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French Riviera Style: Villa St. Maxime

Where: 390 Route de la Colle, St-Paul-de-Vence, France, 06570

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 be 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.

The French Riviera hotel scene is largely dominated by the Hotel du Cap Eden Roc and the Hotel du Cap Ferret, both of which are extremely expensive, the latter enforcing a snobbish "cash only" rule for their $800+ a night rooms.

So that's out of the question for anyone not featured regularly in the pages of Us Weekly or the Wall Street Journal. Instead, we looked at what was the #1 hotel ranked on TripAdvisor which does the rankings based on popularity, not necessarily room rate.

What we found was the Villa St. Maxime Hotel in St-Paul-de-Vence. Along with having a killer views of the sea, a cozy atmosphere (there's only six rooms so think of it as a chic French B&B), a relaxed ambience and even a pool, the room rates in the low season can be as little as $212. In peak season, May through September, the rooms bump up to $232.

Since we haven't been, we'll leave it to the words of a recent reviewer:

My husband and I stayed at the Villa St. Maxime in April 2006. It was our first visit to the area and we couldn't have been happier there. After driving through the concrete congestion of the Cote D'Azur area, we were a bit apprehensive. Not to worry! We were given a warm greeting by our great host, John, who was generous and hospitable. The light filled rooms are clean, modern, comfortable, and quiet. The modern architecture of the Villa is complemented by the eclectic decor.

The hotel's owners/hosts John and Ann get rave reviews from almost every reviewer, proving that you don't have to be a celeb to get some quality service in the French Riviera.

[Photo: Shill3]

Related Stories:
· Villa St. Maxime [TripAdvisor]