The Hostellerie de Crillon le Brave, owned by Peter Chittick (of Hotel du Vin fame) opened in 1989. The atmosphere in the early days was studiedly laid back, the walls were washed and stippled in gorgeous Provençal tones, the fabrics strictly Souleiado, the clientele young, upwardly mobile and largely Anglo-Saxon. There was a handful of rooms, all housed in a couple of classic Provençal scrubbed stone buildings with shutters the colour of ducks’ eggs. Over the years the hotel has quietly reached out and gathered under its wing three or more neighbouring houses until it has reached its present size and scope, spread out over five or six buildings. 

The rooms fall into two distinct price categories: the manageable and the mega-bucks. The newest ones (rooms and suites) are generously cut and look as though they’ve walked straight off the pages of a coffee-table magazine. They come with double baths (some with front-row-of-the-stalls views of Mont Ventoux), capacious sofas, designer fabrics, air conditioning and a price tag to match. Some have private terraces. The older rooms continue to co-exist fairly peaceably, at about half the price. 

Once we stayed in high summer. The room was fine, the fellow guests were amiable, the sun shone. There was an exquisite creature in attendance at the pool plying us with fluffy towels, squishy mattresses for cruiseship-quality teak beds, iced beers and a pencil and pad for Scrabble. Dinner was taken out on the terrace under the stars, the crickets were deafening and a wonderful fragrance drifted up at us from some not too distant potted plants. The food was a bit self-conscious and trying too hard, though the desserts (shortbread with fresh raspberries, a heavenly fig creation in brik pastry) made up for any shortfalls. There’s also a bistro, which serves more relaxed, funky stuff to shiny, happy people in holiday mood.

Next morning we ambled down to breakfast. There was one table free, with one chair, under which lurked an elderly piece of bread from a former feast. We commandeered an extra chair and eventually found someone who looked like he might be on duty. We ordered. Breakfast came on a tray, and on a tray it stayed. It wasn’t that we wanted someone hovering around pouring coffee and being obsequious. But a cloth or even some mats, and a beautiful table invitingly laid out would have been nice. 

This is perhaps the nub of the trouble with Crillon: like Topsy, it just ‘growed’, and after a while it got a bit leggy and un-coordinated. At the prices being asked, it's impossible to keep pretending that it isn’t really a grown-up establishment. Crillon needs to decide on its role in life: a seriously classy small hotel – with all that this implies for service – or just a beautiful slice of Provence caught up in slightly shambolic weekend houseparty mode? 

Topsy, it turns out, was taken aside and there was a stern discussion about where she was going with her life. Since then there have been some notable improvements – check them out for yourself this spring before the hordes descend. Take a deep breath and steel yourself for some real hardship: climb into the snowy bathrobe provided and order breakfast in your room. After giving your full attention to superior petits pains, wonderful yogurt, local honey and jam and lashings of good coffee, you can feast your eyes on the kind of view of the Mont Ventoux that sent Petrarch scurrying for his writing instrument. You may even feel moved to pen a sonnet or two of your own.