Nice Garden Hotel

The name tells no lies. Here’s an unsuspected hide-away – pretty central and five minutes from the sea – with a hidden garden onto which all the rooms look. It’s simple, clean and run with family friendliness. A snip at the price, in short.

It starts off unpromisingly. The street entrance is jammed between a costume jewellery shop and a grocery store. Inside the 19th-century building, things get much better.

Rooms are newly-renovated and practical, though small. Bathrooms have been re-done. I’m not sure I’d have gone for the pink in some of them – but you’re only in there for a shower.

The key things, though, are the warmth, the calm – and the garden. Crammed with pots, plants, orange trees and other hot-climate horticulture, this is like having your own private haven in the middle of the city

Sunlit breakfast under the oranges is a fine preparation for the rigours of a day devoted to leisure.

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