Château Labistoul (Our Accommodation) – Day 2

May 31, 2017June 23, 2017 / Touch Of Cinnamon

Château Labistoul – View as we approached our accommodation.

After collecting the hire car from Enterprise in Carcassonne we set off for the next leg of our trip. We were heading two hours north to Campes close to Cordes-sur-Ciel in the Tarn department, southern France.

Amanda was the first to try driving here and did a brilliant job. We were lucky enough to be given a car with an inbuilt sat nav. It also helped that we’d paid extra for an automatic car as it gave us one less thing to be worrying about..gears.

The journey from Carcassonne to Cordes-sure-Ciel was lovely, as was the weather. We pulled over on the way to eat a quick sandwich overlooking vineyards and the dwindling view of the breathtaking Pyrenees we’d left behind.

We arrived at our accommodation around 5 pm and were met by one of our Dutch hosts, Marjo. Marjo was really attentive, helping us with our luggage and getting us settled into our extremely spacious accommodation set in an 11th-century property.

Prior to arriving we’d booked to have dinner on the evening of our arrival, so while we were waiting we took the opportunity to walk around the property and take a few photos.

Dinner was delicious, unfortunately, the photos I’d taken were all blurred so I couldn’t add them. At dinner, we also got to meet Jacques, Marjos’ husband who was equally attentive and great company. They’re a really lovely couple and helped make our stay a truly wonderful experience.

We spend two nights in this magical property and hope to return for longer as there’s so much to see in this beautiful area. I’ll be writing further posts about the other wonderful places we visited in this area sometime soon.

We paid €196 + taxes for the two of us for two nights, breakfast was included in that price. We paid an additional €25 each for our three-course meal that we had on the evening of our arrival.

Château Labistoul – Front View / Parking / Entrance

View of the separate rentable Gite situated next to Château Labistoul.

Château Labistoul – Side of building after coming through the main gates.

Wonderful Château Labistoul and the beautiful grounds surrounding the property.

Château Labistoul – View looking back to the side of the property & the gated entrance.

Château Labistoul – View of the entrances to both our private Living Room (door to the right) & Bedroom (left). Plus private Outdoor Seating Area.

Château Labistoul – Private Living Room with sofa bed and coffee & tea making facilities.

Château Labistoul – Bedroom With double doors leading out to the private outdoor Seating Area.

Château Labistoul – Same Bedroom but looking towards the Hall.

Château Labistoul – Private Bathroom leading onto Hall / Stairs / Bedroom & private Living Room.

Château Labistoul – The sink area in the Bathroom with slit window to the left of the sink.

Château Labistoul – Bathroom window is a small slit in the thick, stone wall.

Château Labistoul – Hall & Stairs from our rooms.
You go via the Hall to get to the Bedroom, private Living Room, private Bathroom & shared upstairs Dining Room.

Château Labistoul – Upstairs shared Dining Room.

Château Labistoul – Upstairs Dining Room with old loom, set right above our rooms. We weren’t disturbed by any noise during our stay.

Château Labistoul – Antique sideboard in the Dining Room.

Château Labistoul – Hall leading to Bedroom, private Living Room, private Bathroom, Stairs & double doors leading out to the back of the property.

Château Labistoul – Back view of the property. Double doors leading out from the Hall.

Château Labistoul – The beautiful grounds surrounding the property.

Château Labistoul – Beautiful Outdoor Seating / Dining Area / Courtyard.

Château Labistoul – The beautiful grounds surrounding the property.

Château Labistoul – Wall enclosing the outdoor Seating / Dining Area.

We booked via booking.com, see the following link.

https://www.booking.com/hotel/fr/chateau-labistoul.en-gb.html?aid=311076;label=chateau-labistoul

This is the owners’ website:

http://www.chateaulabistoul.fr/new/index.php/en/

All photos are either the property of Amanda or moi. I hope you enjoyed them.

