Hotel de la Darse in Villefranche has the best rates around for the Riviera and I've read a lot of positive comments about it. One thing that worries me thogh is that I've read a couple of comments on Travel Advisor that it's very difficult to find this hotel.

My husband will be driving and he gets lost and irritated enough already. I just wondered if anyone else knew if Hotel Darse was that difficult to find. I did do a Michelin direction and also a google one. We'll be coming from Bonnieux in Provence.

Supposing you'll arrive from Bonnieux by A8, when entering Nice area, just take "Promenade des Anglais", cross Nice on the same avenue keeping east direction Menton Monaco. When you enter Villefranche, at the second trafic light, you turn right into Avenue charles de gaulle and you follow down the street till the hotel.
Very easy and simple. Afterwards, the most complicated would be to park your car. If you dont find close to the hotel, just turn back up and you ll find parkings in the upper part of charles de gaulle street.

I loved it, in the summer of 2007- I stayed five nights in July. A couple caveats- make sure you request and can have an upper level view room. That said, there is no lift and it's a lot of steps up to the view rooms- only a problem if mobility is an issue or you have a whole lot of heavy luggage.

I walked up the hill you would be driving down to get to the bus station, it was a residential neighborhood...maybe the reason "they" say it's hard to find is that it is about a five- minute (gorgeous!) stroll along a harbor promenade outside of the center "hub" where the hotel Welcome is...but coming from the east as Eze suggested should help.

Just back from Nice.
Waiting at the second trafic light i was talking about in a recent message, i noticed that Villefranche's area "la Darse" is clearly indicated if you look straight in the direction of "la pâtisserie" that is situated in front of you..
Your husband should take it cool....

Thank you for your responses, it doesn't look to difficult to find according to what you both wrote.

We'll be going the first week of May of 2009.