Nice Travel Guide
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A Nice and Simple Intro to Nice: The Hotel Armenonville
August is just about the time we start thinking about a trip to the South of France. Lavender! Heat! Beaches! All good. Less good: the fact that you’ll have to fill your bucket with euro notes to pay for your room before you can use it to build a sandcastle on the beach.
But there are bargains to be had in the south of France. One of our personal favorites is the Hotel Armenonville in Nice (coincidentally, one of our favorite towns). It’s nothing if not basic (don’t go expecting any kind of boutique flounce) but it’s spotless, the rooms are like staying in an old style French mansion without being twee, and the prices are always rock bottom: €61 ($80) for a double room without a bathroom, or €78 ($102) ensuite (in winter you can get much better deals, too).
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Even Bomb Threats Are Chic At French Riviera Hotels
Thanks to a bomb scare which turned out to be a false alarm, the French Riviera became everything we've imagined and more yesterday. When the posh seaside Hotel Negresco alerted its 158 guests and staff to a bomb threat, they fled the building in all states at the break of dawn.
Among them was French fashion designer Jean Paul Gaulthier, who fled the hotel clad only in a white dressing gown and joined other alarmed guests by the beach. Apparently the bomb threat was called in by a woman who said that it would detonate at 6:00 AM, and when it hadn't by 7:00 AM, the scene dispersed and the hotel returned to normal.
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The Boscolo Exedra Nice Dared Remodel Their Riviera Beauty
When it comes to French Riviera hotels, you generally don't mess with a winner, especially when it's a historical building in the Belle Epoque style. Nonetheless, all hotels need updating once in a while, and so the Boscolo Exedra in Nice chose only the best to renovate their right half.
Choosing Massino Iosa Ghini to re-conceptualize the common areas like the conference room and breakfast room, the Exedra Nice wanted to evoke Italian style in a warmer way and "create a contemporary version of the Belle Epoque lines of the lavish historic envelope."
The result is now open in Nice, and we recommend swinging by the sculptural white bar, with its freaky tree features and light-up ceiling. We suppose this is to re-orient the folk who have spent all day in the sun on the beach? In any case, we're happy they didn't touch the elaborate facade of the classic hotel, but instead updated the interior enough to keep the first-class guests interested.
{Photo: Design Milk]
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Concorde Hotels Are Cuttin' the Fat (From Your Dinner)
Staying at nice hotels can wreak havoc good dieting intentions: 100 percent true fact (as we like to tell ourselves). All those sugared freebies in the rooms, the elaborate breakfast smorgasboards and the overblown dinner menus add up to something not-so-good for the waistline.
Luckily the trim French chain of Concorde hotels has decided to help out the weak of will by introducing a Zero Complex menu that comes in at under 800 calories for three whole courses — probably the same as the pot au chocolat we'd usually down at first sight.
Because they're good restaurants (like the Palme d’Or at the Martinez in Cannes, which is one of the top draws for A-listers at le festival), you can rest assured that this will be some good stuff: for instance, trout from Lake Geneva at the Hotel de la Paix in Geneva, or an apple and lychee sorbet at Le Palais de la Mediterranee in Nice. "Choosing a dish from the Zero Complex menu does not mean having to cut down on taste or an interesting assortment of flavours," says Concorde. Good.
You won't be paying a premium for your good choices either: the Nice menu starts at 29 euros ($38) for the three courses. And it's available at all European Concorde hotels except its Parisienne grande dame, the snooty Crillon. Well, you've got to keep that fatty French cuisine going somewhere, we suppose.
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French Riviera Style: Say Hi To The Hi Hotel
The Cannes Film Festival is still a ways off (it starts on May 16) but a reader's recent tip about the French Riviera got us daydreaming about escaping to Cote d'Azure. This week we'll continue talking about some of the hotels worthy of checking into. As always, we wanna know what you think, not just what Uma, Rod Stewart, P.Diddy and Paris Hilton think, of the hotels here. So send us your thoughts and questions or comment below the story, telling us what's right, what's wrong and what's just French.
While a stay on the Cote d'Azur normally makes you think of luxury and elegance, you can always get something different by hitting the Hotel Hi in Nice. It's full of funky colors and weird shapes and has a 24-hour self service "restaurant" for guests who have to follow a few strange habits, like using the tea cup for a bowl. The 38 rooms follow nine different concepts, like a hot pink cyber-culture room and furniture that looks like computer screens.
