Travel Blog – Mr & Mrs Smith Boutique & Luxury Hotels

Picture the scene: the sun is setting in the Côte d’Azur, glasses glitter with champagne, the scent of flowers vies with wafts of garlic from the kitchen, and a group of singers stand on the terrace, letting their voices soar into the serenity. Bastide Saint Mathieu has captured our imagination with its Riviera Opera events, held each summer – as a result, it’s our latest hotel heart-throb.

Style Regally rustic villa
Setting Green, green Grasse

Why this week? So you can secure seats at the Bastide’s upcoming musical mélanges: the Opera Gala Dinner is on 12 July; the Tosca Dinner takes place on 14 July. Expect to be serenaded by the Charles Court Opera and seduced by the hotel’s dinner.

Our favourite bits The Cole Porter Junior Suite is a sprawling, luxurious expanse on the top floor, with beautiful views of the gardens from the private terrace; its warm palette of peach, gold and terracotta offsets antique furniture in heavy, dark wood. Thanks to owners who keep on getting everything just right, it’s impossible not to feel sublimely relaxed during every moment of your stay. If you insist on existing a little more energetically, there is plenty to do, with badminton, golf, tennis and sailing within the realms of possibility, as well as a very inviting swimming pool in the garden. Contact the expert Mr & Mrs Smith travel team for more details.

Mr & Mrs Smith say: ‘As a perfumer, I visit Grasse several times a year. My journey always begins with the same swerving climb from sea level up into the foothills of the Alpes-Maritimes. However, on this occasion, my destination is not a fragrance house but the pine-scented Bastide Saint Mathieu, a luxury guesthouse occupying an 18th-century property 10 minutes from the town centre.

Magically, unmanned, the wrought-iron gates fling themselves open, and our car slowly crunches up the long gravel driveway. We pass groves of ancient olive trees and the kind of flawless rustic French landscape that inspires people to move here permanently. The first thing that strikes us about this pristinely restored country residence, is the Bastide’s perfectly proportioned grand façade, and the calming creamy colour of the weathered stonework.’

Read the rest of our anonymous review of Bastide St Mathieu hotel by perfumier Linda Pilkington…

This entry was posted on Friday, May 27th, 2011 at 6:03 pm and is filed under Arts & culture, Boutique hotels, Côte d'Azur, France, Worth getting out of bed for. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.