Restaurant Table Augusta Tel 04 75 97 29 28

Its name comes from the Roman Emperor Augustus, who gave his name to the village Augusta Tricastinorum - today Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux. It also recalls that the House ensure a Gallo-Roman site. Six months of excavations helped to exhume mosaics and objects of daily life, while the walls of a Roman villa were discovered in the pool. Many of amphora and glass debris suggest the presence of an old Tavern of two thousand years. In short, the history watch over the destiny of this master classic House, built in the 19th century in a large park at the exit of the village, and then fell into oblivion and slowly sunken by vegetation. The blow of heart of a loving couple of old houses has drawn it from its torpor, waking up its fountains and basins, facilitating its flowering roses treille, reviving its massive of boxwood, restoring the shine, after a thorough restoration, a multi-coloured mural covering the ground floor. To transform this bourgeois property luxury four - rare nearby - stars, Christine and Joseph Miranda happily married architectures, styles, eras. MI-Bastide Italian mi-villa, the hotel combines traditional Provençal and orange Terra Cotta to Naples yellow coatings.

In the old building with thick walls to juxtaposes a huge sas very contemporary bathed in light, where throne a majestic baroque chandelier with a plain gray concrete staircase. Antique chinées in second-hand deemed Pont-Saint-Esprit of the Isle-sur-la-Sorgue alongside design armchairs and carpets Toutlemonde Bochard. While the small Dovecote stones of the country is home to the blue steel design bar in edge of swimming pool at the bottom of the garden. In the rooms, each has it, imagined atmosphere from a detail, of an object. Chamber birds, found on the wall, the curtains; the trailer, very "gypsy" with its electrical and Crimson, blue colours his lamps in beads; all in grey and steel, to the Cobbles of bathroom; or these two other parme and coffee cream tones... Husband and wife Miranda made use of local expertise: ramps iron forged by an ironworker in the village, copies of antique furniture varnished by an artisan of Valaurie, Durance bath products line manufactured in Grignan...

Lamb, vegetables, apricots, truffles...

But the high point of the Villa is its restaurant, La Table of Augusta. Good culinary minds focused on its blast furnaces: the brothers Jacques and Laurent Pourcel, three stars for their garden of the senses in Montpellier, propose a cuisine of Provencal inspiration, strong products of season - lamb, vegetables, apricots, truffles, herbs from the garden-, not to mention a slight hint of exoticism. Entrusted to a young talented chef, Christophe Fluck, who worked for the Pourcel, Georges Blanc and Jacques Chibois, it takes the measure of its creativity and freshness. Terrace, the lunch plays plates way tapas, or picnicking. Between two agape, and especially in the less warm hours, should go to the discovery of the many sights and wonders of the region within a radius of 30 kilometres from the hotel. After the Romanesque cathedral of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux, it opts for the villages classified among the "most beautiful villages of France", such as the guard-Adhémar and Le Poët-Laval, villages perched like Saint-Restitut or Sausey, the castles of Suze-la-Rousse or Grignan... After a day of ride, nothing beats at the end of summer a NAP in the shade of the bicentennial cedar. We realize that Provence is...

BOX .

VILLA AUGUSTA

30 Km from Montélimar, 15 minutes from the exit Montélimar-Sud and 10 min from Bollène. 25 rooms, between 95 to 110 euros (in low season), and 210 to 230 euros (July and August). Suite Augusta: 350 to 400 euros. Swimming pool. Several packages weekends, with a dinner, a night and breakfast: "in the land of the truffle" (320 euros for 2 people), "Golf for two" (304 euros for 2 people), "Gourmet for two" (385 EUR for 2 people), "Children first" (from 338 EUR in triple room, 414 euros in a family room).

14, rue of greenhouse-Blanc 26130 Saint-Paul-three-Châteaux. Phone: 04 75 97 29 29.

Restaurant Table Augusta, Tel: 04 75 97 29 28.