The hotel: thank heavens for monks. They have spent history seeking out
the loveliest spots on God’s earth, putting up sublime buildings and then
bequeathing them to posterity, which, quite often, has had the good sense to
turn them into luxury hotels.
This tells us much about the movement of ages – from sandals and silence to
champagne and truffles – but who’s to say the soul needs starving? Not me,
as I sit in the Abbaye de la Bussière in remotest Burgundy.
Ascetics be damned. I haven’t had to till the fields or illuminate manuscripts
to feel this way. In truth, I haven’t had to do much of anything since
driving in the gates, through the 17-acre park, round the lake and up to the
900-year-old, honeystoned pile. Youthful staff have shouldered
responsibility for my wellbeing, furnishing smiles, drinks and guidance
along corridors and terraces whose negotiation would otherwise require a GPS.
Clive Cummings is the 39-year-old British owner of this self-contained little
world. Until recently, the Cummings family ran the equally venerable
Amberley Castle in Sussex. They moved to France after learning that the
abbey was for sale. They visited and bought it the same day, from the
Archbishop of Dijon.
Three years and €6m on, the Abbaye provides monastic life reviewed and
corrected for the comfort-seeking classes. Along the upper gallery, you may
slip from the hunting lounge (sofas, great medieval fireplace, boar’s head,
armour) via the ladies’ lounge (softer all round, no dead animals) to the
large and comfortable music room.
Down the stairs, the arcaded grand hall benefits from a lack of monks
(splendid fellows, but a bit eerie en masse). Outside, from the chapel you
cross the stream to the vintage wine press and on through woodland to the
lake and stout outbuildings.
Locals protested loudly at the arrival of the Cummingses – Anglo-Saxon
money-makers colonising French heritage, that sort of thing. Most have been
won round, but a couple hold out. It’s a promising sign. In France, a
project is worthless if nobody’s objecting. This evening, though, all is the
deepest peace. I retire to the music room with a glass and religious
thoughts. They echo those of Cardinal Richelieu: “If God forbade drinking,
would He have made wine so good?”
The rooms: in the good old days, they would have crammed a dozen
Cistercians into the space taken by my bedroom. There’s carved oak furniture
and enough drapes to decorate a coronation. Dreaming of this sort of luxury
would have kept monks in confession for a month.
They might, too, have been foxed by the contemporary granite’n’tiling
bathroom. So was I. No matter how I tried, water from the monsoon-head
shower edged out across the floor. I should have had a spa bath instead, but
I don’t have that kind of patience. I do, however, have just enough to
sample the provided half-bottle of Crémant de Bourgogne fizz.
The food: post bubbly, there are more aperitifs in the upper gallery,
then it’s downstairs to a restaurant a little like a scaled-down cathedral
but warmer, with better service and infinitely better nibbles. Before
opening, Cummings thought he might take revenge on Raymond Blanc by dishing
up English food in his French abbey. Sagely, he decided against it, and
within a year, 28-year-old chef Olivier Elzer had bagged a Michelin star.
This is both astonishing and, after the waltz of dishes, unsurprising. I like
to leave a little to the imagination, so I’ll just say “scallops with
truffles”, “foie gras with Sichuan pepper”, “snails in champagne” and “the
finest Charolais fillet I’ve eaten”.
The surroundings: most of the great Burgundy vineyards are within
spitting distance. Nuits-St-Georges is to hand, as, more interestingly, is
Beaune. And leave time for the higher Hautes Côtes, where the land is wilder
and the wines demand less deference. The Ouche valley (pronounced “Oosh”)
slots in behind, a gloriously hidden stretch of hills, forest and villages
where they’re still wondering what happened to Joan of Arc. But you might
not venture that far. To get the most out of this place, you don’t have to
go much beyond the abbey gates. If, indeed, at all.
Abbaye de la Bussière, La Bussière-sur-Ouche; 00 33 3 80 49 02 29, www.abbayedelabussiere.fr;
doubles from £176. Dinner menus from £48. La Bussière-sur-Ouche is a
six-hour drive from Calais, near enough to the A6 and A31 motorways. Lyon is
two hours away: fly there with British Airways (0844 493 0787, www.ba.com),
EasyJet (www.easyjet.com) or Aer Lingus
(0818 365000, www.aerlingus.com)
