Where to Stay in Barbizon

Most people visit Barbizon for a few hours. The ones who stay remember it differently. The village changes register after the day visitors leave: the Grande Rue quietens, the light shifts at the forest edge, the restaurants fill with people who are not in a hurry. Staying here, rather than coming from Paris or Fontainebleau for the afternoon, is a different kind of experience. These are the addresses that make it possible.

Inside a collection

Besharat Gallery & Suites (40 Grande Rue) has suites within the gallery itself: you sleep surrounded by international contemporary art, with the sculpture gardens outside your window. On this plot the American William Morris Hunt kept his horses while studying with Millet, and the Swiss painter Karl Bodmer settled here in 1856. The painter Albert Landerer's house became the Hôtel des Charmettes in 1896, run for more than half a century by the Schaller family: the address has been tied to art and hospitality since the nineteenth century.

At the forest edge

Hôtellerie du Bas-Bréau (22 Grande Rue) occupies the former Hôtel Siron, where Robert Louis Stevenson stayed in the 1870s and which he wrote about. Later the Hôtel des Expositions, then the Hôtel du Bas-Bréau from 1934, it received Emperor Hirohito in 1971. Today it is a four-star hotel in a shaded two-hectare park, with a well-regarded restaurant and the forest right behind. The most established address in Barbizon, with the longest history at this level.

La Folie Barbizon is something else: a four-star hotel and artist residence at the forest edge, where each of the 21 rooms was designed by a contemporary artist. The restaurant works with local, seasonal producers. For those who want the forest close and art closer.

In the village, privately

Villa Albertine (33 Grande Rue) is a fully equipped private house rented by the week, sleeping up to eight, with a garden. It puts you on the Grande Rue for the whole stay: waking in the village before the visitors arrive, walking to the forest at dawn, returning to a private garden in the evening. A different rhythm from a hotel and, for groups or families, a different economy.

La Bastide de Barbizon (52 rue du 23 Août) sits at the quieter northern edge of the village, away from the main street. A guesthouse and upscale rental close to the fields, it shows the village as the people who live here experience it.

Le P'tit Angélus (24 avenue du Général de Gaulle) is a charming bed and breakfast a few minutes' walk from the Grande Rue: three rooms in a flower garden, homemade breakfasts, dinner on request.

Artemis Suite & Gîte (38 Grande Rue) offers two separate lodgings in a historic building with a garden and inner courtyard: Artemis Suite, an adults-only room with a spa bath and private entrance, and Artemis Gîte, two bedrooms with a fireplace and kitchenette.

On the Grande Rue, with history

L'Esquisse (73 Grande Rue), opposite the Auberge Ganne, has been taking in travellers since the 1890s. Fully renovated and reopened in February 2024, it is a cultural hotel of nine rooms, each dedicated to a European painter and the artists' colony of their country, with a ground-floor museum on how Barbizon inspired artists' colonies across nineteenth-century Europe, a café and a garden. For those who want to sleep at the centre of the village's historical geography.

A practical note

Barbizon fills quickly on spring and summer weekends, especially in good weather. From April to October, book Besharat and the Bas-Bréau several weeks ahead for Friday and Saturday nights. Villa Albertine and La Bastide rent by the week and go early during school holidays. Hôtel Les Pléiades (21 Grande Rue), whose façade carries a plaque recalling the painter Daubigny, is closed for renovation; no reopening date has been announced.

Transparency: Visit Barbizon is produced by the team behind Besharat Gallery & Suites, one of the addresses in this guide.