Hotel Crillon Le Brave

Hotel Crillon Le Brave

Built into the hillside of the village it shares its name with, in the southern reaches of the Dentelles de Montmirail, an hour from Avignon and twenty minutes from Vaison-la-Romaine, Crillon le Brave occupies a cluster of stone houses dating back to the 12th century, once the residence of the Crillon family whose most famous son, Louis des Balbes de Berton de Crillon, fought alongside Henri IV. The hotel opened in 1989, the work of an American couple who bought the ruined village houses and spent years restoring them room by room, and it has passed through several owners since, most recently joining the Pavillon group, who oversee a scattering of similarly storied French addresses. There are 35 rooms and suites spread across the old houses, connected by stone staircases and terraced gardens that climb toward the church at the top of the village, with views south across the Comtat plain to Mont Ventoux. The interiors lean into the thick walls and worn stone of the original buildings, with limewashed plaster, terracotta floors, and furniture that mixes Provençal antiques with simpler contemporary pieces, avoiding the over-dressed chintz that afflicts a lot of hotels of this vintage. The restaurant, La Madeleine, looks out over the valley and serves a menu built around the produce of the Vaucluse, including vegetables from the hotel's own garden and lamb from the Sisteron hills. There is a spa with treatments using local lavender and olive oil, two swimming pools set into the terraces, and a wine cellar carved into the rock with a list weighted toward the Rhône, including bottles from Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Gigondas, both visible from the upper terraces on a clear day. What it feels like is a small Provençal village that happens to be a hotel, with guests crossing narrow lanes between buildings to get from their room to dinner, and the sense of having the run of a place rather than checking into it. The terraces are the real draw, particularly in the early evening when the light goes gold over the plain and the heat of the day starts to lift, and a lot of the experience is simply sitting still with a glass of something cold and watching the colour change on Mont Ventoux. It suits couples and small groups who want quiet rather than activity, who are happy to drive into the surrounding villages for the day and come back for dinner, and who don't mind a bit of walking between buildings, since nothing here is on one flat level. You should not come if you want a single grand building with a lobby and lifts, or if stairs and slopes are a problem, since the whole property is built up a hillside and getting around involves steps. You should come for the sense of being folded into a working Provençal village, for the views over the Dentelles and Ventoux that don't let up, and for the kind of stillness that comes from being somewhere genuinely removed from the main roads. The short version: A restored 12th-century hillside village in the Dentelles de Montmirail with 35 rooms, two pools, a Rhône-focused cellar, and views to Mont Ventoux that anchor everything else.