Carcassonne, France – Day 1

May 17, 2017June 20, 2017 / Touch Of Cinnamon

I recently returned from an 18 day trip to France and thought I’d post a few photos of some of the places I’d visited while there, the first being ‘Carcassonne’.

Carcassonne is in southern France’s Languedoc area and is a beautiful example of a fortified medieval town.

Okay, I’d better get a few details out of the way first, so here goes:

We flew out on Wednesday, 19th April with Ryanair from the UK’s East Midlands (EMA) airport to Frances’ Carcassonne (CCF) airport, and despite their bad reputation, everything went smoothly and we actually arrived ahead of schedule.

The flight takes approximately 2 hours, which meant we were in Carcassonne for 10:00am local time.

By the time we collected our luggage, cleared customs, got a taxi, and waited for the hotel car to pick us up from outside the ramparts, it was around 11:50 before we got to our hotel. As we couldn’t check-in until 4 pm, we dropped our luggage at reception and went out exploring.

The basic cost of our flight, one way, was £44.86 for the two of us. If you were just going for a night or two you’d not need to pay for checked luggage as you get 10 kg of hand luggage each included in the cost of your flight, we were going to be away for 18 nights so needed a suitcase each. So on top of the £44.86, we had the cost of x2 checked luggage, x2 priority boarding and x2 fast track, making the final total for our flight, one way: £103.86 for the two of us. Obviously, it’s not necessary to have priority boarding or fast track but it certainly made the trip easier and less stressful.

My friend Amanda is in the photo above, she’s looking directly at the camera. I’ve known Amanda for over 25 years and knew she was the perfect travelling companion for this sort of adventure.

The holiday quickly became known as the Thelma & Louise trip. You’ll be sad to learn there was no murdering, dramatic driving off cliffs or dalliances with Brad Pitt.

Amanda, thankfully, has a far better grasp of the French language than myself. My limited French is seriously poor, and this despite me doing an online course for a couple of months prior to us travelling. So money well-spent there haha.

Best Western Hôtel Le Donjon

Our hotel for the evening was the Best Western Hôtel Le Donjon, Carcassonne. It lies within the old city walls and cost us €135 for a standard twin room for the night in mid-April 2017.

We stayed in the main building on the first floor, overlooking the pretty gardens at the back of the hotel. The room was comfortable and clean, with a wonderful view which added to the experience.

To get to the hotel we took a taxi from tiny Carcassonne airport, although it is possible to get a shuttle straight to the gates of the old town for around €5.

Our taxi driver, without being prompted, rang ahead to inform the hotel that we were on our way. The cost was about €18. He dropped us outside the city walls at a designated spot (only permitted vehicles are allowed within the city walls) where the hotel sent a car for us and took us directly to the hotel. The process went perfectly and I’d highly recommend this hotel as a base for a night or two.

The hotel does have a private carpark but we didn’t have need of it as we didn’t collect our hire car until the day we checked out.

On the morning of our departure from the Best Western, we asked the hotel reception if they could organise a taxi to take us to Enterprise car hire at the airport. The hotel’s guy picked us up and dropped us outside the ramparts of the old town at the same place we’d been dropped off by our original taxi driver. We didn’t have long to wait before the same taxi driver arrived. We were at Enterprise car rental within 10-15 minutes.

Best Western Hôtel Le Donjon via Bookings.com:

https://www.booking.com/hotel/fr/bestwesternledonjon.en-gb.html?aid=311076;label=hotel-202248-fr

The car hire was probably the most expensive part of the trip, costing over €1000 for 17 days. This was mainly due to us leaving the booking of it to the last minute. It was compounded by the fact we wanted an automatic, that there was 2 of us going to be driving, taking out the maximum amount of insurance cover and needing to drop off the vehicle at a different location….Bergerac airport.

We were very happy with the car. We were given a Toyota Auris Hybrid and couldn’t believe how economical it was. We traveled over 2,500 km and only put about €120 worth of fuel in the car.