Petits Fours des Blanc

Petits Fours best sum up these four cute bastions of style and snuggle up in the duvet sentiments for winter, none of which are in France. 

Aficionados of the good life, check-in to these wintry favourites for a spot of chill time wrapped in fresh snow, frosted webs, dewy mornings, hot stoves, cracking fire pits and doorstep nature.

We love the cold front heading our way in Europe, especially from the warming sanctum of one of these places. These are our four petit houses for your travel winter agendas, small, beautifully formed, and terribly well-styled.

PS: History of Petit Fours, according to friends over at Wiki. In 18th and 19th century France, gas ovens did not exist. Large brick (Dutch design) ovens were used, which took a long time to heat up to bake bread and cool down. Bakers often used the ovens during the cooling process, taking advantage of their stored heat, for baking pastry. This was called baking à petit four (literally "at small oven"), a lower temperature that allowed pastry baking. 

Brücke 49

4 bedrooms + 3 apartments
A fabulously humble basecamp of good design for kindreds of style, Brücke 49 is a collection of rooms, suites, studios and apartments in the high-in-the-mountains creative enclave, Vals.

Borgo Eibn

15 bedrooms
Caramel timbers, robust chunky stone and larch shingled rooftops amplifies Alpine charisma buttered across the three ‘Malghe’houses of the Borgo Eibn which are draped in the views of the Sauris plateau and the Dolomites.

 

Herangtunet

7 bedrooms
An old logged, fairytale-like gingerbread house, wrapped in a lush carpet of Norwegian nature. Inside, designer interiors narrate this chameleonic hub of eclectic creativity – it is traditional, pleasingly crafted and naturally cool.

 

Alpenloge

9 bedrooms
Originally conceived as the village schoolhouse back in the 1930s, the traditional house, with alpine curb appeal of larch shingles, gabled rooftop and green shutters frame the lattice windows, is now a fabulous small design hotel surrounded by the Bavarian alps and pastures.