Hotel Recommendations for Provence, Chamonix, etc.

We have only slept in Avignon, back in 2014. Le Colbert was an excellent choice for us. I checked the latest reviews on TripAdvisor, and the reviews are still great. Great central location - you can walk everywhere. For such a small and quaint hotel, our room and the bathroom were surprisingly large.

https://www.lecolbert-hotel.com/

Hotel d’Europe in Avignon, Le Mas d’Aigret in Les Baux, Le Clos de la Glycine in Roussillon (fabulous restaurant at this hotel)

JR, here's our review of one that was both budget and charming. We loved it. https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france-reviews/a-pleasant-inexpensive-hotel-in-ais-en-provence-but-it-s-not-for-everyone

We enjoyed a 2018 stay at Hotel de L'Arve in Chamonix. I booked by email well in advance and got a very reasonable rate with parking included. I had seen that not all balcony rooms have the same views, so at time of booking I requested one with good views and they were happy to assign a room to us at the time of the reservation based on this request. Very friendly and helpful staff. The lobby area has a small bar, and off of that are a breakfast room (great breakfast) and a nice lounge for relaxing and socializing. On our final day, we intended to do one more hike before leaving town. We checked out first. Even though we'd checked out, they let us keep our rental car in the parking lot, gave us a bus pass for the day, offered us the use of walking poles free of charge, and told us to feel free to return to the hotel after our hike if we wanted to use the shower and towels in their spa area to freshen up before our evening drive to our next destination. That's great customer service!

For Provence, I've in the past used this forum to recommend La Moulin de la Roque, but I am no longer recommending them. In case anyone else suggests you go there, I'll tell you about our disappointing experience:

We are returning to Provence in Sept. 2022 with 4 other couples. Moulin de la Roque has one home that has 5 bedrooms. Based on a great 2018 stay at Moulin de la Roque, I wanted to return, and to make sure we'd get the 5 BR home, we booked it way in advance. The booking was in Jan. of this year, with a non-refundable deposit paid. We received confirmation that we were firmly booked for the 3rd week of September of 2022. Based on that, we made other reservations around those dates. Three months later, the owners of Moulin de la Roque notified me that we either had to change our dates to the first week of September or we could cancel and get a refund. Workshops in France wanted our week to hold an artist workshop at Moulin de la Roque, and these workshops receive exclusive use of the entire property. I was told they needed to prioritize that booking because it was a workshop that had been scheduled for 2020, a stay that was canceled and moved into 2021 due to Covid, and now the workshop wanted to move its 2021 booking into 2022. It had pre-paid for 2020 and had a voucher that was going to expire at the end of 2022 and our week was the only one that would work. Moulin de la Roque told me that Workshops in France already had the artist booked for our week and reservations were already being taken. I replied to say that we didn't mind being there with an artist workshop using the property at the same time, but the reply was that the workshop needed our 5 bedroom apartment because it has the big kitchen where they prepare their meals. I strongly feel that Moulin de la Roque should have told the workshop, sorry, we have a confirmed booking with another large group for that week, you must choose one of the other 51 weeks of the year. They wouldn't do that. Workshops in France holds 4 to 6 of these artist-lead workshops at Moulin de la Roque each year. I looked at the website of Workshops in France and saw all the 2021 and 2022 workshops--but none scheduled for our week. Perhaps one of the 2021 workshops WANTED to move to our week but hadn't yet announced the date change? I contacted Workshops in France by phone to make sure that Moulin de la Roque was correctly understanding that no other week would work for the 2021 workshop that wanted a new 2022 date. I learned that none of the scheduled 2021 workshops was being moved into our week in 2022. Instead, Workshops in France wanted to have that week to hold a new workshop, one that would be un-instructed (no booked artist.). I don't appreciate Moulin de la Roque's cancellation of the firm booking given to our large group and all the lies that were told to me justify their having done so. Clearly they play favorites with their guests.

A few years ago in Arles we had a very nice stay at the Hotel De L'Amphitheatre. Our room for two was gigantic, a breakfast option was available and the staff were friendly and helpful. The hotel had a discounted deal with the nearby municipal garage though parking was also available closer but we preferred to avoid the small and narrow streets. It was perhaps a 2 minute walk to the amphitheater and maybe 5 minutes to the garage so very well located. We enjoyed our several nights in Arles driving around the region . Safe travels.

St Remy
http://lamaisondeline.fr/home/

We stayed here in apartment
Gorgeous grounds, comfortable room, secure parking, easy walk to town, really nice pool (we were there during heat wave so that came in handy)
They do offer bkft but we did our own
Grocery is nearby

We stayed at Hotel Bristol in Avignon in 2016 with RS tour. I recall it was not great - room was dark and dreary - but the location was brilliant. The pictures on the website are completely different than my memory, though, so it appears that they have remodeled. If so, I'd recommend it for the location alone.

In Annecy, we stayed at Hotel Splendid and it was awesome. Large room, huge bathroom. View of the lake. Highly recommend.

We loved staying at Hotel du Soleil in St Rémy. I highly recommend it. Very good prices right now on Booking.com.

We stayed at Hotel de l’Arve in Chamonix (a RS recommended hotel) and did not like it at all. On our next visit to Chamonix we stayed at Hotel Morgan which we loved.

It’s been a few years, but we really enjoyed these two hotels
Avignon - Hotel L’Horloge. - we had a room on the top floor with an amazing rooftop balcony. Sipping a glass of wine while listening to the bells of the Palais de Popes was an incredible experience

St Rémy - Hotel del’Image. Balcony room overlooking their beautiful grounds and the Alpilles. Plenty of parking which was a plus since we were able to walk to dinner every night. St Rémy was a very central base for exploring Provemce

It’s spelled Hotel de l’Image.

Chamonix: we enjoyed the Hotel Valléee Blanche, https://www.vallee-blanche.com/en/hotel.html

What made it unique is our room was right on (and I mean literally right on) the alpine river that runs through town.

We stayed at Hotel de l’Image in June of 2019 and I would strongly recommend NOT booking this hotel. The room was tiny - so much so that we had nowhere to place our suitcases, other than the bed and then moved it to the floor when we wanted to sleep. We had to ask for just about everything, including hangers, towels and soap - none of which were in the room when we checked in. The corridors were in bad repair with torn carpets, gouges on the walls and laundry bags dumped in the corridors that remained there for the 3 days of our stay. The grounds should have been lovely but they were overgrown, the ponds and fountains full of algae and breeding mosquitoes. The staff were uninterested in providing even the most basic services - the breakfast room was full of uncleared tables and the food stations weren't replenished unless you asked repeatedly. Worst of all was we asked them to book a taxi to take us to the Avignon TGV station and they booked us a private car. When we protested (of course it was too late) they said they had never had a guest request a taxi - only a private car - so they assumed we would prefer a more luxe option. Definitely a hotel that had been lovely once upon a time. There are many hotels in the same area of St. Remy; you won't' have any difficulties in doing better than Hotel de l’Image.