now showing their age. Ballard would have loved them, as the perfect setting for societal disintegration (see the novel  High-Rise and the 2015 film with Jeremy Irons and Tom Hiddleston).

In the Med ClubMed, my thoughts pivoted from Ballard to Butlins. I’ve never been to Butlins, but I’m aware of the mythology: all-inclusive holidays, healthy pursuits , special songs and chants, knobbly knees competitions…

At Med ClubMed, there are, as in Waiting for Godot, sports of all sorts. An exhausting program is posted every day, promoting everything from archery to yoga, especially water sports and tennis and padel. There’s frequent live entertainment. Many activities are accompanied by by relentless thudding europop.

One of our party observed that about 20% of the guests constitute 80% of the participants in activities. Also there are preening hen parties; there are drinking buddy groups of beefy overweight men ( there could be a gigantic paunch competition..); and the docile beach lovers.

Ballard would appreciate the class distinction that has been established: although Med ClubMed might be a Butlins for the French middle classes, there’s also an upper “business class” level. The general restaurant serves excellent food over many buffet counters and unlimited though plonkish wines. But outside, in good weather, at cloth covered tables, is a higher gastronomic experience - at a steep price: special beef or lobster; very fine wines.

Fortunately it was on many nights too windy for us lower ranks to envy the opulent too much, and mount a Ballardian insurgency.

It must be said: ClubMed on the whole does deliver what everyone seeks, however varied the objectives of the seekers. Our party played a great deal of tennis, a little inept padel; enjoyed yoga , Pilates and swimming and were very content with the food and drink.

We arrived and departed from and to a mainland port on a ClubMed launch. That was rather magical. Athens airport less so, like any other.

Sept 2025