Michelin began rating hotels this month, starting with 189 properties in France. Yet many of the hotels that received coveted Michelin “keys” didn’t overlap with the list of best-rated hotels at online review sites. What gives?
02.04.2024 - 02:23 / insider.com
Michael and April Meyer's love affair with France began with a trip to the country five years ago to celebrate their wedding anniversary.
"I wanted to surprise April with something, and I knew that she loved art but had never really been to Europe," Michael, 56, told Business Insider. "We usually went to Hawaii for vacation, but it was our 25th anniversary, so I surprised her with a trip to Paris."
The couple, who are from Sacramento, were charmed by every part of the city — the culture, the food, the people.
"It was kind of transformative, and we went back almost immediately, like six months later," Michael said. The couple visited other parts of France and returned for a holiday whenever they could.
"But we still loved it. We kept going back, to try to get bored, and it just didn't happen," April, 54, told BI.
They liked the idea of spending more time in France, but it wasn't until Michael retired from his engineering job last year that they decided they were ready for a new adventure.
The couple had recently downsized their home, and their kids had moved out, he said: "We were like, 'OK, what are we going to do?'"
"So we decided to just go look at some homes," April, a teacher, added.
The couple knew that they wanted to be in central or northern France because that's where they felt their dollar would go further, April said.
They ended up arranging a six-week trip across the French countryside, zipping from Burgundy to Bordeaux and then to the Loire Valley, to view some houses that were for sale.
"It was like our Tour de France," Michael said.
The couple was working their way down a list of properties they were interested in, which included a quaint €85,000, or about $92,000, stone house in a small hamlet some 12 miles north of Limoge, a city in central France, that they liked.
The couple wasn't planning on viewing the house until later in the week but got an email from the real-estate agent urging them to push their viewing date forward.
"He said, 'If you're really interested, you need to come tomorrow because it won't be here on Thursday,'" Michael said, recounting the agent's words.
The property had been under offer with another buyer, but the deal fell through, he added.
"So we jumped in the car and started driving," Michael said.
When they arrived, they knew almost immediately that the house was the one.
"It checked all the boxes. It was in a small hamlet in the country. It had a fenced yard for our dog. It didn't have a garage, but there were barns and the roof was redone. It was very well taken care of," Michael said.
And the house even came furnished, April said. The owner had died earlier in the year, and her kids didn't want the items anymore, so they left almost everything behind.
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Michelin began rating hotels this month, starting with 189 properties in France. Yet many of the hotels that received coveted Michelin “keys” didn’t overlap with the list of best-rated hotels at online review sites. What gives?
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With additional reporting by Sarah Allard
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In a groundbreaking move, the prestigious MICHELIN Guide unveils its inaugural ranking of MICHELIN Keys for France today, marking its first foray into hotels. With 189 distinguished establishments across France among the 600 hotels in the new guide, Michelin celebrates the talent and dedication of these hospitality professionals, setting a new standard for excellence in the hotel industry. As MICHELIN's inspectors continue to scour the planet for the best in class, hotel rankings for other destinations are to follow later this month.