Westminster Hotel, Nice, France
Westminster Hotel 4 Stars
"A seafront luxury hotel which still retains its charm in Nice, a town where such a thing can be hard to find."
Hotel Overview
Review of Westminster Hotel, by Jamie Dunford Wood
This is a great location for a luxury hotel, right on the seafront, in a town where good locations are hard to find. Although associated with the Concorde chain, the Westminster name, as the manager pointed out, comes first - apparently that makes a difference, and they like to maintain their family atmosphere, independence and individuality.
The facilities
The luxury hotel certainly has that. Downstairs are huge and impressive ballrooms which have obviously seen more fashionable times, gawped at now by American guests. Built in 1880, the luxury hotel was here before its now more famous neighbour, Hotel Negresco. The check-in area is a little gimcrack, which in this case is encouraging, because the Frenchness of the place seems alive and well.
The rooms
Upstairs the decor is plain but the room sizes are decent, with some big junior suites facing the sea, with twin sinks and big tubs. They are slowly renovating this luxury hotel, and the results, currently the 2nd and 5th floors, are reasonably encouraging, with walls in textured paper and restful, beige colour ways. Nothing exciting or over ornate, but good repro furniture, little wall lights and the odd picture manage to hit the right note. You get the impression that there is continuity with the past, that this luxury hotel has grown character. We hope it will manage to retain it.
Facilities
Hotel Policies
Who stays here?
Perfect for families and couples alike.
Come for...
- Good seafront location
- Genuine character
Not Suitable for...
- Minimalist, designer types
Children
The hotel welcomes children, and provides extra beds and cots on request. A babysitting service can be arranged with the concierge.
Eating in
Dine on Mediterranean food in the elegant Le Farniente or savour the view on the seafront terrace.
The Press Say
"A fine rococo building on the Promenade des Anglais..." The Times 06Reviews
Review of Westminster Hotel, by Vitali Vitaliev
Having breakfast in the posh and windowless Salon President at Westminster Hotel is like visiting a Disneyland Haunted House pavilion: on Sunday mornings, when guests are eating to the accompaniment of the old grand piano, one can easily imagine some translucent 19th-century ghosts dancing among the tables with the giant Phantom of the Opera-style chandeliers swinging precariously to the music. Ghostly breakfast associations end here, however, for the meal itself is both plentiful and healthy with fresh tomatoes and several types of mineral water on offer.
This hotel-cum-museum is still full of the old-fashioned dusty charm which characterised it since 1880s, when it appeared as a result of merging of the two conjoint villas and with the blessings of the then Duke of Westminster (who had bestowed his name to the establishment). Echoes of those distant times can be still felt in the double doors - one for guests, the other for "servants" (or as we say now "hotel staff") in some suites; in self-indulgent Victorian "sit in" shower rooms with tiled seats; in daily breakfast times stretching comfortably until a civilised 11 o'clock and in the hotel manual which, instead of bluntly asking the guests to "vacate" their rooms (as most hotels do) by 12 o'clock, tells you - in a rather gentle old-fashioned way - that "the room is yours until midday".
Apart from the history, the main attraction of Westminster Hotel is of course its superb location, straight in the middle of the famous Promenades des Anglais - a three-mile seafront boulevard shaded by palm-trees and mimosas - and just a hundred yards away from the beach on which I was decadently chilling out precisely three hours after leaving Luton airport! A slight disadvantage of this prime location is the constant din of traffic from the boulevard, but this minor irritation pales in comparison with the luxury of being able to watch a glorious Southern sunset above the sea from your own small balcony facing the Promenade.
The Westminster's architectural excesses and the gilded splendour of the Belle Epoch (the period of comfortable and well-established decadence before the First World War), do clash with the somewhat Spartan modern interiors of all 99 non-smoking air-conditioned rooms. As well as this, some old frescoes on the walls and ceilings of the magnificent Ball Room fell victim to subsistence and are in need of restoration. The owners of Westminster are now planning substantial modernisation. Having enjoyed my short stay at the hotel, during which I myself became part of the Belle Epoque, I would think twice before meddling too much with the place which, in the words of one of its veteran employees, is resplendent with "heart, art and history".