The Place
Nina and Thierry Crovara run their hotel in a restored farmhouse with such a friendly, relaxed attitude that parents bring their children here from far and wide on family holidays. For the very young, high chairs are provided in the dining room and cots in the bedrooms; and for older children, there’s table tennis, a playroom in and outside and a pool in the grounds. Bedrooms are functional, plainly decorated with rough plaster walls and Provençal fabrics and hard to damage. There are two sets of connecting rooms, where Nina has thoughtfully added black-out blinds to prevent an interior dawn chorus.
Before dinner, guests sit outside on the vine-covered terrace and sip the delicious iced ‘orange wine’ made according to Thierry’s own recipe. He is the chef, and though French, trained in Nina’s native Switzerland. He takes his cooking seriously and, after consultations about allergies, likes and dislikes, produces a mainly regional no-choice menu. Menu planning also takes children into account. In between courses, Thierry emerges from his kitchen to introduce himself to new guests and chat to old ones. Le Mas des Grès is the proud holder of ecological hotel rewards, and in 2015 it celebrated 30 years of business.