Domaine de Manville

Most grand hotels insist that children are welcome. The real test is what happens when one jumps into the pool. At Domaine de Manville, below the cliffs of Les Baux-de-Provence, the answer is usually to let the child dry off and find something else to do. This is an unusually convincing family hotel in the Alpilles: generous rather than precious, relaxed without being careless, and designed for people who might spill a glass before they learn to hold one properly.

Its centre is a courtyard that behaves like a village square. A fountain splashes, terrace tables fill as the sun climbs, and an espresso lasts longer when there is an estate to watch waking up. Edith and Patrick Saut revived a former farm, keeping its old stone and agricultural memory while bringing in contemporary art, dark wood and the pleasures of an actual hotel. The village feeling is deliberate but not entirely invented. Patrick came here as a boy with his grandfather, a beekeeper who used the land for his hives, long before the property became theirs.

The children, meanwhile, have vanished, and happily so. The kids' club occupies two gypsy caravans in the woods; depending on the programme, there are farm visits, donkeys and workshops about wildlife and gardening. There is a playground, a games room and a tiny cinema for rainy afternoons. The grown-ups may spend the first hour wondering where everybody has gone. This is generally considered a successful start to a holiday.

Bedtime is just as practical. Thirty rooms and suites in the main house include family-friendly arrangements and split-level spaces; larger clans can take one of the nine hotel houses in the grounds, with kitchens that make a midnight raid on the fridge entirely respectable. Golf carts help everyone get about and have the unfortunate side effect of being more exciting than the destination. Anyone travelling with several generations will appreciate the space, though the spread-out layout is less convenient for a quick dash to dinner in the rain.

While the caravans occupy the children, the adults divide the estate. Someone goes to the eighteen-hole golf course, its fairways laid among the olive trees. Someone else disappears into the spa, where children have limited access at designated times and the rest of the day belongs to quieter pursuits. By evening everyone regroups at the Bistrot. When a grandparent volunteers to babysit, the parents can escape to L'Aupiho, where chef Lieven Van Aken works with ingredients from the estate's permaculture farm. A family holiday has rarely offered so many respectable excuses to be temporarily absent from one's family.

Manville's generosity does not mean silence. In August, the outdoor pool is more likely to feature cannonballs than somebody finishing a novel. Breakfast depends on the rate or package booked, and the gastronomic table needs planning rather than a last-minute impulse. Some rooms are plainer than their price suggests; golf brings visitors who are not staying at the hotel, and the journeys between buildings are part of the experience. This is not, and has no wish to be, a hideaway for adults alone.

The story began with a grandson following his grandfather to the beehives. Years later, Patrick and Edith Saut turned the old farm into somewhere other families could gather. At Manville, a child jumping into the pool is not an interruption to the plan. It is the plan.