Foreword
The urban environment in which we operate all year round, the stressful constraints of city life, the permanent race for private and professional goals are far from satisfying all our expectations. Living can no longer be reduced to the sole satisfaction of our material needs. We also need an element of ideal, of mystery, of adventure, of intellectual comfort. Our way of life in the third millennium encourages us every day to regain the essential values that we often lack. We irresistibly yearn for a change of scenery, to change the atmosphere, to change the context and the concerns. Even if our civilization is one of both material and virtual consumption, it is not easy to make the most of our leisure and our free time. Of course everyone has their own criteria. For some, happiness consists of getting up before dawn to run, telephoto lens in hand, the African bush in search of one of the “big five”. Others will be delighted to have nothing more exhausting than to unearth a restaurant that simmers a real rooster with Chambertin in the Burgundy countryside, even Franche-Comté. The fabulous hotels we've picked here offer all kinds of ideal solutions for both (including those that are stealthily, surreptitiously somewhere in between). All these fabulous hotels have at least two points in common: nothing is planned to accommodate the tourist hordes and nothing in them offends the magnificent landscapes in which they are installed. Whether it is the wild places of Bali or Provence, the pristine immensity of the Tanzanian bush, the paradisiacal charm of a desert island or the idyllic refinement of the Amalfi Coast, the fabulous hotels that you will discover here They all soak up the beauty of the place, and often better, they enhance it with the charm of their inspired architecture, in harmony with the natural environment and the sometimes picturesque style of the region. On the other hand, most of these establishments have a history that enhances their appeal. They are also distinguished by an inexhaustible attention to the smallest detail. The power of architecture over our emotions is very often underestimated. A lighthouse erected in Brittany sublimates the splendid isolation of the site. A hotel made of ice exalts the cold magnificence of the Arctic. A monastery with a Gothic cloister transcends the Tuscan countryside. It is not a question of falling into a conventional debate on architecture, but quite simply of realizing that, when he really wants to, man has the gift of magnifying what nature has already done most beautiful.Fabulous hotels
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