Les Bords de Mer

If Hercule Poirot ever had a proper holiday in the south of France, rather than just gadding around on the Blue Train solving murders, he’d almost certainly stay at Les Bords de Mer in Marseille. I’m not saying it’s the kind of place where you’re likely to find a duchess strangled by her own diamonds, but the Art Deco aesthetics do cry out for a bit of drama.

Though the building has been a fixture of the Corniche since the Thirties, the clean white lines, silhouetted on our arrival against an obscenely blue Mediterranean sky, are new, part of a recent makeover that’s seen it transformed from grubby peach two-star to a glamorous harbinger of gentrification on a stretch of the coast that has long lacked love.

Certainly when we check in, having struck lucky with a free parking space a few roads away (the hotel, wedged between the sea and the main seafront road, has no garage) and dragging a fleecy dog bed and a sack of kibble behind us, it becomes apparent we are the least cool people in residence by some margin. ‘Do you have to be young and blonde to work here?’ my partner whispers as the lovely receptionist shows us up to our room. I don’t know, I say, but if so, the dog could earn us some holiday spending money…if he’d only stop barking at the waves from our small, but perfectly formed balcony.

In fact, almost everything about this place has been well thought out; all of the 19 rooms have a glorious sea view, taking in the Plage de Catalans on one side and the famous island fort of the Chateau d’If, immortalised in the Count of Monte Cristo, on the other. Given the narrow footprint, this means they’re pretty compact – definitely more of a hand-luggage type of place, we decide, but really, what more do you need in Marseille than a swimming costume, some espadrilles and a well chewed Angry Bird toy?

After a leisurely stroll to the Vieux Port to enjoy a sundowner (pastis for us, water from an old ice cream tub for him) we return our four-legged friend to the marble floor of the unexpectedly roomy bathroom, which he apparently prefers to the bed we’ve driven 800 miles with, and go down for dinner with the happy abandon of two people who have no need of babysitters. Because it’s a Wednesday in October, and the hotel is on the coast road, rather than in the throbbing heart of France’s second city, I’d assumed the restaurant would be as tranquil as the whitewashed decor, but in fact, it’s almost full – those magnificent sea views, and a menu designed by Parisian power sisters Tatiana and Katia Levha mean it’s clearly a draw for locals too.

Indeed, the vibe is firmly, and joyfully as far as I’m concerned, metropolitan hipster, from the natural wine – the charming waiter recommends an excellent limpid garnet rose from the Luberon – to the excellent, and plentiful sourdough and friendly but low-key service. Even the seafood-heavy menu – Camargue oysters, bream, squid mullet, pollock, Mediterranean tuna – boasts unusually generous amounts of vegetable matter for a French hotel, often with a Middle Eastern accent: hummus and sesame with the tuna; pickled plums, Lebanese cucumber and coriander oil with the bream.

To be honest, having sampled almost all of it, come breakfast time neither of us feel very hungry, but faced with a simple buffet of fresh fruit, yoghurt, pastries, cookies, bread, cheese, ham, juices and even an olive and basil quiche, I rise manfully to the challenge, and then slightly regret it. ‘We need to take the dog for a walk,’ I say. ‘Preferably up the steepest hill we can find.’ Helpfully the magnificent church of Notre-Dame de la Garde towers above us, offering both a stiff climb and fantastic views of the city – and the Mediterranean looks so lovely from up there that we decide to grab our bikes from the car on the way down and cycle along the coast to the Calanques national park for a quick dip and, of course, an ice cream.

It turns out to be a three-swim kind of a day: when we get back, we head for the fabulous rooftop pool, where we float lazily in the sinking sun, arguing about which of us should go and try and order some drinks without actually doing anything about it, then, for the sake of completeness, go for a quick dip in the basement spa. Newly blasted out of the bedrock, the vibe down here is more Bond villain than Agatha Christie baddie – I half expect to bump into Jaws in the sauna.

We get those drinks, finally, in the rooftop bar on the second floor, before heading into town for a vast portion of the best couscous I’ve ever eaten at local institution La Femina, chased down by some violently coloured cocktails in a bar that rings to the dulcet tones of a local rugby team celebrating victory with some gusto. Poirot, I think as we meander our way back to the quiet glamour of the Bords de Mer, would definitely not approve. We, however, have had a great time.