A guide to Europe’s best hotels, featuring the most incredible places to stay in destinations including Barcelona, Budapest, Venice, Paris and Lake Garda, for honeymoons, luxury escapes and city breaks, as selected and reviewed by Telegraph Travel’s team of editors and destination experts.
As Jean-Louis and Jocelyne Sibuet strolled in the mountains above stylish Megève, they were captivated by the rustic charm of the ancient timber chalets peppering the Alpine pastures. Several years later, in 1989, the duo launched their first Megève hotel, Les Fermes de Marie, made of materials from those very chalets, transported a short walk from the heart of Megève and painstakingly restored. Reminiscent of a rural hamlet, linked by meandering footpaths and burbling streams, the nine chalets contain 70 cosy rooms and suites, three restaurants, a ski shop and the original cowshed-chic spa. In the outdoor hot tub, guests soak ski-tired legs, contemplating the blanket of snow settled over wide timber eaves, the fragrant pine swags and neatly stacked logs cut for the countless open fires that warm the hotel’s restaurants, inviting snugs and free-standing chalets. The smallest of the chalets, Mont Blanc, is surely one of the world’s finest suites: picture-perfect, with its own garden, a homely sitting room with a vast open fire and a romantic double room.