Best Western Plus Villa Saint Antoine Hôtel & Spa

“Lovely!”

Lovely hotel. The staff were great, very friendly & helpful. Room was nice, with a view over the terrace to the river & the chateau. Lovely pool & terrace, plenty of room to relax with a glass or two. Lift to all floors. The food was great & the reception staff made sure we had a table, even on th… more

Lovely hotel. The staff were great, very friendly & helpful. Room was nice, with a view over the terrace to the river & the chateau. Lovely pool & terrace, plenty of room to relax with a glass or two. Lift to all floors. The food was great & the reception staff made sure we had a table, even on the really busy nights with bookings from outside the hotel (have the cote de bouef if you are feeling very hungry, amazing & carved at your table.!!) Gated car park just around the corner from the hotel. Clisson is a lovely quaint town with plenty of history, lots of narrow cobbled streets, little shops & plenty of places to eat & drink, and Les Halles market hall as amazing. Just a shame about the weather.....comme Angleterre!!!

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“Great location”

Wonderful position in town. Great bedrooms . bathrooms vary. Stayed two nights different months Would eat elsewhere in evening.

“Remarkable: both good and bad”

Our ‘wine-dash’ continued, a trip with one main aim: to return home with our full allowance of French wine. In all occasions we have visited Clisson, since 2019, we have found that this hotel suits us in many ways. So, we have stayed here on all four occasions. The hotel’s location is superb for… more

Our ‘wine-dash’ continued, a trip with one main aim: to return home with our full allowance of French wine. In all occasions we have visited Clisson, since 2019, we have found that this hotel suits us in many ways. So, we have stayed here on all four occasions. The hotel’s location is superb for where we like to be, in the (older) lower town, at the eastern-end of the beautiful Pont de Vallée bridge; being southwards along the banks of La Sèvre Nantaise river at its confluence with La Moine river. We always felt that views from rooms here were going to be stunning, especially with the Château de Clisson high-up on the precipice on the opposite side of the river. Talking of the river we have never before seen the weir with no cascade of water: however this was of course not the fault of the hotel owners. Some of the rooms (effectively those with a ‘view tariff’) have superb views; photos here on TA show that. To get an idea, of what a view would be from these more expensive rooms, just sit on the terrace at the back of the hotel, and think how the view could be better. The only improvement likely to be realised would be if you were higher-up on your own balcony; but at circa 360€ per night, this is not something we feel we can justify. The room is a just room for us, and we spend as little time as possible in our room. During our stays here we have done the ‘complete stay experience’ being room, patio/bar drinks, dinner, and breakfast, as opposed to just a stay in a room. Yes, dinner is very good here, but there are two restaurants close-by that are incredibly good, so we get organised and book such restaurants well in advance. Breakfast here in the hotel is also really good, but we don’t eat large breakfasts, so the ‘all-you-can-eat’ buffet-style service model is, for us, too expensive at 18€ each. That is just not good value for tea and toast; which is all we need. There are plenty of café’s, Tabac bars and bakeries around, especially in the upper town, where we can enjoy an adequate breakfast for two for under 18€. We do enjoy having a civilised glass or two of wine, and we enjoy sitting on the aforementioned patio or in one of the lounge areas. Indeed we found that the bar offers a very good Côtes de Provence Rosé; which we enjoyed on three occasions during our two-night stay on this trip. To our room (Room 28), which was on floor 2+. The bedroom was good, the view could have been better as there was no balcony. We don’t sit in hotel rooms: we just try to sleep in them, ablute, and change clothing. Most features of the bedroom were unremarkable; in the sense that the bedroom did not give rise for us to make remarks (either good or bad). The ensuite bathroom though was remarkable; in the sense that it was remarkably bad. One of the two mirror strip-lights flashed continuously when switched-on, and the mosaic tiling in the shower-tray floor had missing pieces. The main issue however, was that hand-held shower riser fitting would not stay in place and just shot to the bottom of the riser rail. Fortunately the rainfall shower was OK, but you do not always want to wet your hair when showering. Using the hand-held shower meant holding it in your hand, and ideally you need two hands to get liquid soap out of your dispenser and both hands to efficiently wash. Anyway the design intended that the hand-held shower fitting could be positioned anywhere on the riser rail, but the mechanism enabling that was f**ked. Also when you are paying 300€ for a two night stay in any room you have the right to expect to have everything working properly! All the staff we encountered were helpful and remarkably pleasant.

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“Not perfect, but very close”

Our tour of the main wine-producing areas of the Loire Valley continued with Stage 7: Saumur to Clisson (Day 9 in France). We were now based in Clisson on our first day here. We parked in the carpark at this hotel well before checking-in, using the entrance code for the automatic gates; that was … more

Our tour of the main wine-producing areas of the Loire Valley continued with Stage 7: Saumur to Clisson (Day 9 in France). We were now based in Clisson on our first day here. We parked in the carpark at this hotel well before checking-in, using the entrance code for the automatic gates; that was provided when we had made our reservation. Parking here in the lower-town is otherwise very difficult; the carparking facility here is a major plus-point for this hotel. We had stayed here before in 2016, 2019 and 2022; so we know the hotel well. This is the best hotel in Clisson because of it’s location, comfort, quality and service. There is a lift to all floors, a small bar adjacent to both the restaurant and large terrace, area and also a pool. The beautiful view here, of the confluence of Le Sèvre Nantaise and La Moine, under the ‘Pont de Vallée’ bridge, is unequalled in Clisson, especially with the backdrop provided by Le Château de Clisson. We did not use many of the hotel’s other facilities, apart from the rooms, of course, and two good breakfasts here in the very smart restaurant. On this occasion we did not take dinner here, we usually do. With reservations already made for another visit in 2025, we are sure to weigh-up all the pros and cons of dining options, and then decide to dine here or not. We did have a lunchtime tapas meal where two of the tapas plates had not been very good; being just flavoured mashed potato balls; where the texture was just wrong. The tapas were certainly not very exciting, and did little to satisfy the taste buds. The flavour of cheese variety were slightly better than the fish flavoured variety. The other tapas plate was the best, being tempura tenderstem broccoli. After lunch we had sat a while on the sunny terrace by the river, and enjoyed a couple or three glasses of an excellent Muscadet. This was an great way to relax whilst soaking-up the sun’s warmth. The rooms were very good, sleep quality was excellent. The shower water did flood a significant area of the bathroom floor and totally soaked the bath mat. In my opinion two bath mats should be automatically provided along with fresh towels each day.

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