Hotel Chateau Des Alpilles by Jamie Dunford Wood

As you drive up the short but impressive avenue of plane trees from the road from St Remy you are instantly captivated. This is everything you imagine a dreamy southern chateau to be: solid, imposing, sleepy and slightly fallen from grace. As you glance around the wide lawns, the palms and clumps of bamboo, bucolic also springs to mind.

First impressions inside are encouraging - traditional antique furnishings, a large gilt mirror, suitable oil paintings and original stucco-ed high ceilings. However, once you focus you begin to notice some oddities - for example a side salon full of white plastic bucket chairs (c.1960); red leather and steel tubular tables in the bar (1970). Either the two women owners have a winning sense of humour, or a abnormal sense of taste, or they simply ran out of funds (1980).

Upstairs the few bedrooms in the main building are traditionally furnished in country house style - the whole place pervaded with a wonderful sense of past history. An annex in the grounds nearby provides 7 of the 21 bedrooms - the rooms here are modern with bright if unremarkable corporate décor and modern art on the walls. Elsewhere is a 12m pool, a double tennis court, a wonderfully large lawn, and small tables and chairs and hammocks dotted around under massive shady trees, often housing art tour types sketching the scene. Best of all on a fine day is eating breakfast out on the gravelled terrace. This place has bags of character and reasonable room rates and does hospitality the old fashioned way - an ideal place to chill out.