La Bastide de Moustiers

La Bastide de Moustiers was meant to be Alain Ducasse's own refuge in the south, and in 1995 it became his first country hotel instead, which is a generous thing to do with a hiding place. It is a stone house under an old tiled roof, with cypresses at the door, century-old olive trees in the park and, a kilometre off, the limestone cliffs above Moustiers-Sainte-Marie turning gold in the low evening sun. The eleven rooms and two suites go by names, and one is the Pumpkin Room, which takes some nerve to ask for. The ground that matters most is the kitchen garden: almost 2,000 square metres of organic tomatoes and courgettes, where the chefs pick their herbs every day. Two donkeys, Hermione and Gariguette, watch over it, and since a Gariguette is a strawberry, it is fair to wonder whose side that one is on.

Recommended for anyone who plans the day round dinner, and for families happy to trade a kids club for a family room, a heated pool under the pines and a pair of donkeys. The restaurant cooks around what the garden grows; its terrace, through a stone arch, sits under wisteria and plane trees above the valley. The kitchen takes Tuesdays off. Moustiers and its potters are a walk away. The Gorges du Verdon and the Valensole lavender, best in June and July, need the car, or a long day on one of the hotel's mountain bikes, which is one way to arrive at dinner having earned it. The hotel will also take breakfast or dinner out onto the Lake of Sainte-Croix, aboard an electric boat called the Estelle.