Parador Crawl November 2011

We spent a pre-cruise week in Spain, staying in six different paradors, three of which I have not reviewed here.

Parador La Granja de San Ildefonso. The newest of the chain, this parador, an hour's drive from Madrid airport, is located in two adjacent eighteenth century palaces, once the summer residence of Spain's Bourbon kings. The public rooms are extremely spacious and luxuriously furnished, the bedrooms and bathrooms are very large. The overall impression is one of tasteful opulence. There are outdoor and indoor pools and a well equipped spa. The buffet breakfast is lavish even by parador standards. Segovia with its unrivaled Roman aquaduct is a fifteen minutes drive away.

Parador Santo Domingo Bernardo de Fresneda. This is the second parador in the small Rioja town of Santo Domingo de la Calzada. The older one is across the street from the cathedral, this one is barely a ten minutes walk away. It's located in a sixteenth century convent which has been very successfully modernized. The rooms are standard parador size, extremely quiet at night and very comfortably furnished. For whatever reason this costs roughly two thirds of what the older one goes for although, to my eye, the differences between them are imperceptible. There is a large bird sanctuary just outside of the town.

Parador Arties. The Arties Parador was formerly a stepchild of the chain, with small, rather dark rooms not up to parador standards. A few years ago the then Director recognized this fact and acted accordingly. The old building was gutted and transformed into duplexes and an entirely new stucture was built next to it to house the public rooms and the standard bedrooms, which are now large and airy, with splendid views of the nearby Pyrennees. There are indoor and outdoor pools and several ski areas are in the immediate vicinity. Arties is in the heart of the highly picturesque Val d'Aran in Northern Catalonia, actually on the northern slope of the Pyrennees (one traverses the Vielha tunnel to drive there from Spain) and the Val de Boi, with its delightful eleventh century Romanesque churches built in the Lombard style is half an hour's drive to the south.

Hotel Le Chene Vert St Pourcain sur Sioule

Again, this is about the food. Some of the rooms in this little hotel in northern Auvergne have been brought up to date, the others are quite old fashioned, all are on the small side. The decor is on the provincial/depressing side. But the restaurant, which once had a Michelin star, serves up extremely tasty regional fare. ( I recall having the absolute best skate cooked in butter and chives that I have ever tasted there). The prices are not prohibitive, a double can be had for $80, there' a prix fixe for $25, there is a substantial list of good, extremely affordable local wines. One can take in a genuine curiosity in the little town: There is a Romanesque church whose nave suddenly deviates at an angle of thirty degrees in its middle, as if the architect had changed his mind in mid construction. And there's a quite interesting wine museum in town for the oenophiles among you.

Grand Hotel Montespan-Talleyrand Bourbon L'Archambault

This little spa town in northernmost Auvergne was once the favorite of royalty for its restorative baths. Madame de Montespan, Madame de Sevigne and Talleyrand built substantial houses here in which to reside for the season. These three massive stone edifices, standing next to each other, were combined and transformed into a hotel in the late nineteenth century. Staying here is very much like stepping back into the Belle Epoque. The furniture, mostly wicker in the guest rooms, the decor, the wall paper all evoke it. There's a solarium full of tropical plants. One may still take the waters if one is so inclined, if not there's an outdoor pool. The cuisine is traditional, not to say old fashioned, cream sauces abound. In the stately dining room numerous old ladies eat at tables for one on which sit wine bottles that have been carefully marked th show the previous evening's level. And it won't break the bank, a double starts at $90, there's a prix fixe for $35.

Chateau de la Beguse Valbonne

Lets say you have a hankering for a few days of sun and swimming in the sea but would just as soon avoid the hullabaloo and most likely crippling expense of the big seaside palaces. It's hard to find a good little hotel in the away from the sea streets, most of them are designed to offer room and board to French families who are looking for cheap vacations and what is offered is just that. So perhaps here is your solution: Valbonne is a little town about eight miles inland from Cannes, you can be at the beach (there are quite a few nice ones which sell day tickets) in ten minutes. The chateau, a modernized seventeenth century sructure is a mile or so out of town, in a wood and on the side of an eighteen hole golf course. (I'm not a golfer so I can't comment on the quality of the play, neither on the greens fee, which at over a hundred dollars strikes me as high). The rooms are nicely decorated and extremely quiet in the night, something that can't be guaranteed on the Corniche in Cannes no matter how much you pay. There's a very nice outdoor pool, in good weather one dines on a terrace that overlooks the ninth hole. You can get a double for around $150 for the night, if you stay three nights the forth is free and, in all but July and August, if you can book two months ahead of time you get a 40% reduction.

