The legendary Chateau de Bagnols is the kind of place you thought only existed in fairy stories. Set in a tiny village this historic Chateau has towers and turrets, a drawbridge, and a moat. The castle has an ‘old’ and ‘new’ area. The ‘old’ area is from the 13th Century and the ‘new’ is from the 15th Century.

It is decorated in ostentatious but refined style resplendent with silver tumblers, antique marble bathrooms, and four-poster oak beds. As you would expect from a French castle, the kitchens are at the center of the building and the hotel has been designed so that you have to walk by the steam and rush en route to any other area of the hotel. The formal gardens are where you can enjoy pre-dinner drinks and the dining is the best of French cuisine without acquiescing to try-hard modern gastronomy.

When you stay here you will get a sense of what it would have been like to be a member of a European royal family enjoying a grand style of living.