The Best Hotels Near Le Florida, by the Record
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Four rooms in a restored Gascon farmhouse in a corner of Gascony that likes to call itself the French Tuscany. One room has a freestanding tub and a stone fireplace, two have Jacuzzis, and the whole place has the eclectic, cheerful décor of someone who spent years in Parisian fashion before coming home to run their great-grandmother's inn. The kitchen punches above its size, and the Michelin Guide has taken notice of the hotel.
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An old tannery on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route, converted by two Parisians into a five-room boutique hotel after four years of careful work. The co-owner, a former decorator, had custom paint shades mixed for the lime-washed walls, and the rooms pair designer furniture with vintage pieces and deep bathtubs. A separate Pilgrim Cottage houses hikers more simply. Breakfast arrives on ceramics made in the village.
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A former monastery beside the hot springs of Barbotan-les-Termes, this hotel draws on the springs for its own spa and carries a Michelin Key. The 25 rooms feel traditionally stylish without trying too hard, and the dining room runs on Michel Guérard's seasonal French menu, so the cooking is a genuine reason to stay rather than an afterthought. The kind of place where the itinerary writes itself: soak, eat, sleep, repeat.
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A 13th-century mansion that once belonged to the Count of Toulouse now does duty as a small hotel in a medieval walled village in Gascony. Designer Jacques Garcia, whose fingerprints are all over Paris's grandest hotel interiors, brought his full Baroque energy here: silk taffeta canopies, gilded mirrors, clawfoot tubs, chandeliers heavy enough to give a structuralist pause. A courtyard pool and cooking classes round things out before dinner inevitably calls.
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An 18th-century aristocratic summer house northwest of Toulouse, now a 23-room luxury boutique hotel where the interiors have been restored to their formal best and quietly modernized so the climate control actually works. Rooms look onto the gardens or the courtyard, and the suites manage both. The restaurant, Le Verdurier, named for the royal kitchen's vegetable specialist, draws from the hotel's own gardens.
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A 19th-century palace tucked into a small spa town at the foot of the Pyrénées, this family-owned hotel and spa has been drawing French gourmets for decades on the strength of Michel Guérard's famously low-calorie cuisine, which apparently lets guests lose weight while eating very well. Four-poster beds, antique tapestries, herb gardens, and natural-spring treatments round out the package. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.