Boutique Hotels in France

Paris needs no argument, though the address does: the Palais-Royal, built for Cardinal Richelieu in the 1630s, had its gardens ringed with arcades in the 1780s, and the shops are still under them. Bouffémont, twenty minutes from the airport, is the capital's country-house alternative. Members book both at rates we hold for the Club. Beaune is the wine capital of Burgundy, its vineyards on the UNESCO list since 2015.

In the south, Nîmes is called the French Rome, for an arena still in use and a temple two thousand years old, and it gave its name to denim, which is serge de Nîmes worn down. On the Riviera, Cagnes-sur-Mer is where Renoir spent his last twelve years, and its old quarter is a walled hill town under a castle of 1309. Cannes, home of the film festival since 1946, has Grasse and its perfume at its back. In the Alps, Courchevel belongs to the Trois Vallées, 600 kilometres of linked runs and the largest ski area there is, while Les Gets is a village on a pass at the edge of the Portes du Soleil, where barrel organs take over the streets for the festival of mechanical music. Porto-Vecchio is Corsica, a hill town that Genoa refounded in 1539 above its gulf.

The Riviera began as a winter resort. The British upper classes came for their health at the end of the eighteenth century, and it took Americans, a good deal later, to make summer the high season. We would choose late spring or September almost anywhere in the country, with one warning: the film festival takes over Cannes in May. The Alps work in two seasons, one for skiing and one for walking, and Burgundy keeps a date of its own in November.

By train, and through Paris. The high-speed line opened between Paris and Lyon in September 1981, and the network that grew from it reaches Marseille, Bordeaux, Strasbourg and Montpellier. It is centred on Paris, so two provinces are often quickest joined by way of the capital. Nîmes has fast trains to Paris from a station in the middle of town. Beaune sits on the Route des Grands Crus, the road that runs north and south through the vineyards, and the Alps want a car or a transfer for the last stretch. Corsica has four airports, and the one at Figari serves Porto-Vecchio and the south.

France regulates its food the way other countries regulate banks. The making of Roquefort was fixed by decree in 1411, and in 1925 it became the first cheese to carry an appellation, the legal guarantee of where a thing comes from and how it is made. The practical lesson is to eat by address. Drink Burgundy in Beaune, where the growers have kept their cellars in the old centre since Roman times, and order whatever the region has put its name to. A menu that offers everything from everywhere is a warning.