That is the Versailles of housing.
Within the shadow of the fifteenth century La Fuye Fortress there’s a romantic tower for 2 and an expensive three-bedroom lodging for six folks. Imaginatively transformed from the citadel’s former stables, this historic and chic self-catering lodging captures the very essence of the Loire.
Clad in white tuff, typical of Loire castles, the inside design of this rose-clad lodging is paying homage to aristocratic magnificence. Reserving each the tower and the lodging is a well-liked possibility for household or buddy gatherings trying to sleep eight folks.
However the Chateau de la Fuye is as a lot a frame of mind, a cheerful escape to a French idyll, as it’s a bodily place of silver chandeliers, assertion mirrors and Kashmiri rugs.
Tremendous-host homeowners Rowena and Simon Michaels scoured public sale rooms for antiques and textiles to carry the homely really feel of the Cotswold right into a quintessential French scene. For them, whereas engaged on their undertaking, it was extra “A decade in Touraine” than “A 12 months in Provence”.
On the gallery-like partitions, artwork ranges from heavy oils paying homage to the previous masters by means of lighter watercolors to the modern avant-garde. Think about an eclectic Soho Home look exported to Touraine.
Set in a 10-acre truffle orchard with roughly 800 oak bushes, 5 acres of personal woodland and walled gardens, La Fuye is a rural refuge for songbirds.
But, arguably, La Fuye’s best appeal is subterranean. Black gold. In late autumn, canines sniff out truffles on their solution to one of the best eating places in Paris.
The welcome
Marie, the guardian of La Fuye, lit a hearth for us and ready a welcome basket. A baguette, cheese, a tasting jar of La Fuye honey, eggs harvested from the property, a pleasant bottle of pink wine and a pear tart glazed in immaculate layers.
The whole lot has been considered: butter, milk, Nespresso espresso capsules, balsamic vinegar, further virgin olive oil… even dishwasher pods.
The bedrooms
The beds within the three bedrooms are adorned with nice linens. The partitions of the grasp, double and twin bedrooms are embellished with classic canvases and materials.
Every room has a desk. Superfast optical WiFi makes this an idyllic WFH (Work from Vacation) vacation spot.
The loos
Two loos characteristic Lefroy Brooks showers, Bioderma merchandise and nice Scottish soaps.
The buildings
Darkish olive inexperienced cupboards, within the quintessential farmhouse kitchen, include every little thing you want to bake, prepare dinner and create. Even a row of cookbooks, in the event you want inspiration earlier than attempting the retro pink Kitchen Help.
Above the reclaimed tomette flooring tiles, shades of terracotta weathered over the centuries, is a chef’s paradise. A possibility to work with meals and wine from native boulangerie, boucheres, fromagerie, markets, patisseries and vineyards, all inside a ten kilometer radius. La Fuye is a gourmand paradise.
By way of the kitchen door, a wood loggia hosts a big out of doors desk for eight folks, alongside a barbecue. Past the loggia is a bowling inexperienced framed by lavender. This leads into a beautiful flower meadow bordered by the previous stone boundary wall, stuffed with espaliered fruit bushes, together with apricots and peaches, and vines which have been grown on an previous oak doorway on the entrance to the Truffle Orchard.
In spring it is time to chill out on the loungers surrounding the pool or play a recreation of croquet.
The place
La Fuye, considered one of round 300 castles dotted alongside the Loire and its tributaries, is strategically positioned for exploring considered one of France’s favourite areas.
A seven-minute journey takes friends to Chinon. By the extensive Vienne River, an imposing black statue reminds guests that the Sixteenth-century Rabelais is the town’s iconic humanist. A prose author of wit and satire who veered between the pious and the anticlerical.
Take a half-hour drive to really feel the burden of historical past at L’Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud, the ultimate resting place of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II and Richard the Lionheart. Stripped of its riches and furnishings by the French Revolution, Fontevraud turned a jail earlier than its definitive restoration as an incredible Abbey. For a spectacular time out, buy a mixed ticket to the abbey and its astonishing trendy artwork gallery.
Usse, with its fairy-tale towers, is the closest citadel to La Fuye. Azay-le-Rideau, with its grandeur mirrored within the mirror of a lake, as soon as house to Catherine de’ Medici, embodies Renaissance influences. Villandry, nonetheless, supplies one of the best instance of intensive formal gardens. Be aware of trivia, its homeowners as soon as owned Chateau de La Fuye for weekend getaways.
Or, for a time out, combining automotive and practice, you may attain Paris in about 90 minutes.
Different good touches
When you have taken the tower along with the lodging, there are tables for eight within the kitchen, in the lounge and likewise below the loggia. The kitchen with devoted drawers for each wood spoons and kitchen knives has every little thing you want, from espresso cups to nutcrackers, snail forks and naturally a truffle razor.
Visitors should purchase native natural wines, from a hamper that features a rose Chinon, a white Vouvray, one thing glowing, in addition to a Beatrice and Pascal Lambert Les Terrasses pink. It comes with opulent hints of summer time berries.
There’s all the time somebody round to help. If Rowena and Simon, who typically dwell within the close by seven-bedroom citadel, aren’t within the residence, then La Fuye’s guardians, Marie and Des, are shut at hand.
The fee
For a typical cottage keep for October 2024, two-night minimal keep, charges begin at €375 per night time.
Whereas the tower, out there for one-night stays, begins from €130 per night time.
One of the best factor
In La Fuye, the adrenaline-filled lottery of truffle looking, the place to search out black gold that might be value 2,000 euros per kilo, turns into a dramatic sport for spectators between November and January.
Even after working the land, mixed with laborious pruning, truffle looking is all the time extra of a possibility than a science. Three generations of girls arrive early within the morning with their canines to scent the truffles rising among the many roots of the oak bushes. There is no such thing as a rhyme or purpose as to when the women will arrive. Nor if and the place the truffles can be discovered.
The ultimate verdict
La Chateau de la Fuye is the perfect place for a vacation in France, nestled in a bucolic panorama of rivers, vineyards and woods. Whether or not friends discover by bicycle, automotive, conventional flat-bottomed boats, kayak or are guided by means of the wine terroir by a non-public information, the Loire is magically irresistible.
This can be a tremendous trendy retreat, whether or not it is a completely happy lengthy weekend, per week’s vacation or an extended stint as a digital nomad.
Disclosure: Our keep was sponsored by La Fuye Fortress.
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