6 place de l'Hôpital Général, Nord
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Is it a château? No, though the mistake is easy to make. The Royal Hainaut was built under Louis XV as a general hospital for the poor and the elderly of Valenciennes, but in red brick and blue stone around a courtyard of three and a half thousand square metres, on a scale that would flatter a duke. A Belgian investor, Xavier Lucas, spent nearly ten years turning it into a hotel, which opened in 2019 with seventy-nine rooms. No duke ever lived here, but plenty would have been happy to.
Why is the room so big? Because the old wards left nothing smaller to work with. Forty-two of the seventy-nine are suites, and even the ordinary rooms run to around thirty square metres, roughly twice what a hotel of this kind usually offers. Ceilings climb to seven metres under blue-stone vaults, and the duplex suites look out over the great courtyard. Suitcases, used to tighter quarters, look faintly embarrassed.
Where is the pool? Downstairs, under the old vaults. The spa fills twelve hundred square metres beneath them, and its pool, twenty-two metres long and kept at thirty degrees, runs between the original stone pillars. Swimming lengths means weaving politely around the foundations of an old hospital. No architect would design a pool like this on purpose.
Is there anything to do in the evening? Rather a lot. A glass atrium thirteen metres high serves as the lounge bar, and the Royal Bar keeps a billiard table and a fire. The old chapel, the only religious building of its century left in town, hosts candlelit concerts. The house motto, coined by the opening director, sums up the attitude: come in, everything is an excuse for a good time.
What on earth is a Lucullus? The pride of Valenciennes: smoked ox tongue layered with foie gras. La Galerie, the hotel's brasserie, serves its own version in a big, busy room. For something smaller, La Storia does Italian dinners, from seafood pasta to ossobuco.
Is it ever quiet? Not always. A building this size attracts weddings and seminars, and on some weekends the chapel and the meeting rooms are busy with both. Valenciennes itself is not the reason to come, but Lille is close and Brussels not much further, both within easy reach for a day out. The guests who get the most out of it are couples after a big room and a long swim, and families who need space to spread out.
Who was all this room originally for? The poor of Hainaut, by royal order. They would hardly recognise the beds or the warm pool under the vaults, but the size of the place would probably not surprise them at all.
By royal order
Work on the general hospital began in 1752 on the order of Louis XV; it was inaugurated in 1767, the chapel was completed in 1774, and the building stayed a hospital until 2009.
The Presidential Family Suites run to 100 m²: a tall living room with an arched ceiling and blue-stone piers, a black steel staircase rising to a bedroom on the mezzanine, and a second bedroom opening off the room below. Windows face the great courtyard or the town. Two bedrooms around one sitting room make it the natural choice for parents with older children.
The 22-metre pool, heated to 30 °C, lies beneath the white vaults of the old hospital, with a row of blue-stone pillars along each side and wicker armchairs set between them. A hammam, a sauna and nine treatment rooms, three of them for two, share the 1,200 m² spa. Pool, sauna, hammam and gym are included for hotel guests.
Beside the atrium, the Royal Bar is the quieter room of the evening: blue-stone pillars, a library along the walls, deep armchairs and a billiard table. After dark the fire is lit, the long curtains are drawn and the lights go down. Drinks are ordered at the Atrium bar, and major sporting events are shown on a large screen.
La Galerie is the long brasserie of the house, with stone pillars, chandeliers and deep-red buttoned banquettes. The kitchen follows the seasons with producers from the region: the Lucullus of Valenciennes, slow-cooked beef in the manner of a Flemish carbonade, local meats and a chocolate mousse with hazelnut praline.
At a glance
Where
6 Place de l'Hôpital Général, 59300 Valenciennes, Nord, Hauts-de-France; in the former Canonniers quarter of the town centre. Valenciennes station about 10 minutes; Lille-Lesquin airport about 40 minutes; Lille 55 km, Tournai 46 km, Brussels 105 km, Paris 213 km by road
Why this one
42 of the 79 are suites.
22 metres, heated to 30 °C.
Two bars, billiards and a fire.
The Edit Notes
The hotel lists a view for every category. Deluxe rooms, the smallest at 29 m², look over the town through roof windows; Prestige rooms sit under blue-stone vaults at garden level or on the first floor, also facing the town. Of the suites, only the Duplex Suites are listed with a view of the great courtyard; Senior Duplex Suites face the town, Presidential Suites the courtyard or the town, and the two Royal Suites the atrium or an inner courtyard. Ask which side is being offered.
La Galerie serves from Tuesday lunch to Sunday lunch; La Storia only from Thursday dinner to Sunday lunch. On Sunday evening and on Monday neither restaurant is open, and Tuesday and Wednesday evenings are La Galerie's alone. L'Atrium serves boards of cheese and charcuterie, a croque-monsieur and desserts through the day, and the group lists room service. A stay that includes an Italian dinner should take in a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night, with the table booked.
On Friday and Saturday nights a DJ or live singer plays under the atrium glass, and the chapel hosts weddings, dinners and candlelit concerts; wedding parties run late into the night. From Monday to Thursday the spa sells three-hour sessions to day visitors, so the pool is shared beyond the hotel, and the pool can also be reserved privately for two people for two and a half hours. Treatments are booked by telephone or email; online spa booking is currently unavailable.
The hotel has no car park of its own; cars go to a public car park in the rue de l'Intendance, about 50 metres away, charged by the night, with charging points for electric cars. Valenciennes station is about ten minutes from the door, with TGVs from Paris in under two hours and regional trains from Lille in forty minutes. Families should note that Duplex Suites put the bed on an upper level reached by stairs; a baby cot is available on request.
The price question
The money buys space in a listed eighteenth-century building: suites rather than rooms for more than half the house, a heated pool under the old vaults, and two bars and a chapel that keep the evening inside the walls. It does not buy a restaurant every night, a car park, or quiet on every weekend. The honest comparison is a city hotel in Lille with a dinner out.
Book it for one or two nights from Thursday to Saturday, a suite for a family or a couple who want room and a long swim, with La Storia reserved in advance. A guest who needs a quiet Saturday, or who arrives on a Monday expecting dinner in the house, is better placed on another date.
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The Extra Edit
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