Ensconced by grand cru vines, barrel cellars and château gates, Les Sources de Caudalie is elegant French countryside living, personified. Built by the family behind Caudalie skincare, it's Bordeaux's only Palace-rated hotel and one of France's Three-Michelin-Key properties. The draw runs deeper than good wine, however, and the highlight is a spa fed by a hot spring, 540 metres underground with a list of treatments centred around the grapes next door. When you're finished being pampered, there are two-Michelin-starred restaurant to enjoy, and the vines of Smith Haut Lafitte just beyond the tree line. Come for the spa and stay for everything else.
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La Grand'Vigne, the two-Michelin-starred dining room, is roofed like an 18th-century orangery, its terrace plunging down to the lake and vine-covered slopes beyond. A few steps away, La Table du Lavoir is more country inn on a Sunday afternoon with a log fire in winter, a terrace facing Château Smith Haut Lafitte in summer, and plenty of well-loved dishes built on seasonal produce. Rouge pours Bordeaux crus by the glass, while French Paradox mixes cocktails behind a bar stocked with old Armagnacs.
The rooms are all in one of six pretty houses, each with its own theme and name. Prestige rooms are all mineral tones and fine wood, whilst the newer suites have whitewashed panelling and rattan details. Request L'Île aux Oiseaux if you can - perched on stilts over a lake, it's a gleaming white, open-plan space dressed most recently by couturier Rabih Kayrouz who filled it with chined Hans Wegner chairs, mushroom-shaped copper tables, and a seriously good bath tub.
Aside from the spa, there's a great range of activities on offer. Walk the Forêt des Sens, eight hectares of contemporary art hidden in the woods or book a guided forest-bathing session with the estate's arborist. Cycle past half a dozen château vineyards, or walk the 200 metres to Château Smith Haut Lafitte for a tour of its cellars and cooperage, finishing with a taste of the grand cru. Further out, climb the Dune du Pilat (Europe's tallest) above Arcachon Bay, or take the hotel's pinasse boat to the Île aux Oiseaux, its far-flung namesake.
The spa. Particularly a fifteen-minute bath in warm, crushed grape marc, worked into your skin before a hot-oil massage.
The pools are free to use, but the hammam, thermal bath and rest rooms only open once you've booked a treatment, so pencil in even a short one and make the most of it.
Travelling with younger children? The spa is for over-16s only, so the pools and the lake will be their playground instead.
Les Sources de Caudalie can be booked with Timbuktu as part of a tailor-made France trip, rather than as a standalone room reservation. Start online, customising one of our recommended France trips featuring Les Sources de Caudalie or get advice and suggestions from one of our France specialists who will design the trip around your dates, check availability and handle every booking for you.
Stays at Les Sources de Caudalie start from around $260, or US$260, per person per night as part of a tailor-made trip. The exact price depends on your travel dates, room type and the shape of the rest of your itinerary. A Timbuktu travel specialist can give you an accurate quote for your dates.
Grand, neoclassical streets, canelés hot from the oven and some of the world's finest wine.
