timeless pastoral hideaway, but that’s not all. A major highlight is the newly arrived chef, Marc Fontanne (formerly at the Le Prieuré Baumanière hotel) whips up a refined flavourful feast and homegrown wines, served in the intimate salons of the castle. You can also dine in the sunlit L’Orangerie or under a towering bald cypress tree, to the tune of whirring cicadas. A ten-minute drive down the winding country road, just past the village of Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade, the 200ha Château La Coste ( chateau-la-coste.com) is roughly the same size as Monaco and exceptionally unique: with a 29-room hilltop luxe hotel and spa, five restaurants, biodynamic vineyards, plus a Tadao Ando-designed arts centre, galleries and a trail of open-air contemporary sculptures and starchitect pavilions, all scattered across a pine forest, innovations abound. Enter the new L’Auberge La Coste. Located across from the cutting-edge winery and vines, the 70-room country inn with an arty village vibe is le dernier cri in affordable chic (and also useful when the original hotel up the hill is fully booked, as it so often is). Behind the discreet straw-yellow and pale-rose façade, the low-slung red-roof-tiled complex, there’s an inner courtyard with a stone fountain and a handful of boutiques stuffed with locally crafted ceramics, a boulangerie and fromagerie plus an oak-lined Irish pub and bistro serving haute comfort food (spit-roasted farm chicken and homemade frites and grandmotherly classic desserts like apple pie). The luminous, cleanlined rooms – a medley of pale wood, fluffy duvets and nubby white sofas – come in every size, some with balconies and a view of the Frank Gehry-designed music pavilion and garden. Highpoints include the spacious black-marble bathrooms with double sinks and Japanese toilets, waking up to birdsong and early morning treks through the peaceful wooded hillside. Less than an hour’s drive away, tucked away in the fortified hilltop village of Mane, the newly reopened 49-room Le Couvent des Minimes Hôtel & Spa L’Occitane (couventdesminimes-hotelspa.com) is an elegantly restored 17th-century convent-turnedhotel. Surrounded by fruit orchards, herb gardens and The main entrance at Le Couvent des Minimes is a former 17th-century chapel olive groves, plants have always been paramount here (Louis XIV’s personal botanist once came to study the secret powers of herbs with the resident monks). The spectacular transformation includes 15 additional rooms and an airy, minimalist restructuring of all the public spaces, which include a chapel, cloister and pool as well as two restaurants headed by awardwinning newcomer chef Louis Gachet. And then, the showstopper: a reinvented 2,500sq m holistic spa. Founded in Mane in 1976, the iconic cosmetic marque L’Occitane is indigenous to the terroir – here, the herbal body-care treatments, infused with almonds, honey, lavender and lemon, are combined with new wellness options from private coaching to yoga. PHOTO THINK UTOPIA ON PROPERTY At Villa Baulieu, order a bottle of the full-bodied 2016 Villa Baulieu red, with notes of berries, liquorice and spices, while Château de Fonscolombe produces few better bottles than the pale-pink Chateau de Fonscolombe Coteaux d’Aix-en-Provence rosé 2022, with notes of cranberry, pomegranate and mint. The fruity Chateau La Coste Grand Vin Rosé 2020 is exceptionally lovely, with notes of citrus and flowers. Finally, at Le Couvent des Minimes Hôtel & Spa L’Occitane, book a signature anti-ageing facial with extracts of the aptly named Mediterranean everlasting flower immortelle. CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 25
