Synonymous with champagne-popping, yacht-bobbing, the see-and-be-seen crowd – the South of France is bumper to bumper in summer. The smart move for those who want to experience it without the throngs? Come in shoulder season – late October – when roads clear, restaurants open back up to locals, and the sun still happily shines.
I first holidayed in Provence six years ago, in the hazy hilltop town of Gordes – back before the crowds properly caught on. I fell wildly in love. With Provence, yes, but also this whole corner of the South: the old-school glamour of Ramatuelle, the creative edge just outside Nice, the food markets and dusty olive groves of the Luberon.
On my most recent visit I took on a whistlestop road trip: flying into Marseille (a city that deserves its own standalone weekend), then on through vineyards, back down to the sea, and inland to where the artists once flocked, St-Paul de Vence. The perfect way to punctuate the trip? Three stays – each effortlessly stylish and pulling me in for a different reason. The rest was just the roads in between. Here’s how to recreate it.
Day 1-3: into the Luberon
A 90-minute hop from London into Marseille, bag in hand, SUV acquired, we scuttled (carefully – right turns at roundabouts take a minute to get used to) onto the motorway, and suddenly Provence rolled in: vines, stone villages, sunlight bouncing off bougainvillaea.
Our first stop: Capelongue, part of the Beaumier group with eight French properties, one in Ibiza and the other in Switzerland, and each somehow cooler than the last. It’s a hotel-meets-hamlet, all golden-stone Bastide buildings, terracotta rooftops, stripey yellow pool towels, and wispy green gardens.
Beaumier
Check-in was seamless, smiles all round. Our room – an orange-tiled, high-ceilinged suite – overlooked the grounds.
“It’s like a village,” I said to my fiancé, who immediately started picking from the fig trees and checking out time slots at the padel courts.
Young families and loved-up couples had already staked out pool loungers (there are two pools, one heated, one not). We missed that memo on our first morning, while too busy piling our plates high with La Bergerie’s breakfast spreads (the pastries, the mounds of butter).
Beaumier
Capelongue’s is swish but unpretentious. You can wander into Bonnieux (the town it overlooks) in a short walk, flop in the new spa (it was dolled up last summer), or sit back with a chilled rosé outside your room, and all without feeling overlooked.
Evenings brought outdoor movie screenings under the stars, and we caught a Wes Anderson, but mostly, it’s about slowing down the pace, which is exactly what you want before a long drive to the coast.
Day 3-5: saltwater at sunrise on the coast
We left early in the morning, aiming for the hotel’s sister property, Les Roches Rouges, but plotted some detours first. Lourmarin came into view quickly – cobbled streets, antique shops, cappuccinos at Les Commissions. It sells Beaumier’s wine, fun merch and provisions to stock up on). Then on to Aix-en-Provence for gingham ceramics at Stell’Art and a produce market raid: peaches, tomatoes, a baguette torn apart roadside as the ocean began to appear.
The A8 is the Riviera’s artery, skimming past Saint-Tropez and Cannes before spilling onto Saint-Raphaël. And then we were there: Les Roches Rouges – a yolk-yellow, white-trimmed modernist beauty right on the Med.
Beaumier
First revived by Festen Studio in 2017, it’s just had another chapter added by ASL Architects: 25 new rooms, big beautiful gardens, better sea access (and diving spots). The look is stripped-back but warm: tiled showers, vintage furniture, curated coffee table books, balconies seemingly dangling above the waves.
Our days quickly fell into a rhythm. We’d start by tearing into doughy brioche at breakfast, plunging into the saltwater pool carved into the rocks, jumping off straight from the pier, before speding afternoons under the pines at La Chicoula eating focaccia accompanied by chilled rosé. By 5pm spritzes marked golden hour with a soundtrack of French disco. Evenings turned into Provençal grills at Estelo, or Michelin-starred tasting menus with chef Alexandre Baule at Récif.
Beaumier
We ate well, not needing to leave, well, not wanting to, but with views like these, why even dabble with the idea?
Day 5-7: an artist’s retreat near Nice
I could have stayed salt-licked forever, but our road trip was set to turn inland next. The flight back home was from Nice, but first: a reservation for lunch at La Colombe d’Or – the fabled artist’s haunt where Calder mobiles lay by the pool, Picassos hide inside, and the crayon-like-scrawled A-sized menus are part of the legend. It had been on my bucket list for years, so we had to go all out: we ordered buttery escargot, razor-thin Parma ham draped over fat wedges of sweet melon, aioli-dipped white fish, and finished with frothy macchiatos in the garden.
Down the hill lay our final stop: Toile Blanche in Saint-Paul de Vence. The Leroy Brothers – three siblings who are both artists and hoteliers – have turned this from a modest B&B into a 27-suite creative retreat.
Beaumier
Some rooms come with private plunge pools (perfect for a morning dip), but there’s also a villa, three pools (the top one being our favourite), sprawling gardens, and an art gallery on-site, too.
Rooms are stocked with eco-friendly Les Choses Simples products, but more interestingly, they’re set up as wellness spaces: in-room massages, al fresco yoga, and a tree planted per stay partnership with Hotels for Trees.
Beaumier
The food is rather excellent and in-the-know regulars book way in advance. Lunch might be grilled octopus, pan con tomate and sardines in oil at the more beachy and casual La Guinguette, while dinner might be sausage-stuffed vegetables, a rack of lamb or super-sized prawns, with views across the valley. The vibe is barefoot-luxe, with an eye on design.
And then there’s the art. Rooms and communal spaces double as galleries, while Toile Blanche Contemporary showcases rotating exhibitions – sometimes by the brothers themselves, sometimes by their friends. It’s less a hotel with art on the walls, more creative hub you happen to sleep in.
We returned back to the UK from here, golden-skinned, full of peaches and poolside spritzes.
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