This is a lovely place to stay in a busy area. The hotel is between the lake and the sea and you can walk to both and the nearby town, it provides the perfect base for the area. The hotel itself is charming, and the location makes eating breakfast over looking the lake a delight. If you are active you can get up early and do a lap of the lake (about 4 miles) before breakfast. There is a flat foot path all the way round. My girls took themselves the 500 yards to the beach every afternoon. Beware if you have very small children you might be better off letting them us the lake beaches as the sea has very large waves here and the beach shelves steeply. They hold surfing competitions here and you can see why. The town its self is very casual and surfy.
Apart from breakfast the hotel only provides a room service menu which can be eaten either in you room or on the terrace, however there are lots of resturants in the area and you can walk to them.
The staff are friendly and will speak English if you want them to. There are alot of other nationalities staying here and the atmosphere is great. The rooms do not have air conditioning but we did not find this a problem despite the hot weather. There are shutters that you can pull down whilst leaving the windows open, and alot of the rooms do not get the afternoon sun which is a mixed blessing - cool but it means your terrace is in the shade so you have to seek out sunshine by the pool or on the hotel terrace. A nice touch is the the supply of free drinks in the mini bar so there are always cans of fizzy stuff and water available. The bathrooms in the part we stayed in had just been re done, I don't know if this is true for all the rooms, but the showers were great and the rooms were kept clean and tidy by the maids.
I would choose this hotel if I had teenagers who wanted a degree of independence as they can walk and cycle on their own (there is bike hire at the hotel and in town) whilst affording a certain amount of luxury.
- Les Hortensias Du Lac Hossegor
