Top 10: the best C?te d'Azur hotels with pools
An expert guide to the top hotels on the C?te d'Azur with swimming pools, including the best places to stay for infinity pools, top-notch poolside service, sumptuous spas, sea views and more, in locations including Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Cap d'Antibes, Nice, Monte Carlo and St Tropez.
Opened in 1908, the Grand-H?tel is a real jewel in the south of France's crown and since a Four Seasons takeover, benefits from the group's exceptional service standards. Club Dauphin is the hotel's pièce de résistance; a vast heated infinity seawater pool, accessed via a funicular in luscious gardens. Once there you can enjoy spectacular views of the Mediterranean from luxurious sun loungers, served complimentary refreshments on the hour by the club’s attentive pool boys (there is also an informal restaurant), plus free sun cream. If you want to improve your technique in the pool, book a lesson with Pierre Gruneberg (€98 euros - around ￡84), the club’s famous swimming instructor, whose pupils have included everyone from Charlie Chaplin’s children to Robin Williams.
? The best hotels in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat
An elite retreat – without the price tag – on one of the most sought-after stretches of coastline in the world. Housed in an old diving academy just a minute's walk from a golden beach, Villa Fabulite looks like the world’s most elegant surf shack. Laid-back yet clued-up staff deliver mojitos to the linen-shaded loungers dotted around the ancient olive grove gardens. The wooden-decked swimming pool (heated in April, May and October) welcomes happy families and couples who adore the serene style. Most rooms have a tiny garden terrace out front. Kindly staff can arrange every insider activity on the peninsula: paddleboarding off the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc (€15/￡12 an hour), in-room massages or a visit from a personal trainer.
? The best Cap d'Antibes hotels
Though minutes from the centre, La Pérouse seems slightly withdrawn, in a private stretch of Provence where comfort, politeness and flowers hold sway. From the bright, light-wood reception throughout, the place appears to be staffed entirely by the smartest women in the sharpest suits. It’s just as well as you’re never going to find your room without help. Because built up and around the rocky headland, the hotel winds hither and yon to fool the brightest GPS. At some stage, it will release you to the loveliest hotel terrace in Nice where pool, bar and restaurant are found in a setting not unlike a Proven?al village square. Only Superior and Deluxe rooms have balconies or terraces and bear in mind that the higher up the hotel you are, the better the view.
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This luxury hotel in Monte Carlo is propped up on pillars over the sea, offering fabulous views, an excellent choice of restaurants and a rooftop pool. The Formula 1 whizzes past it on the land side. It’s expensive, but worth it, and family friendly, too. Imagine the sort of outside cabin you might get if you’d paid quite a lot for a cruise, transfer it to land – and you have the average Fairmont sea-view room. There are light blues, dark wood furniture inspired by the 1930s, much space and comfort but nothing to detract from the main attraction, which is the sea beyond the big windows. To appreciate it better, each room has its balcony.
? The best luxury hotels in Monte Carlo
No-holds-barred elegance since the 12th century, marooned above the Riviera’s hoi polloi but within striking distance of Nice, Antibes and Cannes. Coastal day-trippers drive up for refined lunches, which are best slept off alongside the chateau’s mirror-calm infinity pool. If Louis XIV lived in the present day, and demanded Wi-Fi and a Bose stereo, even one of the hotel's 16 timelessly cool classic rooms would suffice. All guestrooms are big, and every bathroom is pannelled with more marble than a Florentine chapel. For balconies and sea views upgrade to one of the 35 suites.
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This five-star hotel has been on Monaco's society scene since the 1920s, despite sitting on the French side of the border. Show-offs arrive by boat to this ultra-luxurious Art Deco hotel's private jetty, and golden-heeled guests dine upon Michelin-starred cuisine after a day by the Olympic-sized pool or private beach. Though you can laze on the beach all day long (they’ll even bring lunch to your private beach cabin), you’ll probably want to drag yourself to the spa for La Prairie and eco-certified Ymalia treatments. India Mahdavi has individually designed each of the 40 rooms and suites. Frescoes inspired by Matisse and Cocteau embellish the walls, while soft furnishings are decked with stripes and bathrooms are walled in white marble.
? The best beach hotels in France
Expect reliable top-class standards and an airy, modern design from this five-star chain hotel. It offers outstanding views, an excellent spa and large rooms, close to the port and city centre. The top floor Les Trois Forts restaurant overlooks the Med and serves seafood plucked straight from it. As well as the outdoor pool, there are excellent spa facilities, and a lovely lobby bar and terrace – where you’ll have to be pretty sleek to fit in with the clean contemporary lines (of both the bar and your fellow customers). If the budget can stand it, choose the ‘Superior’ or ‘Luxury’ rooms; they have the better views.
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No facade is as deceptive as this 19th-century townhouse in Nice. Who would imagine the riot of artistic creation that enlivens its boutique interior? Highly individual rooms are decorated by contemporary artists and the exotic restaurant garden is an art work in itself. When calm and tranquillity beckon, retreat to the hotel pool or spa with hammam, sauna and some truly lovely beauty and relaxation packages. More conventional rooms have soft colour schemes, traditional furnishings and a wall fresco inspired by a famous place, mythical character or magical tale. It's a 10-minute walk from the Promenade des Anglais and the city’s pebble beaches.
St Tropez can be a boisterous and bustling pace. Walk into the Pan De?, though, and calm washes over you. It must be like this in the smaller palaces of India. The elephants, carpets and carvings are complemented by great 19th-century portraits and Kama-Sutra colours. Outside, the garden and pool are exquisite, while beyond the pool-side loungers stand thatched gazebos. There’s also a little spa – but the Pan De? is so elegant, civilised and conducive to repose that a spa seems entirely superfluous. As if all the above were not enough, the Pan De? has a bar at the bottom of the garden which reminds me of a Maharajah’s little shooting lodge.
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With style and panache, four-star Napoléon evokes everything that this privileged part of the Riviera, winter stomping ground of the English aristocracy in the mid-19th century, is about — sun, sea, tasteful dining and extraordinary modern art. There's a solar-heated pool, gym, and fabulous back garden planted with subtropical greenery reminiscent of the exotic gardens created by the British here in the 1880s. If you insist on an open window at night, ask for a mountain-side room overlooking the garden. Sea-facing rooms have a big blue panorama that only gets better the higher up the five-storey building you climb.
