A five-star hotel by Aix-les-Bains: Grésy-sur-Aix

Where Grésy-sur-Aix sits

Grésy-sur-Aix is not a district of Aix-les-Bains but its own commune in Savoie, lying in the periurban belt north of the spa town, about 4 km from it. It covers 12.73 km² between 253 m and 620 m, and its population has grown from 1,328 in 1968 to 4,740 in 2023. Its neighbours include Aix-les-Bains, Brison-Saint-Innocent, Pugny-Chatenod, Trévignin, Le Montcel, La Biolle and Entrelacs. As the crow flies, Chambéry is about 17 km to the south and Annecy about 25 km to the north.

The Sierroz torrent crosses the commune from north-east to south-west. Its gorges were the commune's main visitor attraction until the end of the 20th century; Napoleon III and Queen Victoria were among its visitors, and remains of a sawmill, millstones and irrigation channels recall the mills the water once drove. Roman columns and capitals from villas have been found at a place called La Tour.

The A41 motorway, opened in 1977, crosses the western part of the commune, and Grésy has its own station on the regional rail line through Aix-les-Bains.

Aix-les-Bains hotels: town, lake or Grésy?

Aix-les-Bains is the largest town on the Lac du Bourget, with 32,406 inhabitants in 2023, spread between the lake shore and the slopes of Mont Revard. When comparing Aix-les-Bains hotels, it helps to picture three settings.

The town centre holds the historic baths, the Casino Grand Cercle and, on the hillside above, the Belle Époque palaces. The lakefront, around the Grand Port and the esplanade on the eastern shore, is about boats and promenades; the Grand Port is the largest freshwater marina in France, with some 1,500 moorings. Grésy-sur-Aix, on the northern edge, is periurban and residential; from there you drive or take a regional train into town.

As of September 2026, Château Brachet is the only hotel in Grésy-sur-Aix classified five stars in the Atout France register. It suits travellers who want a country-house setting within easy reach of the town rather than a hotel on the promenade.

A spa town fit for a queen

Aix grew around its hot springs. The Romans built a bath complex here from the 1st century AD, and two monuments of the Roman town survive: the Arch of Campanus and a temple thought to have been dedicated to Diana. The modern spa began in the late 18th century with the Victor-Amédée baths of 1783; the building known as the Thermes nationaux was rebuilt to designs by Pellegrini between 1855 and 1862 and extended again in 1933. The city bought it in 2012, treatments moved to the Thermes Chevalley, and the old baths await conversion.

In the 19th century the resort became fashionable with the British. More than 3,000 English visitors were counted in 1884, and Aix built a golf course, tennis courts and a sailing club for them. Queen Victoria stayed in 1885, 1887 and 1890, travelling as the Countess of Balmoral, and took drives to the Sierroz gorges, La Chambotte, the Grande Chartreuse and Hautecombe. A bust of her by Mars Valett was erected on the Place du Revard in 1923. The Casino Grand Cercle dates from 1849, and the palace hotels on the hillside belong to the resort's late-19th-century heyday; the tourist office lists a guided tour of them, Les Palaces des Coteaux.

Dr Léon Brachet belonged to this world. He treated visitors at the baths and served as first deputy mayor of Aix-les-Bains; according to the hotel, he obtained papal permission for the Queen to visit the monastery of the Grande Chartreuse, normally closed to women. In 1895 he and Dr Léon Blanc promoted the town's first golf course, nine holes on the Corsuet hill, which closed in 1898.

The Lac du Bourget

The Lac du Bourget is the largest natural lake of glacial origin lying entirely within France, and the deepest: 18 km long, between 1.6 and 3.5 km wide, with a surface of 44.5 km² and a maximum depth of about 145 m. The Mont du Chat and the Chaîne de l'Épine close its western side, while the Bauges mountains rise to the east, above Aix. The Canal de Savières, an artificial channel, links the lake to the Rhône.

