The Place
If you were told to turn off the main road, walk through a boat yard and look at a hotel built in 1986, would you bother? Luckily, our reporter did and was bowled over by this converted 13thC convent which deserves a feature in a design and architecture magazine. Much was demolished in 1798 but the outbuildings, set among gardens on the shore of the lake, survive. So does the refectory, with its onion-domed tower which houses the restaurant and bar. Across the courtyard, a glass-walled walkway gives this two-storey building the look of a medieval cloister and the colonnaded entrance looks like a church.
Bedrooms are all the same, of adequate size, with simple furniture and just a touch of colour in the duvets. This is one hotel where disabled travellers will have no difficulty negotiating corridors and a wide lift/elevator gives access to the floor above. Up a ramp is a convent garden complete with fountain and scented flowers. With not a fence or gate in sight, you feel part of the surrounding park. This is an extraordinary and harmonious mix of ancient and ultra-modern that is ideal for everyone from nine months to ninety years. Free bicycles for guests.