Although a while ago we were worried that high concept would mean low service, recent guests all say the service is friendly and the staff are all flexible. And the high concept's proven popular too, like this guest thinks:
A really different in yer face hotel experience awaits but i have to say we really enjoyed our stay. The rooms are very eccentric,with no wardrobes and a bathroom separated by a few woven twigs, which took a bit of getting used to , me and my missus aren't shy but i wasn't that impressed with the toilet being so exposed.
Okay, so it ain't perfect, but it sure is different.
[Photo: JMoneyDark]
Related Stories:
· Hotel Hi reviews [TripAdvisor]
· Hi-Concept Hotel in Nice [HotelChatter]
· French Riviera Style: Villa La Tour Hotel in Nice [HotelChatter]
French Riviera Hotel Reviews / Cannes Film Festival Hotels / → All Tags
French Riviera Style: Villa La Tour Hotel in Nice
Another handy tip's just come out of the UK Times for those of you seeking a cosy and not-too-pricey place to stay on the Cote d'Azur. The Villa La Tour Hotel in Nice is a small 16-room place located a 10-minute walk from the sea and near the Cours Saleya flower markets. The building was originally a convent dating from the eighteenth century, but fortunately most of the rooms have been renovated recently (and certainly more than once since the convent days).
Recent guest feedback has the usual mix of "good value" and "too small"--but for the price, ranging from just $60 to $160 a night, you can't expect too much. A quick tip: Room 101 apparently has a grotty view of the laneway and some people complain about the lack of an elevator. Like the Hotel de Provence in Cannes, while the rooms are not so big, but it's homely:
Old travelling chests, art books, brown leather chaise longues and candles create a comfortably stylish welcome.
And of course, it's just nice to stay in Nice.
[Photo: TripAdvisor]
Related Stories:
· Villa La Tour Hotel reviews [TripAdvisor]
· A Riviera Room For 50 Pounds [UK Times]
· French Riviera Style: Hotel de Provence [HotelChatter]
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Nice's Nicest Hotel
As we've been saying, all the world is in Southern France right now. Well, ok, so at least all the Parisians that is and the New York Times. The Times recently went to Nice to check out the Palais de la Mediterranée, an historic hotel who has seen Josephine Baker and other jazz stars, representing an era of retro class. If that weren't enough the Tattingers took over the hotel in recent years--maybe you've heard of their other enterprise, only one of the world's best Champagnes.
Nice location in more ways than one, according to the Times reviewer, "this is your top bet in Nice". So what do you get for the best of Nice? For starters, rule says that if you're staying just one night and a suite is open, it's yours without a question or additional charge. Each room has internet and the mini-bar comes with a curiosity--binoculars to check out the spectacular view or probably the beach's naked bodies.
With a room service menu of Iranian caviar and Lafite Rothschild Champagne, one has to wonder who is staying here. Natch, the Times fills us in:
On an afternoon at the end of May, the lobby hummed with 40-ish Russian women in miniskirts, businessmen attending conferences in the extensive meeting facilities and some honeymooning Americans pulling Gucci luggage.
But if you're willing to hand over some extra Euros for this luxury then you're in for a treat and have bypassed the motel closet sized rooms elsewhere in this pricey city.
Related Stories:
· Check In Check Out [New York Times]
· Palais de la Mediterranée reviews [TripAdvisor]
Hotels / → All Tags
Hi-Concept Hotel In Nice
Gridskipper points us to a hotel story in last weekends NY Times that we overlooked.
Hi Hotel (warning: Flash mess ahead) is what the Times calls a "an aggressively postmodern, high-tech property conceived by Matali Crasset, the Philippe Starck protégé."
Looks like a really cool design hotel, and it comes complete with these things called "sofablasters" (couches avec speakers), but why do we get the feeling the service falls flat.
Call it a hunch, but the higher the concept the lower the service these days. We have no evidence of this, so maybe this ultra high concept design hotel is different.
Help us kick this bias and tell us this place is different.
Related Stories:
· HI Hotel Reviews [TripAdvisor]
· Going To Nice [NY Times]
· HI Hotel [Gridskipper]
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