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France: February 2007
Hush-hush hideaway
Jardins Secrets,
As we’re buzzed through a plain, grey door, what greets us feels little short of magical. Jardins Secrets is not so much a hotel as a beautiful private house that, since 2005, has allowed members of the public to pay for the privilege of staying there. And it really is a privilege. Boutique-hotel lovers everywhere should salute Christophe and Annabelle Valentin for opening up their family home and garden. On the edge of the ancient town centre of Nîmes, this pink-hued 17th-century city villa has just four guest rooms.
The garden is what blows us away first. It banishes our mental cobwebs and ignites our enthusiasm from the moment we enter through that unremarkable gate. Rich, lush, colourful, it is full of olive trees, giant palms and bougainvillea.
The rooms are large, luxurious and decorated with impeccably chic French taste. Elegantly shabby antiques sit alongside polished modern pieces. There are thick, heavy drapes hanging next to delicate, decorative writing tables; we have a shiny new widescreen TV and a stunning, spacious old-fashioned bathroom. Each room is individually decorated and furnished, and all have double doors which open out on to the garden. The communal areas of the house are littered with books, photographs, musical paraphernalia and aviaries full of tiny singing birds.
Thankfully, there is no restaurant at Jardins Secrets (though they offer one or two special dishes), otherwise we might never venture beyond our cosseting cocoon. We manage to poke our noses around Nîmes itself, heading for the Old City, a five-minute walk from the hotel. It is studded with Roman relics, including the huge and intact Les Arènes amphitheatre and La Maison Carrée – a grand first-century temple. There is a distinctly Spanish-tinged feel to this Mediterranean region – in its food, its fondness for flamenco and bullfighting, its relaxed but upbeat air.
Jardins Secrets is a hush-hush hideaway where we are made to feel welcome, but are left undisturbed. And thanks to low-cost flights from London, and Christophe happily shuttling us to the airport in less than 15 minutes, a two-day break really has been a two-day break.
Reviewed by William Drew
Details: All four of the hotel’s rooms (there are more planned) are individually styled, and have views over the garden. Rates: €190–€260, excluding breakfast.
Rustic, rural retreat
Le Manoir de Raynaudes
As our plane lurched away from London, the prospect of kicking off my boots and relaxing in a garden teeming with fruits, flowers, herbs and vegetables, and falling on exquisite meals created from all this natural goodness, began to make me feel very pure. And, as we headed for the hills outside Toulouse, in search of our rustic retreat, tower blocks and offices gave way to reveal the magnificent open spaces of the French countryside. We drove through a parade of unspoilt villages until we crossed a moat and arrived at Le Manoir de Raynaudes. It is a simple 19th-century property, built around a traditional courtyard, with a converted barn providing more accommodation.
Set in 13 acres of Tarn meadows, with no TV or radio apparent, Le Manoir de Raynaudes gives you a delightful feeling of living in a world free of mayhem and complication. Owners Peter and his partner Orlando have updated the building with a great deal of love and affection. Everything has been done with respect for the original architecture and colours.
Each of the four rooms is named after a past female owner of the house. We stay in Mauricette: spectacularly huge with lots of natural light and furnished tastefully and simply, with cream walls, wood floors and classical French bed linen. The views from the open windows are of the distant Pyrenees, all wild green peaks. In the bathroom we find a large freestanding bathtub in the centre of the room. Plump white towels, an oversized mirror and cream-painted floorboards complete the French country feel.
Fresh and natural is the Raynaudes philosophy. Their food is obviously something that they take great pride in: Orlando, a food writer and superb chef, has promised us an eight-course feast on the Saturday evening. The produce is almost exclusively sourced from Le Manoir’s gardens and seemed to have been picked just hours before. Our incredible meal was finished off with the finest cheeses of the region, served with quince jam and just-picked figs. Delicious and all set to an aristocratic view and soundtrack of Handel.
This is a hotel that delivers exactly what it promises. It is rustic and organic, yet supremely comfortable. It transports you back to an age when life was lived much more slowly, sidestepping technological progress and instead offering simple pleasures: beautiful views, a comfortable bed, a warm welcome and divine food.
Reviewed by Hus Mozaffar
Details: Bedrooms have L’Occitane toiletries. Apartments have TV, DVD, CD players and fully equipped kitchens. Rates €95–€170, including breakfast.
King of the castle
Château de Bagnols, Burgundy
For more than a decade, I had dreamt of the Château de Bagnols. When I was editor of Elle Decoration, I saw incredible pictures that lodged in my imagination, images from childhood: Beauty and the Beast, Bluebeard’s Castle, The Princess and the Pea… Intensely beautiful, the pictures that struck me most were of its beds, which simply beggared belief – insane four-posters piled high with mattresses and hung with heavy red-brocade drapes or antique silks. However, it was a dream, and I never went.
Now, finally, invited to review the hotel with my husband, it was time to visit Bagnols. Would I be horribly disappointed? Were those pictures a stylised sham? As we arrived in the village of Bagnols, 12 miles from Lyons, and spied the extraordinary castle walls, the answer was, clearly, no. This is a really staggering building in a tiny village, its historic might absolutely apparent. Complete with moat, drawbridge and towers in the honey-coloured stone called pierre dorée.
The interior of the château does not disappoint. The rooms in both the original 13th-century castle and the ‘new’ (ie: 15th-century) block are beautiful. Our bed is as sublime as I had hoped, decorated with fragile antique textiles and made up with tactile Swiss bed linen. Next to the bed, the water tumblers are made of silver, giving us a visceral introduction to what it must have been to be a French aristocrat. The bathroom is grand, too, with an antique marble bath and local products including a really, really strong lavender bath foam. We also have a huge sitting room, filled with bleeding-heart-coloured sofas, and another tiny room covered with early frescoes. It blows your mind.