Travels in Fairy Land: Le Relais de l'Empereur Montelimar

It was shortly after the end of World War II, we were driving from Paris to the Riviera (Yes, you little pipsqueak, they had cars back then}. It was a protracted journey, our car, an old La Salle that had been up on blocks throughout the war, broke down at least twice a day. One such breakdown occured in Montelimar, a mid size town in the Rhone valley. I found us a three star hotel, the three star Relais de l'Empereur, so named because Napoleon had stayed the night on his way to Paris on his return from Elba. (The following, successive headlines in a Paris newspaper of the day are an object lesson in the susceptibility of the media to the changes in politcal climate: The Corsican Monster Reported To Have Fled Elba. Bonaparte Lands in France. Napoleon in Lyon. The Emperor Makes His Triumphal Entry Into Paris). We had a well appointed, large room with a marble bath. We both ate a copious four course dinner and drank a good Cotes du Rhone. I made a longish phone call to Paris to get advice on what to do about the car The next morning we had a full breakfast. The bill for ALL of this came to eight dollars and fifty cents. Now, one has to keep in mind that the French economy was still in shambles from the war; the dollar was king, while it had been pegged at five French francs before the war it was now trading at 350; and these were the provinces. For all the obvious reasons you won't be able to replicate the experience today, but it remains ineradicably etched in my memory. Anyway, the next day we were in Cannes and back in the real world.

Les Baux de Provence Auberge de la Benvengudo

One has to keep in mind that Provence and the Riviera are not exactly recent discoveries as vacation destinations -- the British were already flocking there in the middle of the nineteenth century and nowadays, in season, there are hordes of French and foreign tourists and most hotels are fully booked. This means that the top hotels charge fantasy prices and even at the lower levels you'll hardly find any bargains. My preference is to stay inland, I no longer much care for the frenetic atmosphere of the seaside resorts. Les Beaux is an unbelievably picturesque village of stone houses that perch on the top of an escarpment. There's a massive castle and there are fantastic views of the surrounding countryside and the Rhone delta. Benvengudo means welcome in the Provencal dialect, and this is what you will experience in this pleasant converted farmhouse situated at the base of the citadel. The rooms are decorated in the local style with a profusion of brightly printed cottons, the prevailing atmosphere is one of contented relaxation. There is a delightful garden where, on warm evenings (which in Provence can persist well into fall) a fixed menu which varies with what was on offer at the market that day is served. Doubles start at $150 for the night.

Hotel Lameloise Chagny

Alright, so I admit this is a stretch, but I'm of the opinion that everyone should treat himself to a three star Michelin meal at least once in a lifetime. (We did many years ago when the French franc which had for years been pegged at five to the dollar suddenly nosedived to ten to one and this sort of thing was very affordable). Chagny is a pleasant little market town in central Burgundy, near Beaune. The Hotel Lameloise, a onetime coaching inn, has been thoroughly modernized, the rooms, while not large, are beautifully decorated in top quality materials. The bathrooms are perfect. But what it's all about is the food. Exquisite care is taken in its preparation. When we ate here I had ordered a dish of sweetbreads as a first course and when it was brought to the table the gas flame underneath the presentation dish had blown out on the way from the kitchen. Noticing this, the maitre d'hotel, with profuse appologies to us, told the waiter to take it back, I could not possibly be presented with a dish that was not at the proper temperature, they would cook me a new dish of sweetbreads, it would only be a matter of ten minutes. They would of course cook madame's first course afresh as well. Well, it was worth the wait, every course of that meal was memorable. As a main course I had the filet mignon with lightly braised foie gras -- the meat was so tender that it could easily be cut with a fork. While the larger rooms are out of sight, one can get a standard one for under two hundred dollars for the night. It's the restaurant that's pricey, the cheapest prix fixe is $135. Oh well, have dinner at one of the ubiquitous MacDonalds the next evening, that will even things out.