Welcome to the Bastide St Mathieu blog!
France still continues to disregard it's Neanderthal economic system but the world still wants to visit the Cote D'Azur and this is a glorious place for Weddings. It is a neutral hub for brides and grooms and the place where hundreds of thousands of ex-pat French want to return for their own celebrations. Why do couples come here to be married? The weather is predictable, the sun shines on the lavender banks, olive groves and rose covered colonnades of the Bastide. Transport communications bring your guests into Nice with one of the best schedules in Europe. The Cote D'Azur has all the enticements but a few kilometers back from the coast it is still the relaxed world of the Provence hills. The great restaurants, more Michelin stars per head of population than anywhere else in the world, apart from the little Berkshire village of Bray; the beaches of Antibes, Juan les Pins. St Tropez; the villages perchées Cabris, St Paul, Vence, Mougins,
Valbonne. The wines of our nearby Provence vineyards (forget the over-sold and
publicised Domaines with high prices; find the vineyards domestiques….such as
our favourite Domaine de Valcolombe in Villecroze, recently bought by Philippe
Grammont, who knows what he is doing having been marketing boss for Veuve
Cliquot).
Demand for 2014 and even 2015 is already very strong and 8 weekends are already taken or committed more than a year in advance. This year the Cannes Film Festival had to shelter from a prolonged rainstorm, but now the sun is out and the white bridal roses adorn the terraces of the Bastide. We are ready for the summer visitors looking for boutique south of France hotels. We will be more a house party than an hotel……everyone meets at breakfast whenever they want; everyone knows where to find their own drinks and has the run of the whole place. Wedding couples don’t want to overpay but they seek reliable quality, style and heritage……the Cote D’Azur has attracted couples for many generations. Its traditions are now attracting couples from far wider than W. Europe….Russia, Dubai, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore as well as the traditional travellers from North America.
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| Lavendar in the gardens of Bastide St Mathieu |
Demand for 2014 and even 2015 is already very strong and 8 weekends are already taken or committed more than a year in advance. This year the Cannes Film Festival had to shelter from a prolonged rainstorm, but now the sun is out and the white bridal roses adorn the terraces of the Bastide. We are ready for the summer visitors looking for boutique south of France hotels. We will be more a house party than an hotel……everyone meets at breakfast whenever they want; everyone knows where to find their own drinks and has the run of the whole place. Wedding couples don’t want to overpay but they seek reliable quality, style and heritage……the Cote D’Azur has attracted couples for many generations. Its traditions are now attracting couples from far wider than W. Europe….Russia, Dubai, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore as well as the traditional travellers from North America.
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| White Roses at wedding venue Bastide St Mathieu |
Maybe what brings the
whole community on the Cote d’Azur together more than anything else is contempt
for the current French Government and its determination to make it as hard as
possible for entrepreneurs to employ people. If we has a property this size in
most parts of Europe, we would employ 4 + people. Here we are so tied up with
administration and the sheer impossibility of ever parting company with
employees, that the only way forward is to use sub-contractors. President
Hollande and his crew are systematically killing the golden goose. Unemployment
balloons and the reaction is to put the thumb screws on potential
employers……1789 happened when the ancien regime could not reform itself because
of too many vested interests; unreconstructed old style socialism is now the
ancien regime in France.
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