Hotel La Perouse ****, Nice, France.

Right on the coastline and beaches of Nice
and walking distance from the center of the old town.

Situated just a stone's throw from the old town of Nice, Hotel La Pérouse **** is a perfect choice for exploring the charming and colorful old city of Nice with its bountiful flower, fruit and vegetable markets on the nearby place everyday. The market is surrounded by cafés, restaurants and small shops and teems with life and energy.

Hotel La Pérouse's facade is not particularly pre-possessing, but the 54 air-conditioned rooms have been stylishly modernized recently each different from the next, and are quite pretty and comfortable, especially the ones with terraces over looking the sea and shore line of the Baie des Anges while the others look over the gardens.

The hotel is one of the first to be built in the grand age of "right on the beach" hotels and is squeezed between the coastal road and the massive rock cliffs that compromise the "Colline du Chateau" that rise straight up to the lovely gardens of the chateau at the top of the plateau. The public rooms are at road level while the rooms step up the hillside creating an interesting tour route between the rooms and the restaurant, swimming pool and reception. Once off the street, all is tranquil and a welcome calm reigns.

The Promenade des Anglais is a wide pedestrian and bicycle way that hugs the beaches and makes a buffer between the sea and the coastal road, comes right up to and ends just in front of the hotel making a perfect and protected zone for bike riders, walkers, joggers, roller skaters. You can even rent bikes from the self serve bike racks that are spaced all along the promenade and return them to any other bike rack dispenser anywhere in the town.

The architects have managed to squeeze in a very nice heated swimming pool with an access through the dining terrace where the kids can play with safety and adults sunbath with some protection from the breezes up against the rock wall that towers above. At the very tip top of the hotel, with its own magnificent view of the bay and the roof tops of Nice, there is an excellent jacuzzi for travel weary backs, a panoramic solarium, an exercise room and a roof top terrace with market umbrellas and chaises to stretch out and soak up the sun and the view.

The garden dining terrace is fairly small but is intimate and filled with sunny lemon trees in pots, flowers in beds and small trees that create shade. It all makes a cozy feeling and a good choice for lunch and dinner featuring a light and well prepared Mediterranean cuisine. The sun steams in but like the pool it is protected from strong sea breezes. In the winter, it is covered. There is a small interior dining area but it is limited and does not have the floral beauty of the terrace.