France

[jdm026]

NEED HELP, Going to paris(5 days), and will drive to lyon, bordeaux, and on to barcelona. I have 3 weeks. Need meals and hotels.Side trips etc. UPSCALE.

[Yank]

You can do a lot worse than look at:

http://www.relaisdusilence.com/EN/?gc....

This is an association of independent hotels around France. We've stayed a several over the years & never been disappointed. Usually, the food is very good and the level of service & friendliness excellent.
You'll certainly do some criss-crossing of France with your itinerary. You might want to consider Paris, Bordeaux, Barcelona, Lyon. If you're arriving & leaving from Paris that is.

[jdm026]

By upscale I mean traditional . Gagnaire is perfect. Went to hegia and loved it.

[boredough]

I suspect you'll get some advice to avoid criss-crossing France and reroute your trip, but for now, one thing I'd suggest after Bordeaux is to find a way to get to & stay (& eat) at HEGIA in Hasparren (not far from Biarritz), provided Arnaud Daguin hasn't sold it. From there it might be easier to reach Barcelona through northeastern Spain rather than southwestern France; in any case, it will entail plenty of driving. Check it out: http://www.hegia.com . (And look for other CH comments on Hegia.) We had a fabulous experience there 2 summers ago.

[masha]

Have you searched this Board? Paris, Lyon & Bordeaux have many discussions. In terms of side-trips and food-worthy chambres d'hote along the way, you might read this Post: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/759348

[Maximilien]

What does upscale really mean ? $$$$ (or €€€€) or just fancy ? traditional ? modern ?

In Paris, is a dinner at Pierre Gagnaire upscale ? or something like La Régalade ? or something else ?

for Barcelone, go to the spain forum.