Years ago, when we were all much younger, provincial French hotels were noted
for their character. Roughly translated, this meant that the plumbing
clanked, the walls were barely thick enough to hold up the floral wallpaper
and the windows hadn’t been opened for a decade. The lady of the house had
been steaming cabbage ever since.
We put up with all this because (a) we didn’t have the slightest bit of
choice, and (b) the hotels were cheap.
They still are (to British eyes, at least). But that is about all that hasn’t
changed. Over time, the French have learnt hospitality. The country is now
littered with establishments — in chateaux, mansions, old farms, you name it
— with standards to rival any in the world.
To kick off a series focusing on such hotels — all costing less than £100 per
night for a double room — we travel to Languedoc-Roussillon, France’s
“other” Mediterranean region.
The heat here can be fierce. Temperaments, too. Vast flat beaches are backed
by a vine-filled plain, garrigue scrubland and rocky hills where gorges are
deep and the villages, which have been resisting central authority since the
time of the Cathars, are remote.
In recent times, fashionable folk have been calling it the “new Luberon” —
anxious, as ever, to define a place by outsiders’ experiences of it.
This is hopelessly wrong. There may be a number of foreign residents these
days, but they register only in their own circles and international magazine
articles. Languedoc-Roussillon remains itself and entire. Also, it must be
said, easy to get to. Budget flights serve Perpignan, Carcassonne,
Montpellier and Nîmes. We start, as do most tourists, by the seaside...
HOTEL CASA PAÏRAL, COLLIOURE
I said that the coast was flat, and so it is, until it gets down here, where
France bangs into Spain and both prefer to be called Catalonia.
Suddenly, as the Pyrenees drop into the Med, it’s all rocks and coves, into
two of which slots Collioure.
Known by some for its anchovies, by others for Matisse and fauvism, and by all
as the prettiest little port around, it’s packed in season. Astonishing,
then, to find a hotel bang in the centre — just yards from the main square,
port and beach — where nothing disturbs the calm, not even the plaintive cry
of the anchovy.
At the end of a tiny alley, the Casa Païral still welcomes you as the
substantial Catalan town house it once was. The tiles, marble, salons and
classic furniture are homely and comfortable, but also formal enough to
demand a certain level of politeness.
This is good, and better still is the entirely unexpected enclosed garden,
alive with wisteria and lilac, with an immense magnolia tree.
It’s a lovely setting for a decent-sized pool. You’ll be tempted not to go out
at all — but you should, to explore village, port and fort, to get into the
hills behind, and to eat.
Casa Païral has no restaurant, but the Neptune, nearby on Route de
Port-Vendres, does the business.
Details: 00 33-4 68 82 05 81, www.hotel-casa-pairal.com.
Doubles start at £53 in low season and £57 in high season; breakfast £7pp.
Collioure is 35 minutes from Perpignan air-port via the N114 expressway,
direction Argelès-sur-Mer.
CHATEAU DE CAVANAC, NEAR CARCASSONNE
If the standard of French hotels has risen immeasurably, that of the guests
hasn’t always followed suit. At Cavanac, they have a full-size table in a
splendid billiard room (it’s that sort of chateau), but they have lost so
many cues and balls to their well-heeled clientele that the owners now ask
for a deposit before you play. They don’t like to — Anne and Louis Gobin are
as friendly as chatelains get — but you have to be practical.
Not that the chateau exactly exudes practicality. It appears, in fact,
wonderfully impractical: a 17th-century core with a maze of additional
buildings, courtyards, salons and rooms, in some of which you could stage a
joust — if you moved the four-poster bed first. There is nothing heavy or
pompous, mind. Fabrics and decor are light and colourful, the wood floors
polished.
This remains a wine-making chateau. It doesn’t have ideas above its station,
principally because its station is high enough already.
Some rooms have balconies and private gardens. There is tennis, a pool in the
park and excellent dining in the beamed bare-stone former stables, or
outside in summer.
The medieval city of Carcassonne is five minutes away; it’s 10 minutes to the
Corbières hills and 40 minutes to the sea. What are you waiting for?
Details: 04 68 79 61 04. Doubles start at £46, but most cost
£70-£80. Breakfast is £7pp; a five-course dinner is £26.
Cavanac is 15 minutes from Carcassonne airport on the D104, direction
St-Hilaire.
VILLA D’ELEIS, SIRAN, NEAR NARBONNE
The first time I came here, just after it opened in 1995, was for a formal
summer banquet outside under the trees. It got less formal as the evening
wore on. At about 2am, a very famous, very drunk French singer came and sat
on my lap, put his elbow in my pudding and poured his wine down my shirt.
Strange, really, because it’s not that sort of place at all.
The tinkling of ivories and tranquil enjoyment is more the tone. Villa d’Eléis
is off the beaten track in a deep-south wine village, in what was the
seigneur’s house. It’s pretty grand, too, in a rural sort of way, with big
gates and an imposing frontage with green shutters. Inside, it probably
feels better than it ever did.
The bar and reception are cool and classy, the bedrooms warm with southern
colours.
Nearby are the Canal du Midi and the gorges of Minerve, Cathar castles and
romanesque churches. It’s about 45 minutes to the sea.
