Hotel Konti Bordeaux by HappyCulture

Marble Floors, Retro Bathrooms and a Games Room

The building is eighteenth century and the interior deliberately is not. Rooms at the Konti run to mottled furniture, textured and graphic wall treatments, marble underfoot and bathrooms that lean frankly retro, a register the house calls chic and arty and that reads, in practice, as vintage handled with a light touch. Downstairs there is a library and a games room, which is an unusual pair of things to find in a Bordeaux city hotel and tells you the place expects guests to stay in rather than pass through. The stone shell does the history. The furniture does the rest.

Why It Works

We kept this one because the position and the personality arrive together. Rue Montesquieu is inside the Triangle d’Or, the most expensive few hundred metres in the city, and the hotel has fifty rooms rather than the fifteen a boutique house of this character usually runs to, which keeps it reachable. The rooms are soundproofed and air conditioned, the two specifications that decide a summer stay in a dense centre. Dogs are accepted and families are catered for. And the design has an author’s hand on it rather than a decorator’s catalogue.

Why This Location

The Triangle d’Or is the wedge of eighteenth-century Bordeaux formed by the Cours de l’Intendance, the Allées de Tourny and the Cours Georges Clémenceau, and rue Montesquieu runs through the middle of it. The Place des Grands Hommes and its market rotunda are a minute away, the Grand Théâtre and the Opéra National barely further, and the restaurants and wine merchants of the quarter are all within a short walk. Head east and the rue Sainte-Catherine, the Place de la Bourse and the miroir d’eau follow in order. This is the address the city keeps for itself.

Fast Facts

• Price: Premium

• Vibe: Chic and arty, vintage detail, central, sociable downstairs

• Rooms: Fifty rooms, soundproofed and air conditioned, some facing the inner courtyard, with marble floors and retro bathrooms

• Best For: Design travellers, couples, families and dog owners who want a Triangle d’Or address

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: The library and games room downstairs, a pair of rooms almost no city hotel bothers with any more

• Dining: Breakfast on site and hot drink facilities in the rooms; the restaurants of the Place des Grands Hommes and the Cours de l’Intendance are a minute away

• Amenities: Library, games room, laundry facilities, air conditioning, soundproofing, dogs accepted

• Attractions: Place des Grands Hommes, Cours de l’Intendance and Allées de Tourny within a minute or two, the Grand Théâtre, rue Sainte-Catherine, the Place de la Bourse and the miroir d’eau

Fifty Rooms, and Which One to Ask For

The rooms vary more than the count suggests, in size, in outlook and in how much of the vintage register they carry. Some look onto the inner courtyard, which is the choice for a light sleeper even with the soundproofing in place; others give onto the street and more light. All are air conditioned with individual control, and all carry hot drink facilities, a television and fast wifi. Bathrooms are the detail people remember, retro in fittings and finished in marble. On a stay of more than two nights it is worth naming a preference at booking.

What Downstairs Is For

A library and a games room sound like affectations until it rains, which in Bordeaux it does. They give the hotel somewhere to be that is neither the bedroom nor a bar, and they are the reason guests here tend to arrive back mid-afternoon rather than staying out. Laundry facilities are on hand, which matters more than it sounds on a long trip through the south west. Breakfast is served on site, and the Place des Grands Hommes, one minute away, handles everything else.