Too sick to to cook this week, I am taking you a weekend mini break in my favourite town on earth, St-Rémy-de-Provence.
As you might expect by the name, St Rémy is at the heart of Provence, southern France around 20km between Avignon and Arles. It has been home to Romans, Nostradamus, Van Gogh and Princess Caroline of Monaco. With chic hotels, shops and restaurants, St Rémy has an upmarket Parisien air. I have been fortunate enough to stay there around half a dozen times in the past twelve years and have watched it become even more well-to-do in that time. That’s not to say that it isn’t friendly or welcoming. No St Tropez snobbishness or disdain here. St Rémy is very down to earth and there are still a few scruffy buildings waiting to be renovated… but you’d better be quick!
Small but perfectly formed, St Rémy forms a tightly packed circle around a single plane tree lined boulevard. With 10,000 inhabitants yet stuffed with maybe fifty restaurants, it is clear that food is high on people’s priorities here. The Wednesday market draws a huge crowd each week.
Our most recent visit was for 2 nights in September this year. I can show you round the hotel where we stayed and let you know about a couple of other places we have stopped in before. In a future post I will show you some places we visited nearby such as the Sunday Antique Fair at L’Isle sur la Sorgue.
The garden at Hotel Les Ateliers de l’image
We returned to one of our honeymoon hotels; Les Ateliers de l’image. Initially a quirky three star hotel built in the shell of the town’s old cinema that made it onto the pages of the popular boutique Hip Hotels guide. The name means “Photography Workshop” and the hotel runs bespoke photography courses for groups. The owners later expanded the hotel into the long derelict Hotel de Provence on the nearby main boulevard around the town. With the large new wing came an expansive garden and new luxury facilities; suites, a larger pool, a sushi restaurant, even a tree house.
We stayed in a room like this. Standard rooms are from 165€ per night. Photo credit Hotel Les Ateliers de l’image
Superior rooms start from 300€ per night depending on season. Photo credit Hotel Les Ateliers de l’image
The Treehouse Suite is 300€ off season but I cannot say whether it might be bit draughty then! Photo credit Hotel Les Ateliers de l’image
The lovely cocktail bar set inside the old cinema music hall building. We enjoyed fabulous glasses with Baileys in crushed ice here on our honeymoon.
At weekends, they still show films in the cocktail bar. Above the screen you can see what was previously the projectionist’s gallery. Photo credit Hotel Les Ateliers de l’image
Ephemera from the hotel’s past remains; flip up cinema seating.
As you know from reading my blog, Saint-Remy is one of our favorite places in the world. Thanks for taking us along and your lovely pictures.
Sam
Great Post! Your photos look amazing! I wish i could visit some day too! 🙂
It's also one of my favourite towns – so pretty. We used to stay regularly at Hotel Les Antiques, this end of the road up to Glanum and VanGogh's asylum (but it locsed down :(), and eat at Reinne St Jeanne – which was always delicious, especially the potato dauphinois! Makes me miss it!