Several miles short of Auberge La Fenière, my destination on day one of a solitary cycling tour of the Luberon region of Provence, I mistimed braking for a village speed bump and landed on the tarmac, tangled in my bike. The car coming up behind me was far enough back to stop well before reaching me. A car coming in the opposite direction slowed down and stopped alongside. The driver rolled down her window and asked if she should call for help. I stood up, pulled my bike to the side of the road, picked up my saddlebags, and told the driver that I was alright. I twisted the front wheel back straight, uncoiled and reset the brake lines, bent the mud guard back into position, and set off wobbly on the final miles to La Fenière, thinking all the way, “Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap.”

I wasn’t alright. I was battered, bleeding and my ribs hurt. Already I was late arriving at La Fenière, a property (hotel, restaurants, vegetable garden, pool) that owner-chef Nadia Sammut calls a “lieu de vie” or living space. Earlier in the afternoon, I’d lost my way—allowed myself to lose my way—on the slopes of the Luberon Massif and dawdled along its vantage points. I’d planned to arrive at least an hour earlier so as to check in, shower, speak with Nadia, then rest up before dinner. “We’ve been expecting you,” said the receptionist, and seeing my bloody forearm, “Oh my, what happened?” “A little accident.” “Do you want me to call someone? Do you want to go to the hospital?” “No, but if you have some bandages that would help.” She gave me an emergency kit with bandages and antiseptic.

Up in my room—a bright, peaceable space with a long view of the back of the property and the nearby hillside—I looked at myself in the mirror. I was banged up alright. My ribs and thigh and wrist were sore. I had three more days of biking ahead of me. Should I call it quits now? I cleaned and bandaged myself. The bleeding—rough scrapes but no gashes—would soon stop. How badly was I injured? I couldn’t tell. But I shivered at the thought of how lucky I was, aware that my fall could have been worse, much worse. (Yes, I was wearing a helmet.) I had a reservation for the second seating at the restaurant, so I napped for an hour then went downstairs.

As I reached the lobby, I saw Nadia passing through the patio dining area and the kitchen. I introduced myself and apologized for arriving too late to speak with her earlier. In the rush of dinner I had a first glimpse of her generosity of spirit. “I hear you had an accident,” she said, “Are you alright?” I assured her that I was. She said, “We’ll take care of you,” she said, “and we have all morning tomorrow to talk, if you’d like.”

Ernest Hung Do, the sommelier and maître d’, came over to my table to say hello. I told him that I’d just had a “little biking accident” and could use something strong, say, whiskey, to start. He went inside and returned with a bottle of perfumed gin. He explained how and where it was made. But rather than pour a glass, he told me that he didn’t recommend that I have it. Nadia’s meal is constructed to evolve from dish to dish, he explained, and strong alcohol would affect its proper unfolding.

“What do you recommend instead?” I asked.

“Why not just let the meal express itself and I’ll bring some wine?” he said.

“Fine,” I said, “I’d rather not make choices tonight anyway. I’ll follow your lead, and Nadia’s.”

Two dozen peas and a verbena leaf

Nadia Sammut is a culinary explorer. The 12 or so dishes of the 160€ “expérience” tasting menu proceed through a fluid evolution of ingredients and textures that awaken the senses, from the intentionally bland opening to the iodized middle to the smooth finish. (There’s also a 120€ “découverte” tasting menu, but no à la carte menu.)  Nadia’s quest isn’t so much to astonish, I think, but to create harmony. Ernest’s, too, for that matter; the meal was accompanied by Ernest’s coherent yet unobtrusive wine pairing.

“Precise” is how I thought of the slow parade of small dishes that evening, while “consciousness” is a term that Nadia Sammut applies to her culinary approach. The two terms meet in what appeared to be the simplest of dishes: two dozen peas and a verbena leaf the size of a daisy petal. Deceptively simple, though the full description of the dish is more complex: petit pois, crème de placenta de fève, verveine, bourrache, cardamone noire râpée, huile du domaine de Jasson. Still, I can only think of the dish as two dozen peas and a verbena leaf, and for me it lit up the patio. It was my satori moment.

Yes, it’s a dish that can easily be ridiculed: She charges how much for two dozen peas and a tiny leaf? But there you have it, the appetizer through which I realized that such culinary moments are a way of bringing one into oneself: one’s taste buds, one’s environment, one’s sense of self and of a shared meal, both with one’s table companion(s), if any, and with diners at other tables with whom you might never exchange a word. I hadn’t forgotten the physical nature of my fall several hours earlier, but I was no longer restrained by the trauma of it or by my awareness that the following day or two would reveal the full extent of my injuries. Two dozen peas and a verbena leaf allowed me to settle into the—do I dare use the word?—enlightenment of the meal, the surroundings, the evening and my travels into the Luberon. What a beautiful biking day it had been, landing me here!

No, I wasn’t cured from my fall. But I was, for the moment, soothed of it and conscious above all that it could have been much worse. (Five days later I would consult my doctor in Paris. As impressed as he was that I’d continued biking for three days after the fall, he told me that he would have recommended against it. He sent me for x-rays of my left wrist and right ribs. Turns out that I had broken a bone in my wrist, though it was the ribs, apparently without fracture, that hurt more.) But for now, I was pleased with my good fortune of feeling well enough to experience dinner at La Fenière and digesting my trauma while enjoying a precise and natural gastronomy, Nadia Sammut’s gastronomy of nature.

There are greater traumas, of course, not all of which can be soothed by kind service, a good meal and a peaceable setting. Still, all traumas need to be digested, don’t they? Linguistic aristocrats and associated snobs in France will tell you that it’s gauche to wish fellow diners a “bon appétit” before a meal; “appétit,” they’ll say with condescension, refers to the unpleasantries of digestion, which isn’t something one should mention at a polite table. But digesting one’s worries and traumas and anxieties is clearly commendable and worth wishing on one another, like raising a glass to each other’s good health. Furthermore, Nada, having dealt with celiac disease, naturally and implicitly wishes a healthy, nourishing digestion for all of her guests. Bon appétit for sure.

