Five-star hotels in Flayosc: a wine estate in the Var hinterland

Flayosc, a perched village of the Dracénie

Flayosc rises on a rocky outcrop in the centre of the Var, roughly 8 km from both Draguignan and Lorgues. The Dracénie tourist office gives the village an altitude of 330 metres, and the commune calls itself the gateway to the Haut-Var, midway between the Mediterranean coast and the Verdon Gorges. It had 4,673 inhabitants in 2023 and belongs to Dracénie Provence Verdon, a grouping of 23 communes formed in 2000.

The village spirals around the church of Saint-Laurent, known for its ornate campanile; the tourist office also notes the church's ceramics of Muslim inspiration. Three medieval gates survive: the Porte Dorée, the Porte de Paris and the Porte de la Reinesse. Water runs through the village's history too. An irrigation canal attributed to Queen Jeanne, possibly dug in 1365, crosses the settlement, a covered 19th-century wash house marks the entrance, and the classified fountain stands on Place de la République.

Flayosc also has a sharper history than its size suggests. Its château, once the residence of the Marquis de Villeneuve, was the first in the Var to be dismantled by the population, in May 1792. In the 19th century the village became a major shoemaking centre, and its cobblers earned the Provençal nickname lei pegot.

Château de Berne, a vineyard hotel in the Provençal hinterland

Hôtel Château de Berne is registered at Chemin des Imberts, 83780 Flayosc, with 34 registered rooms and a five-star classification dating from August 2022. The regional tourism board dates the estate to the 18th century. The domaine covers 515 hectares of nature, and its wines are Côtes de Provence.

By the estate's own account, its history reaches back to Roman times, when vines were already grown here on a branch of the Via Aurelia and wine amphorae were made on site. In the 12th century Raymond V, Count of Toulouse, gave the domaine to Bernard of Clairvaux, founder of the Cistercian order; after Philip the Fair confiscated the land in 1307, it belonged for nearly five centuries to the Marquis de Villeneuve. Marius Estellon, a former frigate captain, enlarged and replanted it in the 19th century. A British owner who bought it in 1995 replanted 32 hectares and began building a hotel around wine tourism, and in 2007 another British businessman bought the estate.

About 80 per cent of the vines grow on a limestone plateau at 300 metres, the rest on lighter, sandy soils near the château, and all 150 hectares of vineyard have been certified organic since February 2021. The rosés draw on Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault and Carignan, the reds on Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon, and the whites on Rolle and Sémillon. The tasting cellar receives visitors all year.

Accommodation is split between rooms and private villas, which the estate describes as overlooking the vineyards and decorated in a Provençal style. The spa covers 800 m², with an indoor pool fitted for counter-current swimming and a swan-neck jet, two jacuzzis, a sauna, a hammam, a solarium and a relaxation area with tea service. A fitness room with Technogym equipment and a ping-pong table, a tennis court and a pétanque court complete the facilities for guests.

The estate lists several places to eat, among them Le Jardin de Berne, where breakfast is also served, and Le Bistrot. La Table du Chef is a further option, in which the chef and team build seasonal dining experiences. The estate belongs to Relais & Châteaux. For how the French classification works, see what makes a hotel five-star in France.

Lorgues and Draguignan, the neighbouring towns

Lorgues lies 13 km south-west of Draguignan, in a valley at about 210 metres. Its 18th-century collegiate church has a classical façade, fragments of the medieval fortifications survive, and the Font Couverte, a covered fountain, dates from the 12th century. Fourteen wine properties in the commune produce Côtes de Provence, and the town had about 9,850 inhabitants in 2023.

Draguignan, a few kilometres from Flayosc, is the main town of the Dracénie, with about 40,800 inhabitants in 2023. Its name appears as Draconianum around 909, and it was the administrative centre of the Var from 1790 until 1974. Its landmarks include the Clock Tower, a town hall on the grounds of a former monastery dating to 1265, and the Pierre de la Fée, a prehistoric dolmen. The Rhône American Cemetery commemorates those who fell in the Second World War operations in the region.

Draguignan is also a garrison town: the Artillery School arrived in 1976 and the Infantry School was established in 2010. The regional tourism board lists the Musée des Arts et Traditions Populaires, the Musée de l'Artillerie and the Chapelle de l'Observance among the museums to see there.

Côtes de Provence country and Le Thoronet Abbey

Wine, olive oil and honey remain the three traditional products of Flayosc. The commune lies within the Côtes de Provence appellation, three local mills press olive oil, and honey comes from wild plants. Its producers include the La Flayoscaise wine cooperative, Le Cellier des 3 Collines, formed by merging the cooperative cellars of Draguignan and Flayosc, and Château de Berne.

Le Thoronet Abbey, a former Cistercian abbey in the Var between Draguignan and Brignoles, was built in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, with work probably beginning around 1176, and with Sénanque and Silvacane it forms the Three Sisters of Provence. The State acquired it in stages, in 1854 and 1938, and the Centre des monuments nationaux runs it today. In 1953 Father Couturier urged Le Corbusier to go there while he was designing the convent of La Tourette, and that building's tower, simple volumes and play of light on bare walls draw on Le Thoronet.

Beyond Le Thoronet, towards Brignoles, the Provence Verte has an abbey village of its own, La Celle, with a listed five-star hostellerie.

Tourtour, the Haut-Var villages and the road to the coast

The regional tourism board lists Tourtour, Villecroze, Ampus, Châteaudouble, Entrecasteaux, Taradeau and Saint-Antonin-du-Var among the villages near Flayosc, and the Dracénie tourist office adds Aups and Sillans. Tourtour, a member of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France, is known as the village in the sky of Provence: from its heights the view reaches from Fréjus on the coast to Montagne Sainte-Victoire.

Flayosc is filed by Hotel5only with the Var and Alpes-Maritimes towns of its French Riviera collection, although it lies inland. Towards the sea, Roquebrune-sur-Argens sits between Draguignan and Fréjus, and the hill villages of Gassin and Ramatuelle stand near Saint-Tropez, reached from the Dracénie by the A8 junction that serves the Gulf of Saint-Tropez.

Arriving by TGV, plane or the A8

The nearest main-line station is Les Arcs–Draguignan, in the commune of Les Arcs-sur-Argens, 13 km from Draguignan, on the line from Marseille to Ventimiglia. TGV inOui, Ouigo, night Intercités and TER trains stop there, with services to Paris Gare de Lyon, Lyon, Marseille, Toulon and Nice, the last about an hour and a quarter away.

Nice Côte d'Azur and Toulon-Hyères airports are each about an hour from the Dracénie. By road, junction 36 of the A8, La Provençale, serves Draguignan, Le Muy, Les Arcs, Vidauban and the Gulf of Saint-Tropez; the same motorway runs west past Brignoles to Aix-en-Provence and the A7.