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An up-and-coming hotel group decides to make a move on a historic rural inn, expand the building, triple its number of rooms, install a spa and add a conference center. With a project like this, there’s a lot that can go amiss on the aesthetic side, but the Marseille-based Maranatha Group has pulled it off with panache.

The 4-star Moulin de Vernègues, whose foundations date to the 13th century, packs a whole Dan Brown mini-series into its stone walls. The Knights Templars slept here (a yet-undiscovered underground tunnel presumably leads to their fortress) and they may well have buried a secret treasure somewhere beneath the paving stones. PG-rated Good King René patronized the dining hall, but the family kept things kinky by marrying into the Marquis de Sade dynasty. Chartreuse monks brewed mysterious potions on the premises in the 17th century. Post-revolution, the building operated as a postal relay.

While the redecoration of the old house (which includes a private chapel) was not entirely finished when we visited in May, we liked everything we saw. The 13th-century fireplace and elaborately-painted ceiling beams mesh well with contemporary furniture in Provençal shades of almond, poppy, lilac and ochre.

The 34 rooms in this section of the hotel blend historically austere lines with fancy bathrooms and cable TV.

What’s more surprising is how well the modern extensions work. Architect Olivier Sabran has linked the old and new buildings with covered bridges and artfully harmonized the new construction materials with the old stonework. The spa (sauna, hammam, Jacuzzi plus massages and Occitan facial treatments) has been nestled into the former stables.

Those covered bridges add a labyrinth factor to navigating the hotel.  It’s easy to get lost betwixt the bedroom and the bar even before you have a drink. But if you do want a drink with dinner, the wine-list ranges from delightful Côteaux d’Aix en Provence from the Château de Calaron, 29€, to 1986 Cheval Blanc, 875€. The morning after, breakfast is large and lavish–don’t miss the house-made jams.

There’s more to Vernègues than tanning at the pool and hot-stone massages at the spa. Most visitors work off the calories at the adjoining Golf de Pont-Royal. (You can see the second hole from the dining room.) It’s a technical course designed by Seve Ballesteros. Bring your camera for the par 4 seventh hole, a dogleg with a spectacular view of the Alpilles and Lubéron hills.

A drawback for all this rural charm is that it’s about a 45-minute drive to Avignon, Arles or Aix-en-Provence, but that could also be seen as an advantage since it places visitors more or less equidistant from each of these towns as well as just 25 minutes from Cavaillon, home to a succulent melon.

Le Moulin de Vernègues, Route Domaine et Golf de Pont Royal, RN7, 13370 Mallemort, Bouches-du-Rhone. Tel. 04 90 59 12 00. Summer rates run 183-390€, slightly lower in other seasons plus other off-season packages.

© 2013, Corinne LaBalme

Corinne LaBalme, a Paris-based writer, journalist and editor, is currently developing a series of lifestyle documentaries for Muses Productions.

The post Resort Report: Medieval Meets Modern at Le Moulin de Vernègues in Provence appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Hotel du Palais
Imperial Resort and Spa
1 avenue de l’Impératrice, 64200 Biarritz.
Tel. 05 59 41 64 00. Website.

You don’t need a 5-star budget in order to enjoy the pleasures of the French Basque coast, but if you’ve got one then there is only one place to use it: Biarritz’s Hotel de Palais, the classically luxurious, exceptionally situated and overall outstanding seaside palace.

The history of this hotel has been inseparable from that of Biarritz ever since 1854, when Emperor Napoleon III, gave his nod to the construction on this site of a summer palace, Villa Eugénie, named for his wife.

It was she, Eugénie de Montijo, born into Spanish aristocracy but raised mostly in France, who was so fond of Biarritz, having first visited at age 9, in 1835. (While Eugenia was particularly fond of Biarritz, Napoleon III had a warm spot for Vichy [see article http://francerevisited.com/2009/07/vichy-not-that-vichy-this-vichy/], as did his mistresses.)

The imperial couple’s visit to Biarritz in the summer of 1854 got them hooked on the beauty and warmth of the Basque coast, and Villa Eugénie was ready to receive them on their visit the following year. For the next 16 years, with the exception of 1860 and 1869, they sojourned, bringing with them a train of aristocracy—French, first, then from throughout Europe. “La reine des plages et la plage des rois,” Biarritz was called: The queen of beaches (beach resorts) and the beach (beach resort) of kings.