Gluten-free and rooted in Provence

Nadia’s “cuisine libre” (free cooking) approach, as she calls it, is neither a refusal of nor in opposition to the cuisine(s) of Provence. She remains deeply rooted in the region. Her family has lived in the Luberon for several generations. In 1972, her grandmother opened a little bistro in an old hayloft, called une fenière in Provence, in the village of Lourmarin. She then worked with her son, Nadia’s father. And when he married, his wife, Reine, learned how to cook alongside her mother-in-law. Reine Sammut eventually took over the restaurant and, in 1995, became one of the rare women in France at the time to receive a Michelin star for her cuisine. Well-known throughout Provence and beyond, Reine prepared rather traditional gastronomy. In 1996, Nadia’s parents then bought the property that is La Fenière’s current location in the countryside between Lourmarin and Cadenet. Though no longer installed in a hayloft, they brought the name with them.

At around the age of 30, between 2009 and 2011, Nadia was often quite ill from celiac disease. She says that she was basically bedridden for two years. As she explained during our lengthy conversation the morning after my dinner experience, “I said to myself, ‘This can’t be! With my culinary heritage I have to learn an inclusive approach to food that’s respectful of the environment and respect of individuals while being gastronomic and delicious.’”

She began working with her mother in 2015, soon taking the reins of Reine’s kitchen. In 2017, Nadia herself was awarded the Michelin star for La Fenière. Reine stayed with her in the gastronomic restaurant for another year, at which point, as Nadia tells it, her mother said, “You’ve got do it alone now because you have your vision, your intentions, your recipes, and it’s important that you continue to convey them.”

Though celiac disease is a significant part of Nadia’s personal story and of the development of the culinary explorations that have given her much recognition, she would rather not have her cuisine labeled solely as gluten-free. People come for the experience, she says, not for their celiac problems. Of course, there’s often a table or two where someone will speak with her about their digestive issues because they know of her personal experience. She doesn’t mind. She’s had clients who arrive in culinary distress, worried about every little thing they might eat, and she aims to calm them down. “By the second dish,” she says, “they’ve relaxed and are simply happy to be having a good meal, and that sense of happiness extends to the rest.”

Had I not known in advance that the meal would be gluten-free I doubt that I would have noticed. Presented with the chestnut bread, I thought, hmm, chestnut bread—and it was delicious—and then chick-pea bread—that too—without wondering about the absence of gluten. (Nadia operates a mill for the various flours that she then uses in her breads and other flour-based products that are served in the restaurant and available in specialty stores.) Just as one doesn’t think when eating a good piece of fish that it doesn’t taste like beef, one simply enjoys the dish. (Omnivores, by the way, drawn in by the evolution of the meal and the discovery of each small dish, might not even notice that that none of the dishes contains meat.)

“I have no obligations in my cooking,” says Nadia. “First, I don’t cook traditionally because I can’t, so for me there’s an enormous field of permanent research on plants, on living things, on the way to present naturalness and simplicity.”

Asked about her relationship with traditional Provençale cuisine, Nadia claims a clear and present affinity with it, including the techniques that she learned in part from her mother. “Provence,” she says, “has developed its culinary techniques in relation to the products that were available to work with. Provençale cuisine is also that of economy. People paid attention to what went into their cuisine; they didn’t throw anything away. Provençale cuisine is very plant-based. It’s a distinct yet varied cuisine comprised of different smaller regions. People don’t eat the same way in Marseille or in the Camargue or here in the Luberon. Its diversity is quite beautiful and should be brought to light. Its recipes, its beautiful recipes, haven’t been extinguished, and they need to be created and recreated, transmitted from generation to generation. The heart is transmitted with them, that’s a beautiful part of the energy of life.”

Regenerative and holistic

I’d arrived on opening night, so to speak, June 9, 2021, the first evening that La Fenière was welcoming diners since its 2020 Covid closing and months of evening curfew. Dining out without watching the clock was new to all of us, a time of renewal, particularly for those who, like me, prefer a late or second seating in a restaurant.

Nadia uses the term régénérateur—regenerative, something that makes you feel replenished—in speaking of the environment that she set out to create at La Fenière. That environment extends beyond the gastronomic restaurant to include the bistro on the property, the lodging, the landscape, the service, the swimming pool, the kitchen garden, the occasional activities and workshops, and the overall atmosphere. She speaks of the importance of being “conscious” of oneself and one’s environment.

“What’s essential in my life and what I think I’m able to offer others is that sense of self-awareness. To do so requires being connected to both matter and nature. And I believe that the best way to let go is to feel good, to have a sense of trust in a place, to be conscious of where one is. All that is regenerative… I like that people feel good and, beyond feeling good, that there’s a kind of interaction with themselves.”

Nadia is generous enough with her time and spirit to interact with clients if they wish, even during the meal. As she put the finishing touches on dishes in a corner of the dining patio the evening of my visit, diners would occasionally get up to see what she was doing, to ask her questions, and Nadia willingly engaged with them. She came by each table twice to deliver and explain a dish.

My most frequent interaction that evening, however, was with Ernest Hung Do, the sommelier and maître d’, a gentle, knowing, kind presence throughout the meal. Ernest came to France from Vietnam as an infant, his family having fled the country in waves of refugees known as “boat people.” As a young man, he became particularly interested in fish and became a sushi master with his own restaurant. He was named best sushi master in France one year. In 2013, he sold his restaurant since he’d become increasingly interested in all things vegetal, a move from the sea to the earth. He met Nadia’s sister, a food journalist, in Marseille, and her sister said, “You and Nadia speak the same way about food, you should meet.” That was seven years ago. They have been together ever since, as companions and as business partners. “We truly work in synergy together,” says Nadia. I asked Ernest, given his background as a chef, why didn’t he want to work alongside Nadia in the kitchen? “Because I wanted to leave her with her vision in the kitchen while presenting her cuisine and wine to clients.” He does an excellent job of it. (He credits Nadia’s father as one of his mentors in learning about wine.)

“What I do, I believe, is goes beyond the dish,” says Nadia. “I like to lead people to ask themselves questions. When you start out with something that’s bland, you ask yourself ‘Why bland?’ But what’s bland is essential for digestion, it’s essential in silence, in calm. And then something rises up, for example on the shrimp. What especially interests me is that people feel and have sensations. Of course, the dish is a part of an overall experience, and it’s essential that everything about that dish be precise. Then once you have that precision you can talk about everything else. That’s where a meal goes beyond the dishes themselves.”

