Some hotels put you in your place. And other luxury five-star hotels in the shade. Most guests staying at the Les Roches Blanches on the French Riviera arrive by helicopter, private yacht, shiny dark-windowed chauffeured limos, new Alfa Romeos or brand-new Porsche. You cannot help feeling self-conscious and a little low rent turning up in a pair of old flip flops. And a little tawdry if they are not diamond encrusted. That is why low season is the best time to visit. Sneaker and shoe-upmanship are easier to play, if you are a paying guest or just a visitor taking up the iconic Mediterranean 440 Euro Sisley Spa and lunch offer.
Hotel
Cassis’s White Cliff Hotel or Hotel Les Roches Blanches (to distinguish it from any high-end B&Bs in Dover) is one of the finest hotels in the world. And since its recent refurbishment and luxurious extensions it could be the finest. Nombre Neuf Avenue Des Calanques overlooking Cassis harbour and Cap Canaille – Europe’s highest sea cliff – is one of the chicest hotel addresses in the world.
The 1877 Art Deco former private mansion with corbelled balconies, black granite floors, velvet, walnut and rosewood furniture, peacock-themed lobby and original snail-shaped swimming pool are the embodiment of Riviera self-indulgence. It is the place to sit with a pastis or a flute of the very best Champagne and take up your box seat view of Cassis marina and take in the different glows during the day from Cape Canaille – Europe’s highest cliff. And blend in with pittosporum tobira and pigfaces (soured figs) to watch the beautiful people at play.
Room
Classic, signature duplex, deluxe mer, or junior suite terrace, just looking at photos of the rooms feels like you should be charged for. There is nowhere like the Roches Blanches. It offers ‘High-Definition Bonheur’.
Unsurprisingly, Roches Blanches is another one of those posh ‘Grand Dame’ hotels Sir Winston Churchill stayed at. A 3,000 Euros a night suite is named after him – to live a luxury lifestyle, you can’t go far wrong following Churchillian check-in locations. He spoiled his easel.
Food and drink
If you are one of those people who like to pre-order your sea bass or bream 24 hours in advance to make sure it is properly salt-baked and one of those globe-trotting gourmands who likes your John Dory (St Pierre en Francais, if you prefer) served with fennel compote then they will oblige. If you are the sort who chooses your sybaritic getaway accommodation largely on the reputation of the executive and pastry chefs, Alexandre Ager and Valentin Fabry won’t disappoint.
They oversee three elegant interior and al fresco fine dining locales within a natural park. The Wolf Bar, Rocco and Les Belles Canailles, offer everything from les dragons rolls, caviar oscietre et ses condiments and les douces sucrees served by charming staff in squeak-less white shoes.
The drink Kir Royale comes from Burgundy and not Cassis (the word also being French for blackcurrant). The best local wines are made by another famous footballer and former manager of Fulham FC. Not Scott Parker or Roy Hodgson but Jean Tigana who managed the Cottagers between 2000-2003. The 1936 Cassis AOC, one of the first in the country, has twelve vineyards but his Domaine in the only one offering tours and tastings. They are conducted by his daughter.
To do
If you are one of those salon de beaute habitues, Roches Blanches tops most bucket list of beauty spots. The Sisley Spa offers all the usual personal massages with ‘tailored and targeted delicious sensoriality’ for all skin types and silhouettes. It doesn’t spare on the eucalyptus or lavender essence. The hotel also has a fitness room if elliptical bikes, treadmills and weight benches are your thing. There is a high acreage of lolling room at the hotel and along its famous coast.
Once you have enjoyed the two pools, had enough of your en-suite hammam, played enough pétanque on the Med’s edge and tired of all the majestic erosive landscape, you can hire a stand-up paddle board, fly board or a diving suit. Or tour the French fjords.
From your boat you will see the Calanque de Sormiu with its beach (a two hour walk from Cassis), Calanque de Morgiou,the mile-long Port Miou (with is 1649 plague chapel), Sugiton and Cosquer cave named after the diver who discovered its 2,700 year-old rock paintings.
La Route Des Cretans is one of the most scenic coastal drives in the Mediterranean. The 15km D141 tops the Falaises Soubeyranes, some of Europe’s highest sea cliffs, between Cap Canaille and the Bec de l’Aigle. It is a breath-taking as well as hat-taking road. Many beloved Panamá’s have been lost to the local Mistral. Corniches are generally not headwear friendly.
Once you have coffee-ed and crossaint-ed and watched the fishermen prepping and selling their catch of the day on the Quaix Des Baux (the daily conger eel filleting and wraisse de-scaling master classes are free to attend) you can take a further stroll. You will struggle to find any statues of Cassis’s notable resident, glamour model, former Playboy Playmate of The Month and Baywatch star Pamela Anderson or former French footballer and FIFA administrator Michel Platini, but there is a statue of an anchovy fisherman.
Once you have done the seventeenth century communal oven, an eglise or two, the three beaches, spritzed your pulse points with Eau de Cassis (depuis 1851), gasped at the price of furniture and property and ambled the most Provencale of Provencale markets under the plane trees at Place Baragnon with its straw hats, tapinades, fougasse breads, violet artichokes, Cote d’Azur cheeses and resident artisanal nougat maker, the chic elan of the famous Roches Blanches beckons your return.
Factbox
Address: 9 Av. des Calanques, 13260 Cassis, France
Phone: +33 4 42 01 09 30
Website: roches-blanches-cassis.com
