Chambres d'Hôtes Les Asphodèles

At the gateway to the Cévennes, a UNESCO World Heritage site, Corine de Royer welcomes you to her charming guest house. A painter and herbalist with a diploma from the Ecole des Plantes in Paris, she invites you to discover her creative workshops: herbal walks, herbariums, wild lettuce picking, medicinal, tinctorial and aromatic plants, herbarium workshops, plant paper, painting and icons under glass. In Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort, a village closely linked to the history of textiles and vegetable dyeing, traces of which can be found in the Musée de la Soie, this 18th-century residence in the old dyers' quarter and its charming guest rooms invite you to relax and rediscover your own creativity. Each of the three spacious rooms is decorated with Corine's paintings of flowers and herbariums of Cévennes flora. Breakfasts and dinners are served on the flower-filled terrace or in the lounge by the fire and piano. Homemade jams (blueberry, wild plum, blackcurrant, redcurrant, bitter orange and lemon) rival the quality of the local produce served with meals (omelettes with local ceps, rare and flowery wild and cultivated salads). An ideal stopover, this ancient village nestles at the foot of beautiful limestone hills, and is surrounded by numerous prehistoric and historic sites: cromlechs, dolmens, Grotte des Demoiselles, Bambouseraie d'Anduze, Jardins de Mazet, Cirque de Navacelles, Saint Guilhem le Désert abbey, Romanesque chapels dotted around the mountains... Courses and creative workshops are offered by Corine de Royer, tourist ambassador for the Causses and Cévennes. At sunrise or sunset, she'll accompany you as you pick the plants of the season: wild lettuces in winter and spring, violets, wild pansies, hawthorn, arnica, meadowsweet, thyme, rosemary, savory, burdock... Better than a lecture, she'll revive our grandmothers' knowledge of the virtues of every plant in our environment. Food, cosmetic, tinctorial and medicinal uses will be clarified through the creation of herbariums and plant pictures painted with natural pigments diluted in egg yolk, just as icons are painted on wood and under glass. These are all ancient techniques that Corine is determined to perpetuate, as is the art of making vegetable paper from herbs cooked in wood ash and washed in the waters of the Vidourle. Corine was awarded the Tourism Medal in 2020.