Each dish grabs attention for its finesse and balance. Following the aforementioned shrimp—it was a raw Mediterranean shrimp with a squid ink emulsion, with a squid ink “chip” that nearly struck me as enlightening as the verbena leaf—the fluidity and complex harmony of a cream of bitter lettuce with an oyster in a sourdough tempura was my favorite dish. After that, the rouille in a dish called “memory of a bouillabaisse” was a discovery in and of itself.

Here’s how Nadia describes her inspiration for the penultimate dish, chickpea ice cream served with a shot of rum: “When I opened that rum a few weeks ago—it’s a friend of mine who makes it, Guillaume Ferroni, in Aubagne [near Marseille], aged in casks sometimes from Rasteau and in this case from Beaumes de Venise—when I opened that rum I said to myself, “Ah, that’s it, that’s what I want to feel,” because even though I don’t drink alcohol, just smelling it made me feel something. I don’t want sugar in my cuisine because sugar releases dopamine, which is quite different than serotonin. I want to work with serotonin, what’s called the hormone of happiness, not the hormone of pleasure. Happiness is more intense; it’s a lot more timeless. It’s something that awakens the interior of our body, not just to make us say ‘Wow’ but to make us conscious, which is much greater.”

“Wow,” is what I also said to myself when I tried the chickpea ice cream and rum. A warm honey-and-chestnut madeleine then served as an endnote to the meal.

La Fenière, a living space

Nadia’s gastronomic restaurant is the centerpiece La Fenière but there are other aspects to the property as well. Above the restaurant, in the main building on the property, there are 12 bedrooms, created in 2017. Nadia plans to develop 30 more lodgings on the opposite end of the property in the form of ecolodges. There’s also a second restaurant on the property, a Mediterranean bistro called La Cour du Ferme. There’s a swimming pool. There are hiking paths. Small-group activities are sometimes organized, such as cooking workshop taught by Nadia on Saturday mornings. Yet I wouldn’t call La Fenière a resort. It’s homier than that. There’s no grand décor, no ostentation. More boutiquish, more palatial, more photogenic accommodations are found elsewhere in the Luberon. What then to call this place?

Nadia calls La Fenière a “lieu de vie” or living space, a place of “positive living, of regeneration and of inspiration,” where guests are invited to “participate in the world in which they wish to live.” That may sound too psychic or new-age for some travelers looking to explore the landscapes and villages of the Luberon, though having stated her goal, Nadia doesn’t demand or expect obedience. She would just like visitors to slow down and be conscious of their surroundings. Thus, the hotel has a two-night minimum.

To me, La Fenière is a cultured, unglamorous countryside estate with an earthy restaurant—an earthy restaurant with an exquisite, inventive, sophisticated, earth-and-seaworthy 160€ tasting menu, but an earthy restaurant nonetheless.

An olive tree stands at the center of the patio around which, weather permitting, the tables are set. A concert of frogs played nearby as I sat at one of them that evening. As their song softened, I became aware of the sound of a bees buzzing in the yard and of Ernest’s soft steps over the paving stones. Was it a form of shock from my fall or a form of denial that I may have fractured my ribs or broken my wrist? Whatever it was, that evening at La Fenière I was one happy, regenerated, conscious traveler.

La Fenière, D943, 84160 Cadenet 84160. Tel. +33 (0)4 90 68 11 79. A 2-night minimum is required at the hotel. The gastronomic restaurant is open only when Nadia is present. The bistro remains open even when she is not. Those staying at the hotel on a Friday evening should ask in advance if Nadia will be giving a cooking class on Saturday morning. Cooking classes are also open to those not staying at the hotel.

Near La Fenière in the southern Luberon: The château and village of Lourmarin; a shaded seat in a café or restaurant by the water basin at Cucuron; olive oil tasting at Bastide du Laval; Mérindol and the history of Waldensian (les Vaudois); the 12th-century Cisterian Silvacane Abbey at La Roque d’Anthéron; the garden conservatory for plants used for dying and coloring in Lauris. Tourist information about the village and the entire Luberon region of Provence can be obtained at the Lourmarin tourist office, Place Henri Barthélémy. The Luberon is in the Vaucluse department or sub-region of Provence. For more articles about Vaucluse see here.

A Video Culinary Conversation with Nadia Sammut

Nadia Sammut was one of my guests at a France Revisited Culinary Conversation with three chefs of the Vaucluse area of Provence, along with Jon Chiri and Hugues Marrec, on June 29, 2021. Nadia appears in the introductory portion of Part 1 and then again for nearly all of Part 2. I invite you to watch at least the first 10 minutes of Part 1 in order to situate Nadia in the region and among the three chefs that I selected for this culinary conversation before proceeding to Part 2, here:

© 2021, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Cuisine in Provence: Nadia Sammut at La Fenière, After the Fall appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

Don’t you get tired of running into Kim and Kanye in Monaco, Brad and Angie in Cannes, Elton and David in Saint Tropez?

Then set your GPS for La Ciotat, a breezy Mediterranean port 18 miles east of Marseille that mixes the raw beauty of the Côte d’Azur with the je-ne-sais-quoi of Cleveland. It’s a paparazzi no-fly zone where the beaches, the prices, and the food are better than you’d expect and a low-profile port that gives the town a whole lot of ‘come hither’ for tourists with an allergy to $500 bikinis.

It’s not that La Ciotat never got up-close and personal with celebrity tourism. Back in late 19th century, when the Lumière brothers, Henri Stendhal and Georges Braque vacationed here, the town was a notably fashion-forward destination.

In 1857, the establishment of the Messageries Impériales gave La Ciotat a parallel raison d’être as the hub for France’s naval shipyards, a function that gradually eclipsed its tourist vocation. When the yards closed in the 1987, the port sunk into a deep, dark depression.

Both facets of this comparatively recent past co-exist with an old town replete with photogenic 17th-century penitential chapels and 18th-century stone façades.

The Eden Theatre, fully restored in 2013, is the world’s oldest movie palace, screening the first Lumière moving pictures in 1895. (Here’s one of them, a 1-minute film of a train arriving at La Ciotat.) Its current eclectic, line-up (e.g. Pasolini’s Mamma Roma, Godard’s Adieu au language, Chaplin’s Modern Times and The Rocky Horror Picture Show) continues to draw film buffs.

