Tag: France Hotels View All Tags
France Hotels
"Contemporary Innkeeper" Alain Ducasse Loves His Petit Maisons
November 5, 2008 at 4:09 PM | 1 Comment
In case you haven't been motorcycling through the backroads of Provence lately, we thought you'd like to know about superchef Alain Ducasse's pretty little hotel properties that dot the south of France like so many truffle shavings atop an entree. The collection of inns called Maisons d'Alain Ducasse, combine traditional French country living and dining with semi-affordable rates and inspiring views. With three quaint properties in Provence for his beloved concept of terroir, or a fusing of territory and tradition, and one showcasing his Mediterranean cuisine in Tuscany, Alain has risen well above doing hotel restaurants to doing the hotels themselves.
Cannes Hotels
HotelChatter Reader Deals :: The French Want Some American Green
August 27, 2008 at 3:50 PM | 0 Comments
Fixed Dollar Rates in France!
The French are adorable, no? As snooty and self-righteous as ever (ahem, unjustified Olympics smack-talking), those zany Frenchies still seem to be slaves to the American tourist's dollar. And since the dollar is as puny as ever, some French hotels are proffering fixed-dollar rates in the hopes of attracting more cash-strapped Americans.
France Hotels
If You're Going to Splurge at the Regent Bordeaux, You Might as Well Order the Lobster
July 22, 2008 at 10:00 AM | 0 Comments
We've heard there's been a "culinary renaissance" going on in Bordeaux, Paris' vino-licious sister, as "new Bordelais chefs have been invigorating the culinary scene."
Meanwhile, the Regent Grand Hotel Bordeaux, has been busy invigorating the hotel scene as the first amd only five-star hotel to open its doors in Bordeaux.
Inside the hotel, the 48-seat Le Pressoir d'Argent, serving up haute seafood cuisine, and has already established a reputation for an elaborate lobster dish that may be worth the trip:
This intricate menu item involves the restaurant's namesake silver lobster press, one of only five in the world. An elaborate gastronomic production, a choice Breton lobster is first presented live, then brought to the kitchen to be pan-cooked and served atop fresh pasta. The dish is completed in the dining room. The lobster's shell is compressed in the elegant silver press, using the lobster's essence to create a reduction to accompany the dish.
Oh lord! Maybe you'll hit the wine bottle before this whole ordeal so you don't have to think much about seeing him alive before he gets in your belly.
France Hotels
Pop-Up Hotel Rooms :: Like Really Nice Porta-Potties You Can Sleep In
Where: , FranceJune 20, 2008 at 2:52 PM | 0 Comments
Every music festival we've ever been to has had an army of porta-potties imported for the occassion, shining like blue-green beacons in the sunlight just beyond the stage. We're always grateful for them, since our activities during such events go no further than eating, drinking, peeing, sleeping, and repeating.
We can score goodies to eat and drink at the festival, the porta-potties have us covered on the peeing part -- but the sleeping part? Well, now that we've grown older than 18 and have left behind the age in which it was acceptable and even preferable to pitch a tent with our buddies and crash for the night, we're gonna need a hotel.
Enter French company Abilmo, whose "pop-up" hotel room was conceived precisely for this situation.
Budget Hotels
Exotic But Affordable Vacation Picks
March 24, 2008 at 1:00 PM | 0 Comments
Not all of us are traveling the world with celebrity-sized wallets in our back pockets, especially as fears of a recession mount so we are pulling up an old UK Times story on the world's 20 best budget hotels.
It's obviously biased towards British tourists and that means a lot of the listed hotels are in France or Italy, but their aim was to find "a gorgeous place to stay, with stylish service, stunning views and epic bedrooms" that wasn't too expensive, and the results are pretty interesting.
Top of the list is the Hotel De L'Amphitheatre in Arles, France, a renovated 17th-century building in the very town where Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear. Also in France is the Les Deux Freres (pictured) in the small village of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. The rooms here are themed, including an African room with leopard-print bed headboard and the Bride room which obviously features a lot of white.
