Château de la Voûte, facing south

Great experience! Loved having the whole chateau to ourselves and the pool was great in the hot weather.

Fab

We had our usual annual family gathering with 3 generations ranging from 1 year old to 75. We used the entire place for a full week. We are very familiar with the quirks of older homes and this was in line with what we expected, particularly for this price point. The owner/caretaker Giles lives on site in a separate building. He was very accommodating albeit a little too present to our taste. The property offers a lot more than in the description: ping pong table, access to the river and it is in the middle of town with easy access to everything. There is no bakery in the village, but there is a bread dispensing machine with surprisingly decent baguettes (even for a French family like ours). Our teenagers had a blast, for little ones it was a little tricky from a safety standpoint and not very relaxing even with a full tile babysitter round the clock, but overall without incident. If you have little ones, know that you’ll be setting a lot of rules and monitor them acutely (there is notably a fountain at ground level (no walls) in front of entrance and the walls of the terrasses are too low to prevent fall during play). Despite setting up ground rules with our kids we had to monitor the little ones constantly (allways needed an adult with them outside). Overall this worked well for our large family and we had a very pleasant stay.

The chateau is an amazing venue and a piece of French history. Every bedroom was well presented and the place well heated with hot water. Check in - we arrived at 15.00 as arranged and called the caretaker but no response. We opened the chateau gates manually, as the mechanism was broken, to be greeted by a large wymerana dog barking and jumping up and the caretaker running and shouting at us. Subsequently, the dog was also walked around every single room on check in, despite us saying that we do not like dogs. It continued to be troublesome during our stay - barking at anyone, running into the house and kitchen, using the lawn as a toilet, its owner seemingly unable to control it, swearing loudly and punching it. Gil was angry that we didn’t like the dog and told us we could leave. The kitchen ovens did not work. We were told not to use the range as the thermostat was broken but the more modern oven was dangerous and not fixed into its housing, falling forwards when the door was opened and subsequently tripping the electricity, so not usable. Cooking for 13 was difficult without oven space. Overall the house was clean, except for various items in the kitchen and the sink was difficult to clean and use hygienically. The tv room, with sofa seating, is not in the chateau but in the pool building next door. Not all gym equipment worked but the pool was good. Promises that the main gates would be mended and the oven repaired during our stay were not fulfilled.