And while the city is pluckily re-inventing itself as a hospital for the yachts of the 1%, it hasn’t forgotten its working class romance with oil and methane freighters of yesteryear. Giant cranes loom over the old city’s skyline. Instead of deploring these rust-friendly relics, La Ciotat jauntily sought (and received) landmark status for one of the largest hulks.

That’s the back view. The beauty shot, however, is full frontal, whether by day

or by night

Back to the beach

For some reason, guidebooks insist that only Marseille and Cassis have calanques, the hilly, Mediterranean inlets that can be best be described as Scandinavian fjords lined with pines and cacti.

Forget that: La Ciotat’s botanical Parc de Mugel, has some of the prettiest and best-protected calanques in Provence. Keep it a secret that only you and the locals will share. These isolated beaches are accessible by car, bus and boat. But remember, mum’s the word.

Closer to town, going east of the Old Town and the harbor, there are lots of scenic beaches in city limits as well. And no, these are not in any sort of industrial zone.

In fact, La Ciotat is quite ahead of the times with a 21st-century spin on segregated sand. There’s one beach, inaugurated in 2011, that’s an entirely cigarette-free zone. Another, opened in 2012, welcomes dogs.

Party like it’s 1720

When most cities look around for a party theme, they don’t come up with “The Plague.” However, La Ciotat is not like most cities, so the locals break out in pustules every October for a festival that, quite literally, flirts with the Black Death.

The whole thing was the brain-child of Mireille Benedetti, the guiding spirit of the Bastide Marin (see further below) just outside town. The swashbuckling, three-day event takes place around the Old Port, requires over 1,000 costumes, and draws up to 100,000 attendees.

This year’s fever fest is slated for October 17th-19th. (Get a preview of former fêtes here.)

Pack an umbrella because, according to Liliane Siréta, director of the La Ciotat Tourist Office, it always rains on this particular parade. ”Mud makes everything more authentically 18th century,” she adds cheerfully. (By the way, La Ciotat residents always know if it’s going to rain. When the clouds touch the ‘Trois Secs’ hilltops outside of town, they never wash the car.)

Back to Nature

When pirate raids and plagues got too pesky for La Ciotat’s population, the citizenry headed inland to an area known as Céreste. The Bastide Marin is the optimistic (and sadly underfunded) response to keep this part of the area’s history alive.

Centered round a delightfully dilapidated aristocratic manor house studded with mysterious underground chapels and cabalistic mosaics that have yet to be deciphered, the property now encompasses organic gardens, period arts ‘n crafts, beehives, livestock and a farmyard filled with the sort of geese and chickens that were popular in medieval times.

Where to stay, where to eat

In its own quiet way, without Michelin-star fanfare, people eat very well in La Ciotat without paying Côte d’Azur prices.

Check out the seafood specialties at the informal L’Oustaou (12 Bd Anatole France, Tel. 04 42 08 28 26) on the waterfront just outside the Old Town. An anchovy pizza is only 10€, the moules grantinées à la provençale with frites maison are 18€, and our Italian dining companions licked their plates of squid tagliatelle clean. (Added bonus for families: There’s a handy playground right across the street.)

Guestrooms start at only 119€ (in high season!) at the seaside 3-star Hôtel Plage Saint-Jean. There’s WiFi, a covered pool, and a sauna… and better yet … an in-house restaurant serving some of the best bass and elegantly epicurean fruit tarts on the coast. Make dinner reservations even if you’re staying elsewhere.

Also make note of Damien Arnaud’s Mediterranean cuisine at the Roche Belle, (Corniche du Liouquet, tel. 04 42 71 47 60).

Further information: La Ciotat Tourist Office, Boulevard Anatole France, 13600 La Ciotat. Tel. 04 42 08 61 32.

Getting There: Frequent TER trains from Marseille to La Ciotat take 25 minutes and cost roughly 7€.

© 2014, Corinne LaBalme

The post La Ciotat: A Splash of Reality on the Riviera appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

No casual tourist would describe Aix-en-Provence as a hotbed of the architectural avant-garde. From the terrace of Café des Deux Garçons, the Aix skyline looks just about like it did back when Paul Cézanne sipped his tisane with Emile Zola.

And yet the ultra-modern Sextius Mirabeau quarter, a showcase for Rudy Ricciotti, Kengo Kuma and some of the hottest 21st century design on the planet, is only a few blocks away. As one sips one’s pastis and looks around at the tawny-tinted 17th-18th century façades, the only question is “Where?”

Closer than you think

Like most 2000-year-old towns, Aix-en-Provence faced a severe space crunch in the mid-20th century. The population had exploded (from 30,000 in 1945 to 100,000 in 1975) and its summertime Lyric Festival, which started small and provincial in 1948, had gone global.

But unlike most 2000-year-old towns, Aix had a magic mushroom: 46 acres of friche—abandoned and under-used industrial land—that started right where the tree-lined Cours Mirabeau ended. City planners had coveted this terrain since the 1950s but given the multiple ownership couldn’t gain title to it.

Eventually, sorely-needed housing projects simply hop-scotched over the zone to new settlements west of the city, such as Jas de Bouffan, where the Fondation Vasarely broke ground in 1976. This left a void that started just west of the 19th-century Rotonde Fountain.

That’s not to say that nothing happened in this sector in the late 20th century. The Marseille autoroute bull-dozed through in the 60s, and a defunct match factory morphed into the Cité des Livres library complex in 1986. But the area wasn’t cleared for construction until negotiations were finalized over land held by the French railway company SNCF and the 1989 sale of the Thompson factory.

All these delays produced some happy results. The nastier brut abuse of the Pompidou era of the 1970s passed Aix by, and city planners had enough time to note that public opinion was against skyscrapers. Although the first set of plans had to be scrapped due the 1980s financial crisis, what emerged is all the more impressive.

Touring the new Aix

Head for the Napoleon III-era Fontaine de la Rotonde at the end of the Cours Mirabeau. It’s topped with three goddesses representing commerce, justice and the arts. One of those ladies, probably Miss Business, is staring hard at the brand-new, glass-walled Apple boutique that popped up last month. The gateway to New Aix is Les Allées Provençales, a series of sleek shopping and housing corridors (ca 2007) leading right across from Apple and the brand-new Tourist Office. Between Les Allees Provençales and the Grand Théâtre, you cross the Esplanade des Justes, inaugurated in March 2014.