The kitchens are central to the building and, thanks to a clever sleight of design, you walk through them on your way to anywhere, past the teeming, steaming theatre of food preparation. The grounds are lovely, with dense borders of lavender and a formal garden where we took drinks before dinner.
The Château de Bagnols is certainly the most beautiful hotel I have ever stayed in. To have a heavenly time, order room service (after all, how often do you have your own four-poster?). The rooms are so exquisite it is mad not to stay in for the evening and do your own variation on ‘You be Louis and I’ll be Marie Antoinette.’ Just don’t lose your head…
Reviewed by Ilse Crawford
Details: There are 21 rooms, including eight junior suites, four suites and one apartment. Rates €465–€876 for the rooms; €2,395 for the apartment; from €15,300 a night for exclusive occupancy of the entire château. Breakfast, from €26.
Fit for a queen
Château de Massillan, Vaucluse
I was intrigued and inspired by the idea of staying in a château built for Diane de Poitiers, Henry II’s lifelong consort, a lady renowned for her beauty, intellect and sense of aesthetics. It’s fair to expect a small luxury hotel to be charming but nothing could have prepared us for the dramatic sight of the Château de Massillan’s starkly beautiful proportions.
The sounds and scents that waft through the night as we walk into our castle are so characteristic of the region – cicadas, lavender, warm wind – we’d know we’re in the South of France with our eyes shut. We are greeted by smiling staff who turn out to be exceptionally professional, polite, charming and helpful. Along with a luxurious quantity of public space – with stone floors, antique mirrors, chic chandeliers and a mixture of antiques – the hotel has only 12 rooms, which makes sure service is superlative.
It is no exaggeration to say that I have never come across a hotel offering such a dining experience as this. In these evocative surroundings, even the simplest plate of cheese or Serrano ham is unforgettable. Presentation is creative and the flavours light, delicate and fresh. Supper consists of six different courses and we are perfectly satisfied with the no-choice menu, which, in fact, made it even more enjoyable.
By night, the courtyard is lit with sunken lights and candles and decked with oleander and lavender. In the morning we take a walk around the herb garden: the air still has a fresh edge until midmorning, when the sun starts to mean business. We are walking in the formidable steps of Diane de Poitiers. Only a handful of families have owned the château since her day; the current owners bought it in 2001.
You can tell that Birgit Israel and Peter Wylly work in design: it takes professionals in love with their project to combine respect for historic features with modern cool. Massillan gets the balance between medieval and retro-chic just right, and the atmosphere is intimate, informal and genuinely warm. Whatever your reason for going to this place, just go.
Reviewed by Philip Treacy
Details Suites have large terraces that open on to the courtyard. Rates €170–€625. Parisian adventure
Extracts from Mr & Mrs Smith European Coast and Country and
Hôtel Bourg Tibourg, Marais, Paris
We arrive to find Paris full of life, the city is buzzing with va-va-voom. We wind through back streets among throngs of supporters, until we reach our boutique hotel on Rue du Bourg-Tibourg. It’s in the heart of the Marais district, historically the Jewish quarter; more recently, the gay community have breathed extra energy into it.
Parisian life unfurls before us like a scene from A Bout de Souffle, as a Citroën DS pulls up and deposits a Vanessa Paradis type. With a lingering smooch on her driver’s lips, she skips into the hotel lobby, the rear lights of the vintage Citroën winking at us as it pulls away. We have arrived in one of the world’s most romantic and beautiful cities, and Gallic cool washes over us.
As we enter Hôtel Bourg Tibourg, the lobby showcases designer Jacques Garcia’s signature style, with decorative details and rich velvets transporting us to the belle époque. This Parisian boutique hotel has 31 rooms, accessed either by a spiral staircase in a mind-boggling shade of turquoise, or by the cheekiest lift ever.
Gothic wallpaper details, dark-blue cupboards with mediaeval-style panelling, mustard trim, leather-covered side-tables – we decide our new surroundings are sexiest when illuminated by the deep-red tasselled boudoir lights. Our instant impression is that the bedroom is not much bigger than the bathroom but it’s wonderfully intimate – and that’s exactly what we want.
We wake the next morning with Sunday church bells tolling in the distance, our French windows open onto the balcony, and Paris starting slowly to come to life below. There is no pressure to take breakfast on the premises, but a decent spread can be had either in your bedroom or in the crypt-like basement. We descend the spiral stairs and find ourselves beneath a hidden-away vaulted ceiling that explains the design’s mediaevalist leanings. The style is wild, with hanging tapestries, brocade-trimmed leopard-print baroque chairs and cast-iron chandeliers.
We don’t have to stray far to find distractions both classic and unexpected: Bourg Tibourg, Pompidou, Place des Vosges, Picasso Museum, Berthillon… The hotel’s central location allows you to dip in and out: a nap, a little love in the afternoon and, half an hour later, we’re back among it all, checking out the artisan perfumers, hip independent boutiques, chocolatiers and galleries. Indeed, Hôtel Bourg Tibourg feels much less of a hotel in the traditional sense of the word, and more of a boutique pied-à-terre designed to let you grab your sunglasses and a packet of Gitanes and star in your own Parisian adventure.
Reviewed by Mr & Mrs Smith
Details: Rooms on the fifth floor have balconies overlooking the lovely
Bourg Tibourg Street. Rates €160–€350.