First off, this is not your typical spa experience. No bubble jets, piped music or polished marble counters with cucumber water. No, this is something way more elemental – a subterranean Roman bath, situated in a fantastically atmospheric below-ground space, built within the old stone underbelly of a former convent.
But before we get there, a word about the hotel that houses it. Tucked into the hillside just below Colline du Château in Nice, Hôtel du Couvent feels virtually hidden – though in reality you’re just a few minutes’ walk from the vibrant, bustling Cours Saleya market and the glimmering Mediterranean.
Visionary owner Valéry Grégo and his team (his architect brother Louis-Antoine Grégo, interior designers from Festen, Charlotte de Tonnac and Hugo Sauzay) have expertly managed to preserve the convent’s sacred stillness while quietly adding layers of modern luxury. The results speak for themselves.
The rooms – there are 88 in total, including 19 suites – are frankly exquisite; and those in the old convent are spartan in the most gorgeous way: think ochre-washed walls, terracotta floors, natural linens and other little touches that nod to the building’s past, such as tiny devotional paintings placed just so beside the windows.
Here, fresh madeleines are offered on arrival in the hotel’s tree-shaded courtyard – and the gardens themselves are a sensory delight of herbs, fruit trees, weeds and wildflowers tumbling together on tiered terraces. Meanwhile, dining is rooted in freshness and simplicity: dishes such as tomato and peach salad or fish of the day with perfectly crisp frites are offered at La Guinguette, a terrace below the hotel’s refreshing lap pool.
And speaking of pools, back to the spa. Just as the Romans once did, you follow a circuit, a sequence of thermal pools echoing the rituals of ancient bathing, moving from the warm tepidarium to the hot caldarium and finally to the bracing frigidarium – a journey through candlelit, shadowy corners, designed to relax the nervous system, invigorate the body and reset the mind. Even the water feels sacred, softened by the surrounding silence and age-old ritual.
The treatments, too, are a far cry from your usual hotel spa fare. Herbalist Gregory Unrein, who also runs the apothecary upstairs, has created bespoke oils and tinctures – many made from the herbs grown in the convent’s own wild gardens. And they’re employed for these deeply restorative massages in these simple, monastic-style rooms, as you’re anointed with rosemary and myrtle or bathed in calming lavender and sage.
It’s intentionally slow and meditative, even monastic – fitting, of course, for a space once inhabited by the Order of the Visitation. The experience feels altogether holy: you’re not so much pampered here as cared for. Really, it’s a retreat in the truest meaning of the word: a slow, sensual space for reconnection. And a virtual time-travel to ancient Rome.
Lysanne Currie is editor in chief of Meet the Leader. She also writes for Robb Report, Diplomat, The Guardian, Influence, Tempus and Investor
