Villas Foch Boutique Hotel & Spa Bordeaux ★★★★★

A nineteenth century mansion in the UNESCO perimeter

Villas Foch occupies a restored bourgeois house on Cours du Maréchal Foch, inside the part of Bordeaux listed by UNESCO. The restoration kept the proportions and the stonework of the original building and added the comfort of a five star hotel behind them. The result reads as a private residence rather than a hotel: a handful of floors, a quiet entrance, and public rooms sized for the twenty keys upstairs.

Twenty rooms, eight of them suites

The house holds twenty rooms and suites, which explains the atmosphere as much as the decoration does. Rooms are furnished in a soft, upholstered register with French bedding, and the suites give the space and the separate sitting areas that longer stays call for. The small number of keys means the staff know their guests, and the concierge desk works on a personal basis rather than a ticketing one.

A spa in a vaulted cellar

The wellness floor is the signature of the house. Roughly a hundred and ten square metres are installed in a vaulted stone cellar of the kind Bordeaux merchants once used for wine, and they hold a heated indoor pool, a sauna and a fitness room. Very few hotels of this size in the city centre offer a heated pool at all, and fewer still in a setting of this character. Guests booking directly are given spa access with the room.

The Ferdinand bar and Bordeaux vintages

Le Ferdinand is the bar of the house, and it is built on the region it stands in: great Bordeaux growths by the glass and the bottle, champagne, spirits and tapas served in the evening. It is a natural first stop for guests who have come for the vineyards and want to taste before they drive out to them, and it gives the hotel a social room that small properties often lack.

Between the Quinconces and the Jardin Public

The address sits between two of the city's great open spaces. Place des Quinconces, its tram lines and the quays are a short walk in one direction, the Jardin Public and the Chartrons antique dealers in the other. The Triangle d'Or, the Grand Théâtre and the shops of rue Sainte Catherine are within ten to fifteen minutes on foot, and the Cité du Vin is a straightforward tram ride from the square.

Why we selected it

We retained Villas Foch because it answers the request we hear most often for Bordeaux: a small luxury hotel, in a historic building, in the centre, with a spa. The twenty keys, the vaulted pool and the wine bar make it a genuine boutique address rather than a small version of a large hotel, and it fits couples, wine travellers and anyone who wants the city on foot.