Provence, France

Maison Salix

Price per night from$302.35

Price information

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

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR261.90), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Maison Salix Photos

Style

Textures of the avant-garde

Setting

Tiny Provençal village

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Like a surrealist short film, texture and light are the focus at Maison Salix, a 600-year-old, six-room mansion in out-of-the-way Vallabrègues, near Arles. Raw materials abound here: rattan rugs, soft linen and oak beams harmonise with geometric furniture and winding pathways. But first and foremost, this is a holiday home, where meals are eaten anywhere, you can come and go as you please (by the courtyard pool, say, or the private gym), and the owners treat you like old friends.

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Facilities

Photos Maison Salix facilities

Need to know

Rooms

Six, including four suites.

Check–Out

Noon; check-in is at 3pm. Both are flexible, on request and subject to availability.

More details

Rates usually include breakfast.

Please note

Meals are served on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays only. You can request meals on other days, but please give staff 24 hours’ notice.

At the hotel

Library, courtyard garden, gym, outdoor pool and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: smart TV, air-conditioning, Nespresso coffee machine, tea-making kit, minibar, mini fridge, free bottled water, bathrobes, slippers and Papoutsanis bath products.

Our favourite rooms

The Signature and Heritage suites are centred around high-ceilinged living rooms, each attached to two separate bedrooms. The Loft has its own vibe entirely, with exposed beams and boldly curated furniture offset at strange angles. On the top floor is the Penthouse, which comes with its own living room, dressing area, separate bedroom and private roof terrace.

Poolside

The outdoor pool is unheated but open year-round from 9am to 10pm. It’s child-friendly and comes into its own from May through to early October.

Packing tips

Angular shades, sharp red lipstick and a patterned head wrap to fit in with the hotel’s avant-garde aesthetic.

Also

In a former stable building opposite the mansion, you'll find a private hi-tech gym which underlines the hotel’s onus on healthy living and comes kitted out with spaces for cross-training, yoga and cardio.

Pet‐friendly

Dogs are welcome in all rooms, and cost €30 per night. Just let the hotel know you’re bringing one in advance of your stay. See more pet-friendly hotels in Provence.

Children

Children of all ages are welcome at Maison Salix but no special provision is made for them, although the flexibility of the kitchen is a bonus for parents of fussy toddlers.

Sustainability efforts

The garden’s drip irrigation system and efficient showerheads make water preservation a priority; and all bath products are made from 100 per cent recycled materials.

Food and Drink

Photos Maison Salix food and drink

Top Table

The joy in is the many places available: at the table d'hôte, on one of the sunny or shaded terraces, by the pool or fireplace, in your suite or outside — it’s for you to explore.

Dress Code

Whatever you would wear at home.

Hotel restaurant

‘À Table’ serves dinners every other evening and offers lunches on request. A regularly updated menu is provided and it’s clear there’s a commitment to healthy, seasonal cuisine with carefully crafted and entirely homemade recipes that follow a flexitarian and balanced approach. Ingredients are sourced locally where possible, such as from the butcher in Vallabrègues. Picnic baskets can also be prepared and meals can be taken anywhere — from your sunlounger by the pool, to the library to your bedroom. A daily breakfast buffet is served in the kitchen. 

Hotel bar

We love Maison Salix’s cellar, which looks like a room of boxes you’d find in any oenophile's home. Drinks are served in the mansion’s retro-chic lounges, and the bar becomes self-serve in the evening for relaxed, anytime access.

Location

Photos Maison Salix location
Address
Maison Salix
26 Rue des Marchands
Vallabrègues
30300
France

Maison Salix is in the mediaeval village of Vallabrègues in Provence, not far from Avignon, Nîmes and Arles.

Planes

Most international flights arrive at Marseille Provence Airport, which is one hour and 15 minutes from the hotel by car. There’s a regional airport, Nîmes Grande Provence Méditerranée, which is only a 45-minute drive away. Staff can arrange transfers on request.

Trains

Nîmes railway station is about an hour away and Avignon TGV station is closer to an hour and 15 minutes away by car. Both are well connected to major cities, including Paris, by high-speed services.

Automobiles

If you’re arriving by car, enter ‘19 boulevard Émile Jamais’ in your GPS. Follow Rue de la Loge before turning right onto Rue des Marchands. Free public parking is available just a minute’s walk from the hotel.

Worth getting out of bed for

In the tiny village of Vallabrègues, you’re well away from the tourist trail, and staying at Maison Salix will help you feel like a local. The village used to be the basket-making centre of France. Now, there are only one or two active artisans, but the craft is alive, and a basketry festival held every August brings craftspeople from far and wide. Just outside Vallabrègues is the Carmargue Nature Park, home to horses, flamingos and photogenic salt flats that are especially cinematic at golden hour. 

To the south, about 30 minutes by car, is the city of Arles, where we advise drifting into the backstreets around Hauture for its food and wine scene. The city is also home to the small but expertly curated Fondation Vincent Van Gogh gallery. To the east, beyond Avignon, is L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, ideal for browsing the sheds of some serious antique dealers, dotted among its water channels and quiet courtyards. 

Local restaurants

A 15-minute drive away in Barbentane, a mediaeval village to the south of Avignon, is the off-the-beaten-path, Michelin-starred Restaurant Ineffable, with a focus on freshness and colour. In the Carmargue just outside Arles is La Chassagnette, a thoughtful farm-to-table restaurant where chef Armand Arnal conjures a masterful six-course tasting menu inspired by his vegetable garden. 

Local cafés

In a 13th-century chapel in central Arles, Inari is a French-Vietnamese fusion spot with streetside tables for inventive light lunches.

Reviews

Photos Maison Salix reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

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 self-proclaimed ‘slow resort’ in Vallabrègues and unpacked their miniature wicker basket and bottle of Côtes du Rhône, a full account of their stylish break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Maison Salix in Provence… 

It’s a tricky balancing act: fill your small boutique hotel with à la mode furnishings and risk it coming across as cold. Go the other way — make it too homely — and deliver a cookie-cutter B&B that fails to entice. Thankfully, it’s one that six-bedroom Maison Salix have perfected. 

There are cosy nooks everywhere: in the lobby (home of the all-important honesty bar) and the library (near the not-in-any-way-for-show wine cellar). Then there are the manicured gardens – all wavy walkways and hidden seating areas – leading to the outdoor pool. But best of all are the suites on the upper floors, worthy of a hotel review each, where ingenious desks and coffee tables are set at odd angles against lofty oak beams and private terraces.

There’s a playful avant-garde sensibility here that calls to mind the experimental short films of Maya Deren, but the only thing your mind will be boggled by is how instantly you’ll feel at ease.

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Price per night from $297.27

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