Foreword

The urban environment in which we evolve all year round, the stressful constraints of city life, the constant race for private and professional objectives are far from satisfying all our expectations. Living can no longer be reduced to the sole satisfaction of our material needs. We also need a part of the ideal, of mystery, of adventure, of intellectual comfort. Our way of life in the third millennium encourages us every day to reclaim the essential values ​​that we often lack.
We yearn irresistibly to change the air, to upset the atmosphere, to modify 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 free time that we have. Of course everyone has their own criteria. For some, happiness consists in 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 finding a restaurant that simmers a real Coq au Chambertin in the Burgundy or even Franche-Comté countryside.
The fabulous hotels we've chosen here offer all sorts of ideal solutions for both (including those who are stealthily, surreptitiously somewhere in between). All these fabulous hotels have at least two points in common between them: nothing is planned to accommodate the hordes of tourists and nothing in them offends the magnificent landscapes in which they are installed. Whether it's the wilds of Bali or Provence, the pristine vastness of the Tanzanian bush, the heavenly charm of a desert island or the idyllic sophistication of the Amalfi Coast, the fabulous hotels you'll find here 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.
All of them are also distinguished by the inexhaustible attention paid to the smallest detail.
The power of architecture on our emotions is very often underestimated. A lighthouse erected in Brittany enhances 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 becoming aware that, when he really wants it, man has the gift of magnifying what nature has already done most beautiful.