You’ve been on the road all day. You’re tired and want to relax in a nice, quiet hotel. And finally you check in.
Nothing is more annoying than finding your hotel filled with noise. I don’t mean insipid canned music. That’s irksome itself, but not overbearing. By noise I mean a steady din of traffic or loud guests, no matter what the hour. You get that urge-to-pound-on-the-wall feeling when a television set is blaring in the next room.
One unusual hotel chain offers its guests a rare commodity — silence. Well, almost. Where, you ask? Unfortunately, most of the hotels are in Europe. The group calls itself Relais du Silence, or Silencehotel. A few perceptive French hoteliers created the Paris-based chain in 1968, before ecology and environmental issues were hot topics. As the Relais du Silence directory notes:
“Noise, as we all know, is a major social intrusion. It produces stress and undermines our health and happiness. Also, what is cheap and modern all too often tends to be ugly, disappointing and increasingly impersonal.”
What the Relais du Silence aims to offer is a natural and peaceful environment, a comfortable building of character, a warm welcome, very good food and, of course, considerable quiet.
I learned about the Relais du Silence last spring during a driving trip through the Champagne and Alsace regions of France. My wife and I were traveling with our Dutch friends, Jops and Dis Diepenbroek, who began using Relais du Silence properties 20 years ago. Our first experience came at Hotel les Buttes, a cozy, 27-room chalet-like lodge high in the wooded Vosges Mountains of Alsace near the village of Ventron. We had followed a two-lane winding road hairpinning up about 1,000 feet from the village to the lodge — actually two lodges, one new and one old, separated by a parking area at the foot of a ski slope.
We checked into a sunny, country-style room with pine paneling and furniture, fashionable fabrics in yellow and orange plaids, a sliding glass door to a balcony and a huge bathroom with a separate tub and shower. We had time to hike through the woods following a cross-country ski trail. One night we ate in the so-so hotel dining room, the next in a charming old Alsatian restaurant in Ventron.
Our Dutch friends discovered Les Buttes years ago as they searched for dry shelter after rains washed out their camping trip in the area. Our second experience with Relais du Silence came a few days later at La Bergerie, a renovated 16th Century estate between Metz and Thionville at the edge of Rugy, a village amid farm fields. We drove into a U-shaped complex of connected stone farm buildings, a chapel and a residence that opens on a paved courtyard. Our room was simple and spare, just right for our overnight stay, and the dining room was quietly elegant and excellent.
The Diepenbroeks had found La Bergerie a convenient stop on trips between the south of France and their home near Eindhoven.
While the Relais du Silence had its beginnings in France, the chain now has 302 independently owned hotels in 12 European countries and one in Canada, Domain of Killen in Haliburton, Ontario. Henri Schaff, president of France Inc., an Arlington, Tex., firm that represents Relais du Silence in the U.S., described it as a “voluntary” chain with two-, three- and four-star properties, set mainly in the countryside. With double rooms ranging between $80 and $180, it’s less expensive than the more upscale Relais & Chateaux.
“We have a wide range of clientele, some of whom are very budget-minded when they stay in a city, but splurge a little more in the countryside,” said the French-born Schaff, who became an American citizen in February. “They go to a Relais du Silence because their budget doesn’t permit them to stay in a Relais & Chateaux hotel.”
Schaff emphasized that the hotels are all privately owned. “That’s very important because when you say you want to talk to the manager, 99 per cent of the time you talk to the owner,” he added. “And that’s a big advantage in the hotel business. When you own the property, you run it with a better touch.”
Schaff said the hotels pride themselves on good service. He said a board of directors, made up of elected members and owners, screen all the properties and inspect them every year. “They are very tough with their requirements. The membership changes every year, with new properties added and some dropping out.”
Hotels applying for membership must, for starters, complete a 33-page application covering 16 categories, asking for such diverse details as parking, sports, nearness to museums, background of restaurant staff, shapes of tables, type of cutlery used, languages spoken and room facilities. Properties, of course, are asked about quietude — natural protection against road noise, artificial protection against noise, and external and internal sources of noise.
Along with the country hotels, Relais du Silence has four member hotels in Paris. “The four hotels in Paris are not my No. 1 hotels,” Schaff said. “They are good hotels, all three-stars, but to be honest, how can you have a Silencehotel in the middle of Paris. Basically you do need a few hotels in Paris for any group of hotels. The selection elements are the same. They have to be nice, well decorated and everything. But is the street quiet? It’s a city street.”
Schaff noted that when the Relais du Silence first started, “you really had silence. You were in the boonies and you completely forgot about the city you live in.” Now, he said, more and more hotels have television because travelers ask for it. The two hotels we stayed in did not have TV sets nor were they missed.
To aid American travelers who book the country hotels, Schaff said he gives them computerized directions as well as a hotel location map. Schaff said the potential for having Relais du Silence properties in the U.S. is good. “There are a lot of properties — bed-and-breakfast and country inns — that would fit the description required for Silencehotel,” but no additions are in the offing.
Information about the Relais du Silence is available via the Internet at www.relais-du-silence.com or www.silencehotel.com. (The sites are under construction and were scheduled to be operational after this section went to press.) Or by contacting France Inc., 5609 Green Oaks Blvd. S.W., Suite 105, Arlington, TX 76017; 800-927-4765.
