The website looked lovely, and so did the gardens when you first get there... The rooms are cute, and the dimmed lights romantic, until you feel like reading or doing your make-up, and realize you can not see anything. The reception promised to send us additional light, we stayed for 3 nights and never got it. What we did get though was the very unexpected and outrageous extra charges... The hotel did not serve food, and we were told we could go get pizza from outside. As my husband was bringing it back, he was offered 2 empty plates to eat them in: very nice gesture until we found out at check out that had been charged 30 euro!!! We had been happy when they had told us baby beds were no issue... No wonder when they are usually free, but charged 60 euro in this hotel... The AC is also set at a fix temperature, which was too cold for me, the owner said I just had to turn it off. The fact that it was then stuffy and hot did not matter at all to her. The owner had a very unpleasant attitude, and we never really figured out what the deal was with food, as they kept telling us they could not serve us food, but kept seeing other people eating out of beautiful trays. As far as we were concerned, she made it clear we just had to put baby in her stroller and go out. She told my husband after a day there we could not bring food in (that was disturbing their other guests!?!). Since her English was bad, and his French limited, I asked to talk to her in person, but from then, she avoided me and we never got the bottom of that secret... To summarize, very nice gardens, but the secrets you're sorry to discover are definitely the attitude, and the hidden charges...

My wife and I stayed in a classic room at Le Jardins Secrets for 2 nights during our recent holiday in Provence. Our room was fairly small but beautifully decorated and looked onto an classic arched atrium with lounge chairs to relax and enjoy the Nimes sunshine. Our en-suite had an enormous bath with a hand-held shower but no separate shower. We really enjoyed the thoughtful details in the rooms like complimentary bottled water, fluffy dressing gowns and slippers, English newspapers and complimentary chocolate cake on our bed at the end of each day! The hotel is superbly decorated with antiques but still manages to feel homely. There are at least half a dozen sitting areas for guests to relax, some with fireplaces and all with a selection of beautiful books on travel, art etc, many of which are in English. It is located in a quiet residential street, about a 10 minute walk from the old town of Nimes where the roman amphitheatre is located. We would usually choose to stay at hotels in the centre of town but we really enjoyed the relaxing feeling of returning to Le Jardins Secret after a day exploring the Provence region. A highlight of our stay was having breakfast in the garden by the pool. It is quiet and picturesque, and the table setting looked like a magazine picture. At 20 Euros per person it was quite expensive however, and was not included in our room price. The hotel owners are delightful and maintain a perfect balance of being friendly without being intrusive. The other staff were helpful, polite and immaculately dressed. At the time of our booking, the room prices on the website were out-of-date, so best to check with the hotel first. We were shown through the hotel spa and hamman which is currently being finished. It will be a great bonus for guests when it is open (next month we were told). Overall, the hotel was romantic and relaxing, and if you are looking for a retreat slightly out of town from which to base your excursions around Provence, we would highly recommend it.

My husband and I stayed at Jardins Secrets for 3 nights. We booked directly with the hotel by telephone. It was our first trip in the south of France. Nimes is a lovely city. We enjoyed walking around the city and visit the roman monuments. When we first arrived at the hotel, we felt like we could stay there forever! we were sorry that we only booked for 3 nights and the hotel was fully booked so we chouldnt extend our stay there. Our room was one of the new rooms. The room made us feel like we were in a chateau not a hotel! I loved the decoration and the wall paper in my room was breath taking. We had a large bath room and a shower room with green marble. At night, we just love sitting in front of our room enjoying the view of the cloisters and candles (it made our trip even more romantic). The hotel serve our champagne with many little things (olives, saucisson, cheeses and many other typical french (I forgot the name)) We travel a lot in Europe and we had the best breakfast that we've ever had in any hotel here: home made breads, 5 different choices of jam, fresh orange joice, strawberries and our preferred newspaper. The service in this hotel is outstanding. Annabelle, Christophe and all the staffs were very friendly and helpful. For us, it was a really unforgetable trip and we will definitely go back there again this winter to enjoy the spa!