Provence, France

La Divine Comédie

Price per night from$467.18

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR431.82), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Antiques roadshow

Setting

Provençal paradise

Petite Provençal hideaway La Divine Comédie is an antique-filled luxury guesthouse steps from the Palais des Papes. There are just five bedrooms, each with an exotic flavour, whether it’s the wanderings of Uncle Anatole back from sailing the seven seas or tributes to Tutankhamun. The 17th-century villa lays claim to an impressive array of oil paintings, the grandest private garden in all of Avignon and an enviable assortment of antiques.

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Facilities

Photos La Divine Comédie facilities

Need to know

Rooms

Five suites.

Check–Out

11am. Earliest check-in, 3pm. Contact the property to arrange a check-in after 9pm.

Prices

Double rooms from £407.02 (€475), including tax at 10 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €2.53 per person per night on check-out.

More details

Rates usually include breakfast.

Also

Art historians, listen up: the property has more than 200 paintings from the 17th to 19th centuries.

At the hotel

Free WiFi throughout, car park. In rooms: TV, free bottled water, tea-making kit, Nespresso coffee machine, air-conditioning, heating and Codage bath products.

Our favourite rooms

Each of the five rooms combines modern comfort with vintage decadence, relishing the work of time like a precious antique. Every room has its own character, whether it’s the stylish spirit of La Serenissima in the Venice Suite or the legacy of Tutankhamun that inspired the Consul Suite. We especially loved the garden-facing Anatole Suite, the mascot of which is a globe-trotting Grand Tour sort who helpfully gathered the various trinkets and treasures on display (model boats, orientalist paintings, mirrors, screens and a canopy).

Poolside

There’s a heated pool and Jacuzzi in the garden.

Spa

The Foly in the garden has a hammam, sauna and one treatment room for specialist massages (upright, Korean, Californian) and rituals using French favourite spa brand Codage. Pilates, yoga and fitness classes can be arranged.

Packing tips

Bring your Pocket Shakespeare if you’ve timed your visit during Avignon’s annual theatre festival (July), or horticultural handbooks for identifying the blooms in the city’s biggest private garden.

Also

The guesthouse is not easily accessible for wheelchair users, as an old building, there is no lift and access to all suites are via stairs.

Children

All ages are welcome, but there’s no lift in the main house, so prams and pushchairs will have to be carried up the stairs.

Food and Drink

Photos La Divine Comédie food and drink

Top Table

Breakfast while smelling the roses on the terrace.

Dress Code

Deck yourselves in papal purple and cardinal red.

Hotel restaurant

There’s no bar or restaurant on-site but guests can still enjoy a drink or two in the living rooms and garden spaces. Breakfast is served either in one of the villa’s salons or out on the terrace; expect Camargue classics and delicious viennoiserie, plus charcuterie and cheese selections for an additional charge.  

Last orders

Breakfast is served from 8.30am until 10.30am.

Location

Photos La Divine Comédie location
Address
La Divine Comédie
16 Impasse Jean Pierre Gras
Avignon
84000
France

La Divine Comédie enjoys a perfect Provençal perch, close to Avignon’s Palais des Papes.

Planes

Marseille’s international airport is the best served; the drive should take an hour and transfers cost €180 each way. There’s a smaller airport in Avignon that’s a 20-minute drive away by car; transfers are €30.

Trains

Avignon has a TGV station, meaning it’s speedily linked to other French cities – including Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Nice and Lille – as well as London, courtesy of the Eurostar, which heads further south on direct services in summer, with connections in Paris or Lille at other times of the year (www.eurostar.com). Transfers to this station are €30 each way.

Automobiles

The car park of the house is behind a black gate on the next street, so bags can be dropped off first; parking costs €20 a night. You’re within Avignon’s city walls, so most places are reachable on foot, but if you want to cruise by lavender fields and vineyards, a set of wheels will be handy.

Worth getting out of bed for

Once you’ve smelled the roses in the largest private garden in Avignon, been pampered in the spa cabin and laboured over a languorous French breakfast, it’s time to explore this mediaeval walled city and erstwhile papal centre. Stockpile cheese and tapenade at the Les Halles covered market on the aptly named Place Pie, or continue the appreciative garden gazing at the Jardin des Doms, which has elevated views of the rolling Rhône plains and Mont Ventoux. See what’s left of the Pont Saint-Bénézet, a 12th-century bridge and star of a certain schoolboy-French song. No visit to Avignon is complete without a tour of the Palais des Papes, a Gothic palace that was the seat of Christianity in the 14th century.

Local restaurants

For fine dining in a fabulous former cardinal’s home (tapestries, oak floors, silk curtains: check), don’t miss dinner at La Mirande on Place de l’Amirande. For laissez-fare bistro vibes and arguably the best terrace in Avignon, head to The Grand Café Baratta, a favourite of Napoleon Bonaparte back in 1784 when it first opened its doors. 

Reviews

Photos La Divine Comédie reviews

Anonymous review

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this boutique hotel in France and unpacked their flea-market finds, a full account of their city break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside La Divine Comédie in Avignon

Q: Who needs a holiday home when you can borrow one this chic? A: No one. This peaceful Provençal retreat is the only home from home you’ll ever need, thanks to a winning mix of art-lined walls, antique-filled rooms and the biggest private garden in Avignon. The mash of bright colours, heritage pieces and plants may seem a bit of a mad mix, but it works, thanks to the deft touch of the impossibly stylish owners and their magpie vision. The sweeping staircase in the entrance hall was hewn from local rock, and it's just about the star of the lobby show (with stiff competition from royal blue walls, flagstone floors and crystal chandeliers). Stays here are an intimate, informal delight (with plenty of chances to meet the art-loving owners and jot down decorating tips); refined breakfasts are served either in a salon or out on the terrace, and Avignon awaits for your other meals. All in all, it’s our kind of holiday.

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Price per night from $467.18