First hours in the trees
Day breaks over your red cedar cabin, a few metres above the ground, and the light filters in, finely cut by the branches. The duvet still holds the warmth of the night while the morning air is cool, and the only sound is the little waterfall of the natural pool. A 2026 TripAdvisor review puts it in its own words: “…at night, the temperature was perfect for cozying up in bed, I even used the blanket!”
This is the hinterland of the Côte d’Azur. Twenty-five minutes from Nice, the coast falls away, the road climbs into the wooded hills, and the medieval village of Saint-Paul-de-Vence appears on the far side of the valley. Somewhere in these trees, across seven thousand square metres of forest, Diane Van den Berge laid the first planks of Orion in 2004, long before the word “ecoluxury” existed. Her idea was a simple one: a night spent in the forest rather than sheltered from it. Twenty-two seasons on, she is still the one welcoming guests.
At the edge of the canopy
The day often begins in the Colibri Forest, the part of the estate that Diane and volunteer guests are patiently replanting with native species, letting the ecosystem knit itself back together. It is here, at the treeline, that the yoga deck stands: a wooden platform open on every side, installed in 2026, suspended where the canopy thins. Before you: the trees, the mist rising from the valley, and the village of Saint-Paul on its perch, catching the light. On a mat, barefoot on the boards, you move through the postures at daybreak, and between two movements your eye falls on the hills.
Once the session is over, Diane takes anyone who wishes deeper into the woods for a forest bath, the Japanese Shinrin-yoku: a slow walk through the estate and into the heart of the Colibri Forest. There is no distance to cover and no goal: you walk slowly and stop whenever a piece of bark or a fern catches your eye.
The middle of the day
Breakfast on the first morning is already waiting, laid out in the open air beside the cabin, in the little alfresco kitchen that each cabin has to itself, with its induction hob and its plancha. Then the day loosens its grip. In the late morning, the heat gathers in the clearing, and the pool calls to you.
It is a living pool, filtered by plants, sand and gravel, fed by a waterfall at one end: soft water, free of chlorine, closer to a mountain tarn than to a swimming bath. In 2006, Richard Hammond wrote in The Guardian: “Compared with your average chlorinated pool, it feels like you’re swimming in Evian.” In spring, the frogs sing in it. At the height of summer, the dragonflies take over, skimming the surface while you take in the sun on one of our loungers. A few steps away among the trees, a barrel sauna keeps the scent of the whole forest in its cedar interior, for the cooler months. Nothing is scheduled: everyone spends the day as they please, at the estate’s own pace.
Which day will be yours
What comes next depends, more than anything, on the cabin you have chosen, for the four offer four very different versions of the same afternoon.
The couple who have booked Bagheera, the smallest at twenty square metres, will most likely spend it on one of its two terraces: the sunlit one, or the shaded platform slung beneath the cabin, with its hanging chairs that turn slowly in the drift of air. Those in Shere Khan have a better case for staying indoors: a teak bathtub, and a hammock across eighteen square metres of terrace.
Families tend to choose towards King Louie & Mowgli, where a four-poster bed in the main cabin is joined by a bridge to Mowgli, a smaller cabin with bunk beds, built at exactly the height a child judges adventurous.
The larger group that still wants its privacy climbs up to Colonel Hathi, the highest point on the estate, thirty-five square metres over two levels, with a sofa and a second hammock in its open-air room, and the finest view of all for the hour that is coming.
Setting off on an adventure
While the grown-ups linger, the children have already vanished somewhere among the trunks. At Orion, they rediscover a forgotten freedom: to explore their surroundings in complete safety, under the trees, around the pool, along the stream. The estate is enclosed, the forest is theirs, and no one calls them back before evening.
There is plenty here to feed the imagination of every budding Robinson Crusoe and Tom Sawyer. The rope bridge that links King Louie to the little cabin of Mowgli becomes a secret passage; the bunk beds, a lookout post. At the edge of the living pool, the most curious watch for frogs in spring and dragonflies in summer. And when night falls, in the Colibri Forest, the fireflies glimmer like little lanterns, a spectacle few children forget. Here, adventure has the good grace to stay within sight.
The whole Riviera within reach
Nothing obliges you to leave the estate, but the coast is close: by road, Saint-Paul-de-Vence is sixteen kilometres from Antibes, seventeen from Nice and twenty-seven from Cannes. In half a day, you are back in time for drinks on the terrace.
A stone’s throw away, the Fondation Maeght and its sculpture gardens, then the cobbled lanes of Saint-Paul. A little further, the timeless Riviera: the Chagall and Matisse museums in Nice, the Picasso museum in Antibes, the glassworks of Biot, the flower market and the Îles de Lérins. And on the other side, the wilder Riviera, that of the hinterland: the Col de Vence and its panorama, the hilltop village of Tourrettes-sur-Loup, the gorges and the trails of the high country. Either way, you come back to sleep in the trees.
The golden hour, and after
The light draws out and turns to amber, and the forest gives back the day it has held. Across the valley, the ochres of Saint-Paul catch and keep the last rays, and the shadows between the trunks grow long. From a private terrace, or from the deck where the morning began, the whole valley tips over into evening.
And then, in June, the fireflies, in a slow constellation that shifts between the cabins. Through the gaps in the canopy, the stars take over.
The cedar wood holds the day’s warmth, and down below, the pool’s waterfall is still running: it was the first sound of the morning, and it is the last of the evening. You sleep in the forest rather than sheltered from it, just as Diane imagined it in 2004.
That day is waiting for you, in spring as in the late season, when the light softens and the forest grows quiet again. Write to us or check availability: your cabin is there, somewhere among the branches, facing Saint-Paul-de-Vence.
Planning your stay
- Where: Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Côte d’Azur, twenty-five minutes from Nice and its international airport.
- The cabins: Bagheera, Shere Khan, King Louie & Mowgli, Colonel Hathi. Up to fourteen guests on the estate.
- Rates: from 220 € per night (Bagheera, low season), welcome aperitif and first breakfast included.
- Minimum stay: three nights in low season.
- Booking: check availability up in the branches, facing Saint-Paul-de-Vence.
