Last Updated on June 30, 2024 by Allison Coe
In medieval times, ancient Convent of the Visitation in Old Nice was an austere abode for pious nuns. The nuns are long gone and the convent has been boarded up for decades, but nevertheless the locals fought tooth-and-nail to stop its transformation into a lavish 5-star hotel, fearing the introduction of an ostentatious luxury resort would forever alter the feel of the vieille ville.
After years of delays, The luxury 5-star Hotel du Couvent just opened, and what a surprise! The sprawling complex is so understated and discrete that the entry is practically hidden! The 88-room hotel is as remarkable for its fidelity to the history and architecture, as much as for its resistance to the typical trappings of many luxury hotels.
It feels like a convent, a spiritual place, an oasis, like a meditation, as if you discovered a secret garden where you instantly feel the history in your bones.
It’s rare to find a hotel with such a sense-of-place: the guestrooms are sober yet elegant, the spa evokes Roman baths, the terraced gardens beg to be strolled, the restaurants serve on antique linens and vintage glassware …and they grow their own herbs, just like the nuns used to do.
With its lack of sea-view and bells-and-whistles, this one-of-a-kind hotel will not be to everyone’s taste, which is what makes its restraint so laudable. What an impressive addition to Old Nice!
But if bells-and-whistles are more your thing, another major hotel just opened in the Nice Port this month that basically is the polar opposite of Hotel du Couvent…
Mama Shelter Riquier! Fun and affordable, playful and eccentric, and employing lots of state-of-the-art tech, this cutting-edge 4-star hotel is kind of a whirlwind. With a décor that riffs wildly on Matisse, its 102 rooms are kitschy, irreverent and innovative, to the point of being over-stimulating. It’s as if the hotel threw art, humor and cartoons into the cocktail blender to create a big, bold sensory experience that you won’t soon forget.
In fact, after a stay here, you’ll probably need a few days at Hotel du Couvent!
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