The crowned heads barely took pause with the Franco-Prussian war and the fall of the emperor, as Biarritz remained one of France’s most notable resorts during the Belle Epoque. It was a period that saw Villa Eugénie transformed into a hotel and casino. Russia’s grand dukes came for the season; Queen Victoria saw fit to visit and then so did Edward VII and many more. Much of the hotel-casino burned down in 1903, after which it was largely rebuilt as the luxury hotel seen today. You’ll see the initials NE around the hotel referring to Napoleon Emperor or, if you prefer, to Napoleon and Eugenia.

The Hotel du Palais has the particularity among France’s top crop of hotels of belonging to the City of Biarritz and of nevertheless being well managed, apparently, by a semi-public (mixed economy) company. The rooms are of classic luxury with pretty little contemporary touches.

The hotel has a pool, a fine restaurant, bar, direct access to the beach and a spa. A fine place from which to enjoy a moody sunset.

The spa (Guerlain products) covers five floors and is brightly lit by natural sunlight. In addition to the pool and other amenities to which clients have free access, the spa offers soins that are “cocooning, personal and intimate” along with a Leonor Greyl hair institute.

Café de Paris
5 place Bellevue, 64200 Biarritz.
Tel. 05 59 24 19 53. Café de Paris is part of the HMC group of hotels and resorts. Website.

This sweet and sober 4-star boutique hotel with an easy-going décor of gray, white and splashes of color is ideally situated at the crux of the Grande Plage, with a remarkable view from all 19 rooms of the length of the beach and out to the lighthouse. A short walk in other directions leads to covered food market, the old ports and the promenade over the rocks. The hotel itself has a worthwhile restaurant.

Hotel Windsor
Grande Plage, 64200 Biarritz.
Tel. 05 59 24 08 52. Website.

The Hotel Windsor, owned and operated by the Heguy family since 1948, is also a 4-star. It’s a notch less notable than the Café de Paris but also a notch less expensive. Half of its 48 rooms overlook the crowds of the beach (la Grande Plage). The rooms are simply decorated—bright white walls and furnishing, striped bed covers, dark wood floors; pleasant if not exuberant. There are some nice rooms on the courtyard and others on the side with a sliver of a beach or ocean view, but of course the full frontal view is preferable. There are a few reasonably priced family rooms for those traveling with young children.

Edouard VII
21 avenue Carnot, 64200 Biarritz. Tel. 05 59 22 39 80. Website.

With 18 rooms housed in a 19th-century mansion, this family-operated 3-star hotel feels like a large B&B: cozy, a touch of charm, a nice place from which to feel at home in the city and to chat up other guests. The Edouard VII isn’t as close to the beach as the others mentioned here, but it’s only a short walk (about 350 yards) to the Plage de la Côte des Basques, Biarritz’s longer and less citified beach. Another way of looking at it is that when staying here you can reach either beach on a short walk, and the covered food market, which is the center of local life in the morning, is just 200 yards away.

Room size increases slightly from one category to the next though the more noticeable difference is the increase in bed width—140 cm/55 in., 160 cm/63 in., 180 cm/71 in. There’s a fourth category: a family room suitable if traveling with small children. In the warmer seasons breakfast can be served on the terrace.

Mercure Plaza
10 avenue Edouard VII, 64200 Biarritz. Tel. 0559247400. Website.

A handsome, 69-room, 3-star chain hotel with an admirable Art Deco heart, the Mercure Plaza is well set just a block off the beach, across the street from the casino and a fine place from which to set out on a promenade in any direction.

When to visit: A visitor naturally wants warm weather and warm (at least not cold) water when visiting Biarritz, and that naturally means visiting from mid-spring to mid-autumn. Nevertheless, Biarritz is a worthwhile off-season destination, when you may well luck upon some warmish sunny days between October and March. Furthermore, as with all seaside resorts, off-season pricing can be up to half that of the high season.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

For more on Biarritz on France Revisited read: Biarritz Ocean: The Brand Between Bilbao and Bordeaux and Biarritz: The Surfing Lesson.

Official site of the Biarritz Tourist Office: http://tourisme.biarritz.fr/en

Getting to Biarritz: There are direct flights to Biarritz from Paris and other French cities as well as from various northern European capitals (London, Dublin, Copenhagen, Brussels, Rotterdam, Stockholm). By train, Biarritz is 5:20 from Paris and 2:00 from Bordeaux.

The post Biarritz Hotels: Hotel du Palais, Café de Paris, Windsor, Edouard VII, Mercure Plaza appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.