But you’ll want to be back well in time for dinner, to shrug off the dust of
the day to the sound of crickets — and to tackle Bernard Lafuente’s cracking
cuisine.
No excesses, though, or you’ll be lap dancing a neighbour. And it really isn’t
that sort of place.
Details: 04 68 91 55 98, www.villadeleis.com. Doubles start
at £48. Breakfast is £7pp; dinner menus start at £20. Siran is 40 minutes
from Carcassonne airport: follow the D610/D11 (direction Béziers) via
Trèbes; at Homps, turn left to Siran via Olonzac and Pépieux.
CHATEAU DU REY, PONT D’HERAULT
Some way directly north of Agde, the River Hérault cuts through lovely
tree-clad gorges. From Ganges, you carry on towards Le Vigan and then, just
after the village of Pont d’Hérault, comes a sight to make your jaw drop:
there, right by the river, is a 750-year-old castle, turrets and all.
Well, 750 years-ish. Although built in the 13th century, it was bashed about
during the revolution and revamped in the 19th century. No matter. You drive
in and enter a different, better world, where the Cazalis de Fondouce family
has lived for every one of those 750 years.
The present Mme C de F (she’s not the sort of lady of whom you ask either
Christian name or age) opened the chateau as a hotel in 1967. Subsequently,
she has made all the adaptations required by modernity without compromising
grandeur. The chateau has Aubusson tapestries in reception, family heirlooms
in the salon and, in one suite, not only an antique library, but also a baby
grand.
Not all the rooms are huge. Neither is Madame. But, in both cases, class
compensates. And though everyone — ministers, ambassadors and Zinedine
Zidane (“Charming young man, with more bodyguards than a president”) —
has stayed here, she still welcomes you as the first and most favoured.
And that is what you may well feel when, after a terrific lunch in the
restaurant, a converted stable, you wander through the five-acre garden to
the river. Anglers can fish for trout; the rest of us walk straight into the
surrounding Cévennes hills. Quite a large slice of which, incidentally, Mme
C de F owns.
Details: 04 67 82 40 06, www.chateau-du-rey.com. Doubles
start at £50. Breakfast is £5.70pp; dinner menus start at £20. The chateau
is one hour from Montpellier airport on the D986, direction Ganges.
LA BEGUDE SAINT-PIERRE, VERS-PONT-DU-GARD
We’re talking triumph over adversity here, in the best Reader’s Digest
tradition. And some triumph, too. But first, the background.
Isolated a couple of miles from the Pont du Gard, the Roman empire’s most
fantastic aqueduct, La Bégude is a belter — a stone-built realm unto itself.
From the 17th century, it was a staging post-cum-wine farmstead built around
a big courtyard. In the early 1990s, Bruno Griffoul took it apart and put it
back together again as a fine hotel with a labyrinth of sunny bedrooms
(Provençal fabrics, lively colours, every detail covered), lounges and an
ace restaurant where the wine vats used to be.
Then, on September 9, 2002, an end-of-the-world deluge drove the River Gardon
across the fields berserk. Within three hours, there was 11ft of water
swirling through the buildings; 70 guests had to be winched away by chopper
from a first-floor loggia. All the ground floors were wrecked, to the tune
of a million pounds or more.
Last summer, less than a year later, La Bégude reopened. It’s as if there had
never been a drop of water near the place. Outside concerns still stop at
the arched gateway. The ancient setting is once again suffused with southern
style, its integrity intact. If you cannot find tranquillity in the stones,
the garden or the view from the pool to nearby hills, you should probably
stop trying.
Avignon, Nîmes, the mountains and the sea are all fairly close. Not to mention
the Pont itself — an absolute must-see. Then return to La Bégude. But don’t
take my word for its standards. Recently, a couple from Balsall Common
passed through. In the visitors’ book, they wrote: “This is the best hotel
we have stayed at in France in over 30 years.” They added: “It’s like coming
home.” If that’s really the case, then Balsall Common is not at all as I
imagined it.
Details: 04 66 63 63 63, www.hotel-saintpierre.fr. Small
doubles start at £47 in low season and £50 in high season. Breakfast is
£8.50pp; dinner menus start at £21. La Bégude is 40 minutes from Nîmes
airport on the A9: take exit 23 (direction Remoulins/Pont du Gard), then,
from Remoulins, follow “Rive gauche” signs.
Travel brief
Getting there: Flybe (0871 700 0535, www.flybe.com) flies
from Birmingham and Southampton to Perpignan; from £60. British Airways
(0870 850 9850, www.ba.com) flies from Gatwick to Montpellier; from £69.
Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) flies from Stansted to Carcassonne (from £33),
Montpellier (from £35), Nîmes (from £31) and Perpignan (from £59). From
Ireland, the nearest airport is Toulouse, 45 miles from Carcassonne. Aer
Lingus (0818 365000, www.aerlingus.com) flies there from €169.
Getting around: Holiday Autos (0870 400 0011,
www.holidayautos.co.uk) has rentals at the above airports from £46 a day or
£125 a week. Or try Europcar (0870 607 5000, www.europcar.co.uk) or Budget
(0870 153 9170, www.budget.co.uk).
