In the French Riviera, Hotels Are Turning Wellness Into a Year-Round Affair
High season in the French Riviera may be the summer months, but the region originally gained its popularity in the late 18th century as a winter retreat for royals and wealthy British aristocrats. Doctors prescribed the Mediterranean climate’s natural healing powers, and everyone from Queen Victoria to Robert Louis Stevenson flocked to the Riviera each winter to be cured. The visitors even earned a nickname: les hivernants, the winterers.
“Nice has always been a year-round destination, known particularly for its winter sun, attracting many Northern Europeans who come to escape harsh winters,” says hotelier Valéry Grégo, the visionary behind Hôtel du Couvent in Nice’s Old Town, which opened in early summer following a decade-long, $100 million transformation of a 17th-century convent.
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As someone who first moved to Nice in the fall months and has spent many winters in the South of France, I understand the appeal—and so do the handful of new, year-round hotels launching wellness-focused programs. Lily of the Valley in Saint-Tropez, which sits on an untouched area on Cap Lardier in one of the Riviera’s green lungs, was among the first to spearhead the movement just before the pandemic. As designer Philippe Starck describes it, “This is a place that welcomes you at any time in your life, at any time of the year.”
Designed in a style that blends architecture from Provençal abbeys with more modern touches inspired by Californian villas, the hillside hotel’s location is as much of a draw as its detox and better aging programs, which incorporate the Mediterranean cuisine of chef Vincent Maillard (an alum of Alain Ducasse and Guy Savoy) and guidance of a team of expert coaches, nutritionists, wellness advisors, and therapists.
This year, nautical-inspired boutique hotel Arev opened near Saint-Tropez’s Place des Lices, where, unlike the majority of its neighbors, it will remain open year-round. The only spa to partner with Saint-Tropez-based Maison ST, a natural-focused fragrance creator, custom treatments like algae mud wraps and exfoliating body scrubs composed of Saint-Tropez-sourced sand incorporate elements from the Mediterranean Sea and Brittany.
In the fall and winter months, wellness is one of the main pillars for locally-inspired escapes featuring activities like an aromatic plants and olive oil workshop with the hotel’s master gardener in between high-tech cellular regeneration and light therapy treatments.
At Nice’s Hôtel du Couvent, the resident herbalist looks to the surrounding two-and-a-half acres of terraced gardens—which are designed to look as they did back in the days of the nuns, planted with nearly 300 different species—as inspiration for everything from essential oils for lymphatic drainage massages to teas and personalized remedies, which guests can find at the centuries-old onsite herbalist shop, another element revived from the nuns’ time.
The subterranean thermal bath circuit also nods to another part of Nice’s past, paying tribute to the remains of Roman baths in the hillside neighborhood of Cimiez, which towers above the Old Town. “It embodies the ancient tradition of caring for body and mind through water, movement, and treatments — mens sana in corpore sano,” explains Grégo, since the baths go hand-in-hand with the hotel’s holistic treatments like botanical-based facials and daily breathwork and meditation classes held at the Movement Studio (which is noticeably sans gym).
In the village of Mougins in the hillside above Cannes, 46-room Le Mas Candille opened this summer after a full facelift by French-Mexican architect Hugo Toro, which included centerpiece The Glow House—a first for beauty brand Clarins—complete with a sauna, hammam, and al fresco Nordic bath. Skincare is crafted with primarily European plant extracts and fine essential oils and treatments couple massage techniques with collagen-boosting infrared LEDs for tailored experiences that can be part of two- or four-day programs launching this fall.
“We wanted to return to a deeper and more authentic approach to wellness, integrating a comprehensive concept of beauty—this extends beyond aesthetic treatments to include mental and physical rejuvenation and mindfulness,” says Clarins’ general manager, Olivier Courtin-Clarins. “By reintroducing this broader dimension of beauty, we are helping to redefine the Côte d’Azur as a go-to destination for those seeking a wellness retreat that marries luxury, tranquility, and pleasure.”
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