First Look: A New Wellbeing Retreat In The South Of France

Sea swims, somatic chanting, bum and thighs on fire… Lucinda Baring is the first to experience a new retreat on the French Riviera from Surrenne, the private wellbeing club at The Emory.

Inside Surrenne On Retreat

To me, swimming in the sea in November is a pinch-myself moment – but for others in our group, it was a bridge too far. Following an hour’s walk winding along the craggy coast of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, we stood barefoot on the shingle beach under the bluest of skies. Rose Ferguson, the superstar nutritionist and functional medicine practitioner accompanying our retreat, lead us in a spell of grounding somatic movement, encouraging us to let loose and shake out our limbs – and then every one of us took the plunge.

It was the second day of our retreat on the French Riviera with Surrenne, the private members’ spa and wellbeing club at The Emory in Knightsbridge. As Surrenne – an amalgamation of ‘serenity’ and ‘energy’ – expands to every hotel in the Maybourne Group (which includes Claridge’s, The Connaught and, our host for three days, The Maybourne Riviera) so it has launched an exclusive series of retreats, and I was lucky to be among its first eight guests.

What To Expect

Our stay unfolded in three stages, designed to ground, recharge, and regenerate through a fine-tuned programme of movement, treatments, breathwork, rest and nourishing food – each meal like a private lunch or dinner party, the table beautifully laid and the Mediterranean saturating every vista. Ferguson has designed the menus, the food anti-inflammatory, delicious and plentiful: chicken and ginger broths; sesame-crusted trout with buckwheat noodles; Buddha bowls with quinoa and tempeh or lentils, beetroot and sauerkraut. She also ate with us at every meal, allowing time for informal discussion on top of a one-to one.

Each day begins with an optional early-morning trip to the beach beneath the hotel, for somatics, a sea swim and a blueberry and collagen smoothie (also created by Ferguson) – delivered to the shingle along with a white bathrobe and Surrenne slippers. Cossetting? You bet.

More hardcore is the mid-morning private Lagree class (like reformer Pilates on steroids, the slow and controlled movements designed to make your muscles shake like crazy). Javier – a Tracy Anderson and Lagree instructor flown out from London – makes it seem simple and balletic but none of us could walk normally for days.

Surrenne Retreat: Lagree instructor Javier Urbano

There’s free time each afternoon, to head into the local village, to Monte Carlo, or to lounge by the pool, its limpid edge melting into the sea and sky beyond. At dusk, I switched between sauna and an ice bath tucked onto a terrace overlooking yachts in the bay twinkling below. Daily treatments take place in the small but newly refurbed Surrenne spa – my best a sculpting and draining ‘massage’ that left my butt cheeks on fire.

After supper we were invited to join various evening rituals, from infrared yoga, our mats glowing red against the night sky, to a sound bath and a cacao ceremony, which closed with us each picking a picture card from a pack fanned in a circle around us. I drew ‘Treasure Island’, promising abundance and good fortune. I’m still waiting for my financial windfall, but I’m pretty sure (bummer) it meant spiritual riches.

The Results

Surrenne Retreat: Rosemary Ferguson

My main takeaways were to fast daily for 12 hours, which is easy on a quiet weeknight but harder when I have a late dinner and an early start. Ferguson’s menus are now available across the Maybourne Group – having healthy food choices when travelling is one of her passions, along with including fibre and protein in every meal, and no snacking. If (like me) you can’t get by on three meals a day in that 12-hour window, Ferguson recommends boosting your breakfast and/or having a protein-only snack (apples and nut butter is out; a boiled egg is in. I will struggle). In our rooms on arrival we were greeted by a new Surrenne washbag stuffed with a month’s worth of morning supplements (six a day in my case), which will be tailored for each guest after testing at Surrenne in London. I pledge to take them for the full month and I have (mostly…) stuck to it. Ferguson and I also agreed my adrenals are probably working overtime, my stress internalised (it seems serendipitous that surrene is the Italian word for adrenal gland) and so I promise to follow up with tests.

Special touches included the evening ritual printed on a card and placed in the room (‘write one focus for tomorrow, to clear mental clutter’), the bookmark left on top of my tatty tome and a lens cloth left discreetly by my filthy glasses and laptop. The point of a retreat for me is largely the time alone, to have space to pause and to be so throughly cossetted, pummelled and cared for. Yet I also made a clutch of new friends, and that’s the beauty of a group retreat, surely – to reset, restore and rebalance yes, but also to connect with others. And to surrender to whatever lies in store.

The Details

Each Surrenne retreat (designed for up to eight guests) will be themed. The focus of this first one was longevity (the buzzword of 2025); the next two are Spring Equinox (20-24 March 2026), centred around inner transformation and accompanied by astrologer and meditation teacher Belinda Matwali, and Anti-Inflammatory Reset (17-21 April 2026), guided by in-demand acupuncturist and supplement specialist Ross J Barr. Other themes are in the pipeline, including a retreat to improve sleep in November.

Cost: Surrenne Retreats at The Maybourne Riviera cost €4,500 for four nights, not including the room rate (from €880) or flights.

Book: surrenne.com