The high architectural drama starts a few meters west at the Grand Théâtre de Provence, designed by Milan-based architect Vittorio Gregotti and inaugurated in 2007.

The choice of Gregotti as one the spirit guides for this new district is significant in itself. Gregotti is considered an anti-modernist of the Jane Jacobs/Robert Venturi ilk, believing that new architecture should harmonize with the existing urban context rather than make a stand-alone “statement” (e.g. Paris’s Tour Montparnasse).

Thus the curved, amphitheater-like entrance to the 1,366-seat building appears to nestle into its site, its stones carefully chosen to mimic the changing colors of Mont Sainte-Victoire. (Fact: The proximity of train tracks meant that the whole structure had to be mounted on springs.)

The rear of the theater, more linear but just as attractive, is visible from a high parvis (built above transit) that is home to two other 21st-century bijoux: the Centre Choréographique National d’Aix-en-Provence, nicknamed the Pavillon Noir, designed by Rudy Ricciotti (2006), and the comparatively virginal-looking, all-white Conservatoire Darius Milhaud (2013), signed Kengo Kuma.

Ricciotti, designer of Marseille’s drop-dead gorgeous MuCEM Museum (2013), used an angular, black concrete grid over sheets of glass for an effect that he has described as ”sado-maso” for the Aix Ballet’s home-base. It’s perfectly in line with the edgy work of Angelin Preljocaj, director of the Aix Ballet, famously quoted as saying “La création se fait dans le noir” (Creation takes place in the dark).

Next door, the angels (literally) sing in the Music Conservatory that Tokyo/Paris-based Kengo Kuma coated with shimmery, silver-white anodized aluminum that has been folded, origami-style, to create asymmetric zones of light and shadow. The concert hall, seating 500, is fashioned with wood-paneling in a similar origami treatment.

And below all this?

Remember the autoroute that was paved through the center of the neighborhood in the 1960s? Efforts have been made to beautify it as well. On one side on the tunnel, drivers see a vegetal wall developed by landscape artist Patrick Blanc in 2008. (Parisians know his work from vertical gardens at the Pershing Hall Hotel, the Quai Branly Museum and the BHV Homme store, among other places.) On the other side, yet to be completed, there will be a “water wall” (mur d’eau) commemorating Aix’s natural springs, designed by Christian Ghion.

Where to stay in the Sextius Mirabeau neighborhood?

This is a no-brainer. The glamorous, 5-star Mariott Renaissance opened right across from the Conservatory Darius Milhaud (Pavillon Blanc) in Feb 2014. Marseille architects Claude Sabon Nadjari and Rémy Saada drew up the plans which include a spa, a pool, and a gourmet Provençal restaurant that poached Aix’s top chef, Jean-Marc Banzo, from Le Clos de la Violette. The gastronomic restaurant (closed Sunday and Monday) serves dishes like grilled red mullet with zucchini spaghetti, calamars in squid ink and a reduced bouillabaisse sauce on its 90 € and 130 € prix fixe menus. (There’s also a bistro, open daily serving a 25 € lunch and a 39 € dinner.)

Christian Ghion designed the sleek furniture for the 133 guestrooms that are long on creature comforts: king-size beds, rain showers, AC, coffee/tea service, WiFi and iPod music chargers.

Even in a luxury hotel, however, you won’t get away from the fact that Aix, with 40,000 students, is youth-oriented. (There’s Gatorade right next to the Rémy Martin in the mini-bar.) To fit in better, book yourself a “face-modelling massage” at the spa or go directly to the bar and order the Renaissance cocktail (orange vodka, amaretto, lemon juice, ginger and sesame oil) and test its Phoenix effect.

Note that from many rooms like N° 18, you’ll have a great view of the Water Wall, which, when finished, will be the largest of its kind in Europe.

Marriott Renaissance Aix-en-Provence. 320 avenue Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 13100 Aix-en-Provence. Tel: 04.86.91.54.50.

Exterior Aix

Modern art doesn’t stop at the city limits. Forgo the all-too-familiar Cézanne route and check out the Fondation Vasarely, an Op Art palazzo presided over by Pierre Vasarely, grandson of the artist Victor Vasarely. It’s rare to be able to see this artist’s illusionistic work on a large scale… and ‘large’ for Vasarely was as tall as a two-story building. It’s a hike out of town, but the N° 2 bus takes you up to the doorstep.

Fondation Vasarely. Jas de Bouffan, 13690 Aix-en-Provence. Tel: 04 42 20 01 09. Closed Monday. Through September 2014, the museum showcases the work of Venezuelan op-artist Carlos Cruz-Diez.

Count on a half-hour drive due north to the Château La Coste and get an early start because it’s worth a day-long visit. Irish businessman/bio-dynamic wine entrepreneur Patrick McKillen has spiked his vineyards with works by a Who’s Who of contemporary artists.

Tadao Ando created the striking entry, Jean Nouvel designed the wine production area, and the surprises on the grounds include a Louise Bourgeois spider, a Calder stabile, a Frank Gehry music pavilion “rescued” from its Serpentine sojourn in London, Liam Gillick screens, a Druid-like subterranean vault by Andy Goldsworthy and Michael Stipe foxes… and that’s not all.

It takes at least three to four hours to see all the installations… and new ones are being built all the time. (Kengo Kuma, Ai Weiwei, Carsten Holler and Renzo Piano are on the coming attractions list.) Eventually, the owner plans to create a hotel.

In the meantime, there’s wine to drink and food to eat in two different restaurants. One—slightly more formal, overlooking a Hiroshi Sugimoto sculpture in a reflecting pool—serves quinoa tabbouleh and foie gras. The second—set in a village-like townscape which is actually where La Coste vineyard workers live—serves gazpacho and salads. Open daily. Call ahead for information about wine tastings and special evening events.

Château La Coste. 2750 Route de la Cride, 13610 Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade. Tel: 04 42 61 92 90.

© 2014, Corinne LaBalme

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* * *

In 1954 three Michelin stars landed on Les Baux de Provence, an isolated hilltop aerie 9 miles (15k) north of Arles. They fell specifically on Oustau de Baumanière, a hotel/restaurant nestled in the trees below the fortress. The personal automobile gave gourmets the means to get there by way of the winding road that snakes through dramatic white walls of rock leading to Les Baux, testament to the mining for bauxite, a mineral that took its name from the village. Offering magnificent glimpses of the Luberon, Mont Ventoux, the Rhône Valley and the local vineyards, the route alone makes for an exhilarating approach.

