Pikeynet reviews~ Bastide de Gordes

Area: Gordes, Provence, France
Price guide: £250/night
Stay: 3 day weekend (Friday to Sunday), flying from Gatwick into Marseille and hiring a car.

Comment

Access to Bastide de Gordes is a pleasure in itself. Driving through the gorgeous Provence countryside you skirt around a valley and up to the top of a hill where the little village of Gordes nestles on the top. The hotel is on a main road, but has limited parking opposite where you leave the car and walk into the main reception. Buildings seem to surround the top of the hill so there are no public views unless you get through a building, so walking through the reception, you’re greeted with the most spectacular view, one that was previously hidden! The check in staff takes your details and your car keys where they take the luggage out, and place the car in their secure car park hidden around the back.

The reception and lounge area are clean, well decorated and impressive. The hotel did not have a lift but a number of staircases, all of which access all areas. The room we stayed in was one of the lower priced ones, which was cute, and the bathroom ok, but nothing to write home about. This room also had a view of the road – the higher priced ones having a view of the valley… or rather “a view”!

This wasn’t so much of a problem as we didn’t stay in there much. Outside the hotel has an extremely impressive swimming pool perched on a ledge with the stunning view. Around were grass areas with sunloungers and tables. Above on another level was a nice seating area, used as an extension of the dining room.

Bastide de Gordes had 2 restaurants, and both looked impressive. We ate in the main one and although the meal was expensive at about £160, it was absolutely superb. Again, I’m no good at describing food, but this was one of the best meals I have ever had. The room, the ambiance, the staff, the service (and these are separate), the starter was some bizarre French thing but tasted very good and the main course of some dead French animal was just incredible. All washed down with a wonderful bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape, which is my favourite. Which one I didn’t know – I’ve never seen a wine list with 8 pages of Chateauneuf du Pape variants! It was an absolutely fantastic meal and evening. Big, big thumbs up here. French dining at its finest!

In the morning we had breakfast in their separate breakfast room which overlooks the pool and the valley, however it was a disaster. Hardly anything available, no staff around, just awful. We complained at reception and they said that sometimes they’re caught out when 70% of the hotel is full of one group as they have to run two breakfasts separately but don’t have any additional staff. They apologised profusely and removed the charge from the bill (18 Euros each!). The next morning we found a local café and had a fantastic breakfast for 5 Euros! Much nicer!


Gordes is a lovely place to go to do things if you have a car. We didn’t really have a plan expect drove to what looked nice! The best way. We found the town Chateauneuf du Pape and saw the vines and the famous castle it refers to. What we didn’t know is there’s only one wall of it left. During the war the Germans used it to store munitions and when retreating, detonated it. Hence no castle. Looks good from a distance though! We also found some sweet villages, drove up Mont Ventoux (information here) and had lunch in a gorgeous little café in the middle of absolutely nowhere. A nowhere place so nice we thought about buying something there J

So to summarise, a lovely hotel with stunning views, a nice bunch of facilities and a fantastic restaurant in a really nice area with lots to do.


 

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