Rue du Vieux Moulin, Bas-Rhin
Rate on request
No payment now. A room preference is a request, not guaranteed availability. Personal confirmation within 24 hours.
Across the Rhine, in the grand old spa towns, taking the cure was a solemn business. It came with a doctor's orders and a strict timetable, and even relaxing was something to dress for. On the promenade, between one glass of mineral water and the next, everybody was quietly checking what everybody else was wearing.
La Cheneaudière turned that tradition inside out. It stands on a hillside above Colroy-la-Roche, a small village in the Bruche valley about an hour from Strasbourg, with the Vosges forest close on every side. It is a mountain hotel rather than a château, and one that has grown with the family. Arlette and Marcel François opened it in 1974 with ten rooms. Their grandson, Nicolas Decker, now runs a house of forty-five, and Marcel's paintings are still on the walls.
The real house rule concerns clothing, and it is wonderfully relaxed. The uniform here is the bathrobe. Guests may appear at breakfast in one, over honey partly from the hotel's own bees and salmon the cooks smoke over beech, then spend most of the day in it, drifting between the spa and the lounges. Once everyone is wrapped in the same white towelling, the usual signals disappear. The designer watch stays upstairs, and the only status symbol left is a good lounger by the window.
The spa is worth the outfit: some 2,500 square metres over three levels, with saunas whose glass walls look straight into the forest. It also seems determined to turn adults back into children. A wooden swing hangs among the steam rooms, and at teatime a buffet of childhood sweets appears. The flotarium, so salty that bodies bob on it like corks, finishes the job.
Only at dinner do the robes go back in the wardrobe. At Le Feuillage, where Jean-Paul Acker cooks the produce of Alsace and the Vosges with colour and precision, long trousers are requested of the gentlemen, and guests rediscover their shoes with mild surprise. Le Chêne serves something simpler and more generous. In autumn, a local nature guide leads guests into the dusk beforehand, to listen to the stags roaring in the forest.
Colroy-la-Roche is tiny, so the house provides its own entertainment. The spa also sells day packages, which means weekends can feel busier than the setting suggests. Those who like to dress up for every occasion may feel faintly underdressed. Everyone else, spa lovers and walkers above all, will find it hard to remember why they ever bothered.
Out in the forest, the competition carries on regardless. All through the rutting season, the stags roar and strut to impress the hinds, each one desperate to look bigger than the next. Up the hill, in identical white robes, their neighbours have given up the contest entirely. On balance, they seem to have the better deal.
The name
Arlette and Marcel François built the hotel on a spot called the Pré des Chêneaux, the meadow of the young oaks.
Of the spa's several pools, the stainless-steel overflow basin outside is the one that stays warm all year, heated to 32°C in summer and winter alike, with micro-bubbles. The forest begins at its edge. Indoors, the larger of the two pools continues outside through a heated channel; the plant-filtered natural pool beyond closes for the winter.
Le Calixte, opened in 2022, is where the day happens for hotel and spa guests alike. Breakfast is laid out as a large buffet here, with a terrace over the forest; lunch follows as a buffet in bathrobes, kept on at the table unless shoulders are covered; and in the afternoon the 'Gourmandises d'enfance' buffet brings homemade and local sweets inspired by childhood.
Jean-Paul Acker joined La Cheneaudière at eighteen, in 2011, after training in Colmar, and now runs both kitchens. His gastronomic room serves dinner only, to no more than thirty guests. One table, the 'Table Expérience' for two to five, adds a moment in the kitchen; the hotel says little else about it, and books it only by email or telephone.
Les Jardins, eight rooms added in 2019, are the largest of the double rooms at 33 m², on the ground and first floors. Large bay windows look onto the grounds, a balcony faces the mountain and the aromatic garden, and the rooms are run by home automation. By comparison, the attic rooms, Les Forêts and Les Villages, are 25 m².
At a glance
Where
3 rue du Vieux Moulin, 67420 Colroy-la-Roche, Bas-Rhin; in the Bruche valley between Strasbourg and Colmar, at 500 m at the foot of the Champ du Feu, on the border of Alsace and the Vosges. By road about 62 km from Strasbourg, 50 km from Colmar, 38 km from Obernai and 31 km from Sélestat. Private car park with 13 electric charging points
Why this one
2,500 m² over three levels.
Bathrobes welcome at lunch.
Three generations of the founders.
The Edit Notes
Colroy-la-Roche falls under France's Loi Montagne, and the hotel spells out what that means: from 1 November to 31 March every car must carry four winter tyres, marked 3PMSF or M+S, or chains or snow socks. A hire car collected in Strasbourg in December may not qualify, so it is worth checking the booking before the drive into the Bruche valley. At the top, the private car park has electric charging points and closes at night behind a gate opened with the room card.
The four double-room categories differ more than their names suggest. Les Forêts and Les Villages are both 25 m² attic rooms in mountain style with a walk-in shower; the first looks into the Vosges forest, the second over the mountain and the village below. Les Montagnes adds space at 32 m², with views of the surrounding nature. Les Jardins, at 33 m², are on the ground and first floor, with bay windows, home automation and a balcony over the mountain and the aromatic garden.
Le Feuillage serves dinner only and takes no more than thirty guests an evening, so the gastronomic table should be reserved together with the room. Men are asked for long trousers and closed shoes there; at Le Chêne, the more classic restaurant, Bermuda shorts are accepted. The single 'Table Expérience', for two to five people, is bookable only by email or telephone. Diners who are not staying pay a deposit to hold a table, and leashed pets are allowed in both restaurants.
The Nature-Spa is open to guests from fifteen; younger children use only the family pool area, with an adult. There is no nude area: bathing shorts are accepted, but saunas require the sarong lent at the spa desk, and the robe stays on at the lunch table unless shoulders are covered. The flotarium is a private space booked like a treatment, and the natural swimming pool closes from November to March. Day guests share the spa, though the hotel has cut their daily numbers.
The price question
The money buys a large spa that comes with the room, two restaurants under one chef and a house where nobody has to dress up before evening. It does not buy seclusion from day visitors, who share the spa, nor a short drive: the hotel sits up a mountain valley, and in winter the road has its own rules. The real comparison is a spa weekend near a city, against a stay that is the whole destination.
Book it for two or three nights built around the spa and one dinner at Le Feuillage, chosen together with the room. Friends or family travelling together can take the five connecting suites of the Villa François as a single villa for up to fifteen. Families with young children who want the whole spa are better placed elsewhere.
Royal Champagne Hotel & Spa
Forty-seven rooms and suites set into the vine slope at Champillon above Épernay, with a 1,500 m² spa, two pools, the gastronomic Le Royal and the brasserie Le Bellevue.
Domaine Les Crayères
Twenty rooms and suites in a 1904 château and its cottage, in a park on Saint-Nicaise hill in Reims, with Le Parc, Brasserie Le Jardin and Bar La Rotonde.
The Extra Edit
Confirmed with your quote
Something extra, from us.
Ask for a stay and a person takes it from there. Any hotel privileges that apply, and a personal Extra arranged by us, are confirmed with your bookable quote.
Tell us which Extra appeals in your request. Nothing is charged when you ask, and no upgrade is promised.
A drink, a meal or an experience: chosen by you, arranged by us.
A person confirms your request within 24 hours.
Rate on request
Personal confirmation within 24 hours