Michelin’s weren’t the town’s first stars. The first settlers claimed kinship to Balthazar, one of the three sky-gazing kings in the Christmas story. After that, the history of Les Baux falls into the ill-starred category befitting of a zone that would come to be called the Valley of Hell.  The most notable former residents include beautiful black widow Queen Jeanne, smothered to death by a jealous cousin, and evil Raymond of Turenne, who laughed as he pushed his enemies off the town’s vertiginous cliffs. In 1632, weary of policing a precinct that thrived on internal conflict and political chaos, Louis XIII’s right-hand man Richelieu ordered the ramparts to be razed while taxing the residents to finance the demolition.

The result of Richelieu’s meddling is a romantic ruin of a fortress, the stuff that postcards were invented for. All through the summer, the slim mountain access road is choked with tour buses, slowing traffic to a diesel-scented standstill.  Sightseers dream of parking places that may never materialize, making the ‘Valley of Hell’ appellation quite understandable. Yet, on a sunny day in October, we had to watch the dashboard to make sure we weren’t speeding. Off-season, the road is almost vacant.

Oustau de Baumanière, a 5-star hotel, is a sprawling ensemble cluster of buildings (14th, 16th and 18th centuries), tennis courts and heated swimming pools. Queen Elizabeth stayed in the main hotel in 1972. Her ex-suite, N° 2, has a working fireplace that wouldn’t be out of place in Buckingham Palace. The hotel still houses Les Baux’s premier restaurant (currently awarded two stars by Michelin).

But for sheer romance, nothing beats the portion of the complex called Le Manoir, an 18th century dream-house with its own private rose garden. Here, the suites are far bigger than necessary (of course, one doesn’t come here for the bare necessities). Room 15 has two ballroom-sized rooms and two rough-hewn marble bathrooms, one with an oval bath-tub and the other with giant walk-in rain shower. There are two stone fireplaces as well, along with excellent wifi, cable tv, minibars and coffee machines.

There’s no restaurant at the Manoir, a half-mile from the main building of the Oustau, so that means heading through the woods to the enclave’s two restaurants. At the two-starred Oustau, chef Sylvestre Wahid put together some major miracles like delicate scallop carpaccio layered with foie gras, stuffed rouget, agneau en croûte with a lush rosemary sauce, and a deconstructed lemon meringue pie. The 60,000-bottle cave has something for everyone, from a 2011 Cassis (30€) to 1961 Hermitage la Chapelle (9,000€).

A second restaurant is at Oustau’s sister 5-star hotel La Cabro d’Or (meaning The Golden Goat), a hotel that might hold special appeal to traveling (upscale) families with kids who would enjoy the proximity to a mini-farmyard with dwarf goats. Compared to the Oustau, Michel Hulin’s menu at La Cabro d’Or is less formal and easier on the high-end budget with a 56 € lunch that includes wine. The chef trained at Château Les Crayères in Reims and the Près d’Eugénie in Eugénie-les-Bains. Though La Cabro is starless in 2014, Mr. Hulin’s ultra-light crabmeat/crayfish salad with fresh brousse cheese is nearly addictive. Happily, the hotel has a little van that can scoot guests between locations because the property is big enough to get lost in. The Spa Baumanière is nearby.

So… ready to enjoy Les Baux without the crowds? When you make your reservations, just make sure the restaurants will be open if you don’t want to head into the village. The Oustau kitchen closes down in January while Sylvestre Wahid heads for Courcheval’s Le Strato, although the Cabro d’Or stays open except for Sunday and Monday. Needless to say, these are fine places in season as well.

Oustau de Baumanière. Chemin départemental 27 (route 27), 13520 Les Baux-de-Provence. Tel: 04 90 54 33 07.

La Cabro d’Or, Chemin départemental 27 (route 27), 13520 Les Baux-de-Provence. Tel. 04 90 54 33 21.

Bikes can be rented at both hotels. Two or four wheels will get you to plenty of olive oil producers and winegrowers in the surrounding area.

Both resorts are Relais & Chateaux members.

Official Les Baux-de-Provence tourist information site.

© 2014, Corinne LaBalme

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* * *

When Sandra and Jean-Michel Abecassis wanted a  makeover for their Right Bank hotel near Parc Monceau, they enlisted Sandrine Alouf, a designer who’d already created hotels where guests can sleep on clouds (Hôtel One By the Five, 2008); play can-can with Moulin Rouge dancers (Hôtel Secret de Paris, 2009); and commune with Piaf, Sartre or Jean Seberg (Hôtel Montmartre Mon Amour, 2012).

A self-styled “atmospherist,” Alouf quickly caught on to her client’s magic mindset and the theme of this, her tenth hotel project, took shape. Why a decorating niche of theme hotels? “Because I’m someone who likes to tell stories,” she said.

The 24 rooms of the Splendor showcase illusions like levitation, card tricks and celestial magic along with a smattering of penthouse rooms dedicated to pioneering mystic/moviemaker Georges Méliès. Each room has a large hologram above the bed, a theme-imprinted carpet and enchanting wallpaper.  All the bathrooms are shower-only with handsome tiles and the occasional funhouse mirror. As boutique 4-stars go, rooms, whether used as a single or double, are on the small side, about 160 to 180 square feet. There’s also a delightful little single on the top floor.

All in all, the mood is closer to Houdini than Hogwart’s with a decor in the public areas that features historic posters purchased from Paris’s Magic Museum (see below), a magician’s cape and magic books, and top hats rising with the staircase. While other hotels may have a cat as their mascot, this one has a rabbit, named Pomponnette. And who better to keep a rabbit company than an actual magician as French magician extraordinaire Jack Barlett mans the reception desk.

Splendor Hôtel, 38, rue Cardinet, 17th arrondissement. Tel : 01 46 22 07 73.  Metro Maleherbes or Monceau. Since the hotel just opened in October 2013, the launch price is quite reasonable. Inquire about promotional rates.

A magical postscript: Paris’s Magic Museum, Musée de la Magie, where visitors descend into the history of magic, is often forgotten by parents trying to convince their children that seeing the Mona Lisa should be a magical experience. 11 rue Saint-Paul, 4th arrondissement. Metro Saint-Paul or Sully-Morland. Open Wed., Sat. and Sun. 2-7pm and during French school vacations.

