Author Herbert Ypma, founder of the award-winning magazine Interior Architecture and self-confessed Francophile journeyed through the famous cities and forgotten corners of France to put together this inspirational collection of hotels. With his warm, unaffected prose and sumptuous photographs, Ypma manages to conjures the France of our imaginations--the Camargue where "the vast flat expanse where the sky and the sea meet in a composition of bold horizontal stripes", or St Martin on Ile de Re "the kind of town that makes you want to buy a 2CV, learn to play boules and never again drink anything but wine". The hotels themselves reflect the incredible diversity of the French landscape--elegant townhouses, medieval chateaux, farmhouses, alpine chalets and modern architectural splendours such as Le Corbusier's utopian dream, Unite d'habitation--all are wonderfully unique and many are more affordable than you might imagine. Like any good guide book Hip Hotels: France has a clear format which is easy to navigate. The regions of France in which the hotels are located are laid out in alphabetical order and each establishment is accompanied by details of its history, its surroundings and the noteworthy signatures in its guest book. Contact details (address, telephone, fax and room rates in French francs) are also included. Lavish full-page shots of the interior and exterior of the hotels combined with smaller photographs of interesting design features make it abundantly clear what makes the selected hotels so special. If anything is going to tempt you across the channel, this book is it. --Sarah Crawford

Synopsis
France has it all - a rich history, an incredibly varied geography, a gastronomic culture that is unsurpassed, and a tradition of good living that remains blissfully untainted by the stresses of modern life. Hip Hotels: France brings together the most authentically individual of France's hotels in the country's choicest destinations. Choose the futuristic vision of Jean Nouvel or the hearty hospitality of an Alpine farmhouse, a fisherman's but on the South Atlantic coast or the hip modernity of Le Corbusier's Unite d' Habitation in Marseilles, a Mecca for devotees of modernist architecture. Some are established, some are virtually unknown, but every one of these hotels is a unique response to the geography, cuisine and design heritage of its location. So whether you are an adventurer, a gourmet, or a design aficionado - or all of the above - Hip Hotels: France will enable you to plan your itinerary through city, town, coast and countryside. This third volume in the phenomenally successful Hip Hotels series is once more guaranteed to set you dreaming. It has all the slick of City and all the variety of Escape - all in one amazing country.