I’m tagging along with an inspector for Relais & Châteaux, the hotel-and-restaurant association whose members pride themselves on what they call their “five Cs”: courtesy, charm, character, calm and cuisine. We’re “reinspecting” hotels in France and Austria, which, as with all members and would-be members, are rigorously ­secret-shopped by anonymous inspectors. Like many of the nine inspectors, my host, whom I’ll call M., comes from a hospitality background, having graduated from Swiss hotel school and worked at the likes of the Ritz in Paris and Claridge’s in London. “Hotels are excelling when they provide pleasure, and it’s my job to be receptive and have pleasure,” he tells me on the drive.

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