© 2013

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Getting There

Avignon is 2:40 by direct train from Paris (Gare de Lyon) and is served by two train stations:

1. Avignon TGV. Most high-speed trains arrive here, four miles from the center of town. From the station there’s a light rail line that connects with Avignon Centre station in 6 minutes, making 35 round-trips per day. There’s also regular bus to/from the city walls. Take it to the final stop, “Avignon Poste,” about a 12-minute ride. Avignon Poste is actually just a hundred yards from the Avignon Centre station. The Popes’ Palace and the intra-muros hotels are within a 10-minute walk from there. Taxi service is also available from the station.

2.  Avignon Centre, across the street from the city walls. From here it’s easy enough to walk to any of the hotels intra-muros, though taxis are also available.

In summer, there’s a direct Eurostar to Avignon from St. Pancras as well as direct flights from Birmingham, London and Southhampton.

Having your own wheels—bike, car, a chauffeur—is naturally the best way to explore Provence, but on a brief visit with a limited radius one can do surprisingly well with public transportation.

Tourist Information

The official site of the Avignon Tourist Office is www.avignon-tourisme.com.

Avignon is capital of the department of Vaucluse, which lies east of the Rhone River and includes Orange, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Carpentras, Cavaillon, L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, Gordes, the Abbey of Senanque, many vineyards and lavender fields and much of the Luberon Natural Regional Park. The official site of the Vaucluse Tourist Office is provenceguide.com.

To the west of the Rhone River and easily accessible from Avignon are Villeneuve-lès-Avignon (just across the river) and the Pont du Gard, which are located in the department of Gard whose official tourist information site is tourismegard.com.

Avignon Theater Festival
During three weeks in July Avignon holds a major international theater festival, le Festival d’Avignon, with venues throughout the town, most prestigiously in the Court of Honor of the Popes’ Palace. Playing at Avignon during the festival signifies a major stamp of approval for a production, a director or a troupe, even if the best of the new productions presented here aren’t necessarily French. For more information see the official festival site.

Video intermission (33 seconds): A view from the edge of the Rock of Avignon overlooking the Rhone River and accompanied by the sound of cicadas.

Choice Accommodations in Avignon

La Mirande
4 place de l’Amirande. Tel. 04 90 14 20 20.

Situated in the shadow of the fortress wall of the Popes’ Palace, this former cardinal’s palace, transformed into a hotel by the Stern family in the early 1990s, provides Avignon’s most luxurious accommodations. The view from most of the rooms may be stopped short by that imposing wall but it is a view that’s long on history. The 26 rooms (sizes vary) of this 5-star boutique include 20 rooms in the older palace building decorated in 18th-century styles and 6 rooms that opened in 2012 in an adjacent building decorated with Empire-style furnishings. Handsome Zuber wallpaper provides an elegant touch throughout. Contributing to the hotel’s feeling of intimacy, an array of charming settings—in the garden, in the inner patio, in the “Red Room,” in the “Chinese Cabinet”—are available for tea, cocktails or an after-dinner drink.

The hotel’s restaurant (not tested for this article) has reportedly had its ups and downs in recent years, but the great dining pleasure of La Mirande is Jean-Claude Altmayer’s guest table in the basement (see #5 in this other article about Avignon). The hotel also offers cooking classes conducted by various chefs of the region.

Hotel d’Europe
12 place Crillon. Tel. 04 90 14 76 76

From its entrance off the square just within the old city ramparts, through the shade of the plane tree in the entry courtyard, into the aura of the ancient walls, past a peek into the large, expectant dining room, up the promise of the grand staircase and into the spaciousness of some of the rooms, the home that the Marquis of Graveson had built in 1580 certainly has the potential for a great hotel. In fact it became one when it opened to the public as the Hotel d’Europe in 1799. So the hotel can boast a fine guest list of celebrated men and women and statesmen that sojourned here over the next two centuries. But during a visit in December 2012 I found the hotel uneven in its physical offerings, green in its staff (admittedly, my site visit lasted less than 30 minutes) and the atmosphere generally lacking in spirit and fantasy. Its 39 double rooms and 5 suites alternate between worn traditional and overly classic renovated, an indication that, like the continent itself, the Europe in search of its soul. These are nevertheless spacious rooms from the “superior” category on up to the presidential suite. This is not to write off the Europe; the hotel’s current owners are apparently striving for more consistent elegance, and this is, after all, a 5-star hotel. The classic grand hotel dining room has a Michelin star in 2013 (not tested for this article).

Hotel de l’Horloge
1 rue Félicien David (corner with Place de l’Horloge). Tel. 04 90 16 42 00.

L’Horloge is a pleasing 4-star ideally set beside Place de l’Horloge, the town’s main square, just a few hundred yards from the Popes’ Palace. Its modest lobby signals a hotel with great pretensions as far service goes but in two stays here I’ve found the reception and cleaning staff friendly and willing to accommodate. The 66 rooms, mostly with bath, some only shower, offer square comfort with an easy décor in tones of brown and off-white. Various categories ensure that the hotel can satisfy a range of budgets and family-friendly accommodates, with attractive off-season prices available online.

Marie Touzet’s Villa de Margot
24 rue des Trois Colombes. Tel. 04 90 82 62 34.

Marie Touzet operates an attractive B&B with three rooms and two suites in an 1820 mansion within easy walking distance of the center of Avignon. The well-maintained rooms and suites of various comfortable sizes are decorated with a nod to various 19th- and early-20th-century styles and run 120-200€, including breakfast. The Suite Royale is a large family suite with a double bed and two single beds for children (supplement) and a terrace with a view at one edge of the Popes’ Palace. Private parking (10€/night) Dog alert: There’s a friendly little mutt named Easy roaming about. Open year-round.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

For more on Avignon read Profiles in Provence: Passionate Purveyors of Fine Food and Drink.

For a glimpse of nearby Orange see Black Diva and the Roman Theater of Orange.

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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.

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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.

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As for the in-with-the-new, the Crillon, like the nearby Ritz, which closed last August for a planned 27 months of renovation, is shutting down for at least two years in order to better rise up to snuff to compete in the exclusive “palace” category of French hotels. The top-tier upgrade pandemic that has been giddily transforming the Paris hotelscape for the past five years (crisis, what crises?) has pushed the bar higher—or at least sleeker and techier—with renovations/expansions at the Bristol, the Royal Monceau and soon the Plaza-Athénée and with the arrival of Asian newcomers Shangri-La and Mandarin-Oriental and the soon-to-be unveiled Peninsula.