The lake has a place in French literature: Alphonse de Lamartine stayed here in October 1816, and the visit inspired his poem Le Lac. It also has a place in prehistory, with underwater pile-dwelling sites recognised by UNESCO. In 2025 it gained UNESCO biosphere reserve status as the Lac du Bourget, entre Rhône & Alpes biosphere reserve.

The tourist office describes a nautical station of 14 ports offering rowing, sailing, fishing, wakeboarding, diving and water-skiing. Boat cruises leave for Hautecombe Abbey and the Canal de Savières, and the ViaRhôna cycle route crosses the north of the area.

Hautecombe Abbey across the water

Facing Aix from the north-western shore, at Saint-Pierre-de-Curtille, stands the Abbey of Hautecombe. The community was founded in 1101 at Cessens, on the Chambotte heights north of Aix, joined the Cistercian order in the 1130s and moved in the 12th century to this site on the shore, given by Amadeus III, Count of Savoy. For centuries it was the burial place of the House of Savoy, and it holds the tombs of Savoyard counts and of the last king and queen of Italy, Umberto II and Marie-José.

By the early 19th century the abbey was in ruins. King Charles Felix of Sardinia bought it in 1824 and had it rebuilt in neo-Gothic style by the Piedmontese architect Ernesto Melano, with frescoes and marble sculptures. The building was classified as a historic monument in 1875. Since 1992 it has been cared for by the Chemin Neuf community, and it receives about 150,000 visitors a year. The church is visited with an audio guide available in 11 languages, and the Grange Batelière, the abbey's boat barn, is one of the highlights.

Mont Revard above the lake

East of Aix, the Revard belongs to the Bauges massif, inside the Parc naturel régional du Massif des Bauges, and its summit plateau rises to more than 1,500 m. From 1892 to 1937 a rack railway climbed from Aix-les-Bains to the top, and a cable car ran from 1935 to 1969. Today the D913, the route du Revard, climbs from the Aix plain, and summer and winter buses serve the plateau.

At the top, the Revard belvedere has three sky platforms with a 360° view over the lake and the Alps, and on clear days Mont Blanc is visible. In winter the plateau is the base of Savoie Grand Revard, a Nordic ski area with about 140 km of trails. In summer, the Balconies of the Lac du Bourget walk covers 13.5 km with 432 m of climbing. The Revard has also featured five times in the Tour de France.

Château Brachet

Château Brachet is the historic residence of Dr Léon Brachet, whom the hotel calls the physician of kings. Queen Victoria called here during her last two stays in Aix, in 1887 and 1890, to see her friend Countess Virginia Somers, who was renting the house, and the hotel displays a copy of the Queen's Highlands journal that she dedicated to Brachet in 1887. The house stands at 48 Impasse des Couduriers in a 6-hectare park; its 15 rooms and suites match the Atout France register, which classified it five stars on 12 February 2024.

The rooms are soundproofed and every window is designed for total darkness; all have a minibar. The Classic Room, about 18 m² under the roof, takes no cot or extra bed, and one room is equipped for guests with reduced mobility. The gastronomic restaurant, La Broderie, has a flowered terrace.

The park is laid out for sport as much as for rest: an 18 m outdoor pool, tennis, padel, pétanque, badminton, volleyball, croquet and an executive golf practice area of more than one hectare. The spa adds a sauna, a hammam and tailor-made treatments. The house uses geothermal and geocooling systems to cool its rooms, and pets are accepted only under strict conditions.

Getting to Grésy-sur-Aix

Aix-les-Bains is served by TGV trains from Paris, and regional trains stop at Grésy-sur-Aix itself. By road, the A41 has two exits for the town, Aix-les-Bains Nord and Aix-les-Bains Sud, and local buses run on the Ondéa network. Journey times below come from the Aix-les-Bains tourist office; distances are approximate.

The A41 also links Grésy with Annecy to the north, where our Annecy-le-Vieux and Menthon-Saint-Bernard pages cover the town and the lake, and with Chambéry to the south. For other five-star bases in the French Alps, see our regional selection, and our guide to checking a hotel's location and transport helps when, as here, a hotel associated with one town stands in the next commune.