The list also goes as far afield as Bali, starting with the Ulun Ubud Resort & Spa, which consists of 22 thatched cottages in the local style. Also on Bali they suggest the Rumah Cantik on the north coast of the island. It's a very personal four-room hotel run by a Balinese-Danish couple with really cute rooms.
All of these hotels offer rates of between £35 and £50 a night (that's between US$70 and $100) so even with the poor exchange rate, you're not going to spend a fortune but you'll still have a comfortable and finely-furnished place to stay.
Related Stories:
· The World's 20 Best Hotels on a Budget [UK Times]
· Bali Hotel Reviews [HotelChatter]
· Hotels in France [HotelChatter]
Lille
Get Thee to the Nunnery (Hotel) in Lille
March 13, 2008 at 9:00 AM | 0 Comments
Lille, France
Lille. A little old mini-city just an hour away from Paris on the fast train. Half the price of Paris, a tenth of the size, and almost all pedestrianised - perfect for a traffic-free, gourmet-filled, super-relax weekend, and you can always pop back to Paris when the yearning for nightlife gets too strong.
And if we're talking cutesy quaint, we might as well stay in a cutesy quaint hotel: the Couvent des Minimes.
It was a 17th-century convent housing a women's order called the Minimes, which literally means 'minors' or 'small people'. Since being taken over by Alliance Lille it's transformed into a quietly stylish 4-star hotel.
Toulouse
Nothing Toulouse in the Hotel Garonne
March 12, 2008 at 4:23 PM | 0 Comments
Paris, Paris, Paris. All we talk about is Paris. Paris is great - but it knows it. And it gets enough publicity as it is.
Toulouse is the next best thing to Paris. A human-sized city pulsating with all-night student parties (120,000 of them) and shot through by the Garonne river, a cleaner, faster-moving version of the Seine. It's right down in the south, near the Pyrénées mountains, so as well as having ten times better weather it's top for anyone who likes hiking, biking and skiing in one of Europe's most superb mountain ranges.
The next best thing to Paris's design hotels is Toulouse's Hôtel Garonne, a 14-room boutique hotel by the river in the city's cobbled Old Town.
Anti-View
Room With an Anti-View: Noisy Though Convenient at Ibis Rennes
January 24, 2008 at 9:20 AM | 0 Comments
You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.
This isn't a shockingly terribly anti-view. It's more representative of our severe phobia of close-to-rail-station hotels. You know, the kind who sing long and loud about how conveniently located they are--just one minute's walk from the train station!--and then when you arrive, you realize they weren't stretching the truth (as you'd assumed) and they really are one minute from the train station. Or less. And your room overlooks it and is therefore very, very noisy.
Anyway, that's the case here at the Ibis Rennes Centre Gare Sud in France. Sure, if you keep your gaze lifted high you'll see some pretty buildings, but the foreground is full of this not-too-tiny train station and we can already see two trains waiting there. They're going to drive off and make a lot of noise, we just know it. This hotel's website describes the situation as having "direct access" to the train station, so keep that in mind as a danger phrase and ask for a room on the other side of the hotel. The good news? They offer WiFi. Which is fine if you like reading email while being deafened by trains.
[Photo: redjar]
France Hotels
A Tasteful French Countryside Hotel
June 25, 2007 at 10:16 AM | 0 Comments
This week's New York Times hotel report has nothing but good things to say about Hotel K, a food-lovers haven attached to the three-Michelin-star L'Arnsbourg in northeastern France.
Though Sarah Wildman's story is ostensibly about the hotel, she spends plenty of time discussing the real reason you'd stay the night: the food. Then again, when the food is some of the world's best, we can't blame her for talking it up:
All guests are encouraged to take the 25-euro breakfast. No one refuses. The night before diners create a wish list, obsessing over selections including interesting cheese plates, charcuterie, soft-boiled eggs, baskets of fresh pastries, baguettes and preserves, yogurts, omelets, the list goes on. In the morning [chef] Klein works the room, chatting in French and cutting Serrano ham on a mini-butcher's slicer.
Because the place is out in the country, you'll have plenty of space in which to loosen your belt. Good thing, too: After breakfast and before dinner, you'll want to have your way with the free minibar.
Related Stories:
· Check In, Check Out [NYT]
