Hotel de La Darse

We first stayed at the Darse in 1990, when it resembled a badly maintained British World War Two air raid shelter but it was very cheap, with one of the best locations in the entire Cote D’Azur, right beside the water and without the six lanes of traffic that are in front of many hotels in Nice. Since then we have stayed at least 20 times while seeing it improve out of all recognition and it is now a very comfortable small hotel, in my opinion certainly the best value in Villefranche. Two things detracted from this visit. Even though the hotel seemed to be almost empty, I was unable to get one of the top floor rooms that have the best view. Staff I met included two very pleasant young women, one recently arrived from Paris, and two equally pleasant young men, one a post grad at the University of Nice, the other setting up the restaurant (too expensive for me but there are plenty of others not far away) while l waited for about 15 minutes for someone to check me in. The man who finally arrived to do this seemed very annoyed about something, an unsmiling attitude he maintained throughout my stay.

We are returning to this hotel every year due to its fantastic location at the small harbour. Very succesful renovation of the hotel rooms and great with installation of an escalator. The food at the restaurant is really worth the money. Thanks for a fantastic stay.

Once again we returned to Hotel Darse in the delightful town of Villefranche sur mer. As always we had a very comfortable room with excellent airconditioning and one of the finest views of the Mediterranean. The hotel now has an excellent restaurant La Stoa in its second year with dining on the beautiful terrace. We particularly enjoyed the pigeon roti with a fabulous sauce reduction in herbs from the hotel garden.