While prices for a room at the new begin at about $1000 per night, you could spend less and walk away with a piece of the old to last a lifetime. Consider, if you will, a pair of Art Deco-style chairs, Christofle flatware or champagne buckets, assorted serving trays, flutes or decanters, Bernardaud dishware, some framed prints, well-pressed tablecloths, bathroom accessories, mini-bars, chimneypieces, maybe even a Louis XV- or Louis XVI-style chair, bed headboard, dresser or couch. Prepare to spend more for the Lalique chandeliers. The catalogue, with starting bid prices and instructions for joining in the fun, can be viewed here. Warning: Potential buyers should keep in mind before raising their hand at the auction that an additional 29.9% in premium and tax will be added to the hammer price.

History of the Crillon

The Crillon may be getting rid of its Louis knockoffs but it’s keeping the originals, since its late-18th-century architecture has earned it a place on the list of historical monuments.

The hotel occupies the far western end of one of the two identical colonnaded facades on Place de la Concorde, designed by architect Jacques-Ange Gabriel in the 1760s under orders of King Louis XV, and the adjacent portion on Rue Boissy d’Anglas. (The police at the corner aren’t there to protect the rich and famous at the hotel but rather the American Embassy across the street.)

Gabriel’s western colonnade, though designed as single building, soon became a front for four different lots that were sold off in 1775, Louis XVI then king. The king’s architect/building manager Louis Francois Trouard purchased the far western lot and designed the mansion that first served home to the Duke of Aumont, before being sold to the Count of Crillon in the 1788.

A private city mansion or freestanding public building is called a “hôtel” in France, so the property was known as the Hôtel de Crillon long before it became an actual hotel.

The revolution may have put an end to the Crillon family—as it did to Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, beheaded a stone’s throw from the hotel’s front door (did Marie-Antoinette have one final flashback to music lessons she took in the hôtel many years earlier?)—but the Crillons, having had little time to use their mansion before the guillotine ruined the view, returned to their property in 1812.

In 1906, Crillon descendants sold the property to the Société du Louvre, a company that was one of the first big players in the luxury hotel and department store business in Paris, which transformed the private mansion Hôtel de Crillon into the “do you have a reservation?” Hôtel de Crillon. The hotel opened in 1909, a time when luxury hotels spreading further west and about to claim ownership of the area surrounding the Champs-Elysées. Opening to rave reviews as French luxury at its finest, the Crillon has had an illustrious history ever since.

But the finest in luxury is far more international these days, and French hotel ownership has trouble keeping up with the big money. So, apparently, does American hotel ownership since in 2005 the Société du Louvre was purchased by Starwood Capital, which in 2010 sold the Crillon to a member the Saudi royal family. (The George V is also Saudi-owned.)

We’ll have to wait until sometime in 2015 to know what Saudi money does for the place. Meanwhile, it’s auction time: out with the old… and perhaps into your home.

Hotel de Crillon, 10 place de la Concorde, 8th arr. Metro Concorde. Public pre-sale exhibition of auction items April 12 to 16, 10am to 8pm (until 10pm on the 15th). Auction by lot April 18 to 22, conducted by Artcurial. See the online catalogue to view lots and for information on registering for the auction.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

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The ever-chic Théâtre des Champs-Elysées,  designed by the Art Deco dream-team of Auguste Perret, Antoine Bourdelle and Maurice Dénis, opened on March 31, 1913, followed three weeks later by the ever-fashionable Hôtel Plaza Athénée.

Thanks to the twin anchors of the TCE and the PA, Avenue Montaigne became an international roadway of haute couture, especially after WWII when Christian Dior et al. set up shop along the avenue.

While the venue that showcased Nijinski, Stravinsky and Josephine Baker “back in the day” focuses its centennial season on its greatest hits with a dash of 21st-century stardust, the hotel that Dior was so fond of celebrates its birthday with a year of special menus and surprises.

The TCE’s first 2013 production opened on a high note in February with Donizetti’s La Favorite, a slice of gorgeous 1840 bel canto rarely performed in its original French. Against a minimalist set by New York artist Andrea Blum, director Valérie Nègre skillfully underlined the contemporary political implications of the twisty baroque plot.

After a Don Giovanni  (seen through the eyes of Stéphane  Braunschweig) that debuts on April 25, the TCE goes into nostalgia overdrive with Le Sacre du Printemps… the earthshaking ballet that premiered on this gilded stage in May 1913. Starting in May 2013, dance fans will get numerous spins on this classic: Stravinsky’s wonderpiece plays to Nijinski’s original choreography, followed by new interpretations by Sascha Waltz and Pina Bausch.

Not to forget productions by Sylvie Guillem and Akram Khan, Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, Benvenuto Cellini (Berlioz), Agrippina (Handel), The Barber of Seville (Rossini) and a dance-in-the-aisles Big Band homage to Josephine Baker and Sidney Bechet on July 5. Ticket and schedule information at www.theatrechampselysees.fr.

Meanwhile, several graceful steps away, one would expect a fashion-conscious belle like the Plaza Athénée to lie about her époque, but instead she’s releasing 100 birthday balloons over the 8th arrondissement on April 20th, drinking “Baccarat Harcourt” cocktails from cut-crystal glasses in the bar, and definitely not watching her waistline with special centennial dishes like pâté chaud de pintade truffé in her three-star restaurant which operates under the supervision of ubiquitous stellar chef Alain Ducasse.

The Plaza-Athenée is also planting 100 trees at Versailles this spring, minting a special (gold) card for her favorite customers, and offering packages that include tickets to Le Sacre du Printemps next door.

The Plaza-Athénée is classified as a “palace” (i.e. a rare and exceptional 5-star) by official French hotel standards. All the info at www.plaza-athenee-paris.com.

Théatre des Champs-Elysées, 15 avenue Montaigne, 8th arr. Tel. 01 49 52 50 50. Metro Pont de l’Alma.

Hôtel Plaza-Athénée, 25 avenue Montaigne, 8th arr. Tel. 01 53 67 66 65. Metro Pont de l’Alma.

© 2013, Corinne LaBalme

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