La Vieille Cour

20/02/2020

Beautiful February sunshine as we locked up and left for the the airport just now. The skies were really that blue 💙

07/11/2019

Bordeaux. 🇳🇱

The most trendy city in the world, apparently!

18/10/2019

In the blink of an eye, that’s August 2020 fully booked. ☀️

Still other availability....for now, but lots of requests coming through.

Click here to see if this could be your perfect holiday ⬇️

https://www.oliverstravels.com/france/aquitaine/les-vignes

17/10/2019

***Need a break this coming half term?

Last minute unexpected availability:

Half term Sunday 27th October - Sunday 3rd November. Sleeps up to 12.

30% reduction on the list price, but only for witches and ghouls 🦅🕷🌙⚰️

Message for details.

https://www.oliverstravels.com/france/aquitaine/les-vignes/

In the captivating countryside of the Charente, with surrounding landscapes of summer sunflowers, vineyards and pine forests, Les Vignes is a beautifully restored farmhouse which will amaze its guests in every way. As soon as the owners arrived at this enchanting yet neglected home a few years ago,....

21/09/2019

Fancy some half term October sunshine and haven’t got anything booked?

Check this out ☀️🇫🇷☀️

08/09/2019

Half term dates - October 2019 available.

Get in touch for details.

Nearest airport - Bordeaux.

🇫🇷☀️🥖

31/08/2019

What an amazing summer we spent in France. Totally wonderful.

The house is looking amazing, new planting, odd-jobs done, I even shabby-chic painted the big old wardrobe I’d been meaning to do for a whole year.

AND..... 🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷

There are a few dates still up for grabs this year if you want to enjoy the long summer and warm autumn that you get in this part of France.

Including OCTOBER HALF TERM @ £2000 for the week - sleeps up to 12, so perfect for a couple of families.

You can book here;

https://www.oliverstravels.com/france/aquitaine/les-vignes/

13/08/2019

A different kind of morning today!

We had a professional photographer come to the house from Oliver’s Travels to take photos for our listing.

Having spent all morning tidying and cleaning, I wasn’t going to miss the chance to take some clutter free photos myself.

I can’t wait to see the professional ones.

Open for bookings and some availability this year still for family holidays and business retreats.

12/08/2019

Do you know, the orange fleshed melons you see in supermarkets are grown in this region of France?

They’re super sweet, cheap as chips and delicious. Even this little one loves them.

08/08/2019

Stunning skies tonight. I could sit here for hours...

10/06/2019

Last week I ran a business coaching retreat at La Vieille Cour.

Seven women joined me at the house for the week and it worked brilliantly well.

Retreats are a great addition to my coaching business but also for other business owners too.

If you’d like to find out how you could use the house for your business, get in touch. I’d happily talk you though what’s possible.

Here are a few photos to give you a flavour of space, facilities and what you could achieve.

02/06/2019

If only every lunch was like this!

01/06/2019

Another summer activity a short distance from us 🛶

Kayaking on the river Dronne, just into the Dordogne, about 20 minutes drive.

A zillion iridescent blue dragonfly on the river. 🦋

31/05/2019

This place is just 15 minutes drive from La Vieille Cour.

Aire de loisirs de Beauvallon. ⛱

31/05/2019

Swimming lake, crystal clear water, sandy beach and ice creams!

Aire de loisirs de Beauvallon - just on the doorstep of La Vieille Cour.

11/04/2019

One of my favourite parts of the entire house. This beautiful old staircase.

26/02/2019

This year is all about using La Vieille Cour as much as possible.

It pains me to leave it locked up and out of use for so many months of the year.

So, in addition to it now being available for luxury holiday rentals, I’m incorporating it into my business too!

You may not know this; I’m a business coach for female entrepreneurs and run a large Facebook community called The Smart Woman’s Business Hub.

I help ambitious women to pursue their big business goals and I’m soo excited to be hosting my first coaching retreat at La Vieille Cour in June.

Check out this page and feel free to share it with any ambitious women in business you know.

https://www.thesmartwomansbusinesshub.com/the2019retreat

June 5/6/7th South West France. Live a life of purpose: Transform your business. Transform your life. Take control at The Smart Woman’s Retreat

24/02/2019

I think La Vieille Cour needs me next week ☀️

17/02/2019

One of our favourite places to visit when we’re in France is Saint-Emilion.

It’s about a 50 minute drive from La Vieille Cour and is stunningly beautiful. It’s a UNESCO world heritage site with good reason.

For anyone who appreciates the finest wine France has to offer, it doesn’t get better than Saint-Emilion.

Picture this: pavement cafes and restaurants, beautiful buildings, boutique shops all surrounded by grape vines for as far as the eye can see.

14/02/2019

We’ve been to France dozens of times now.

Whether we’ve flown into Bordeaux and picked up a hire car, or cruising through the French countryside on route to our farmhouse.

We’ve seen a lot of what this fabulous country has to offer.

One thing I’ve noticed, is just how romantic the French are!

Holding hands, smooching, whispering to each other. It’s just like it is in the movies.

Happy Valentine’s day ❤️

13/02/2019

Looks like spring has arrived for us in France!

Next week’s forecast looks very tempting.
17C and bright sunshine....in February too! ☀️

That’s one of the things we love about this part of France, the spring starts early and the summer lasts well into October!

11/02/2019

I still love looking through photos of how the farmhouse was before the renovation.

The transformation is incredible. It’s hard to believe it’s the same house.

One day I’ll get around to putting them all into a photo book so we can look back at our adventure, from the very start when we first viewed the house, to how it is today.

To buy and renovate an old farmhouse in France was such an experience.

And it continues to be an experience. We love the French culture, countryside, language...

We feel blessed and proud to have such an amazing place to call our home and make such priceless family memories.

10/02/2019

La Vieille Cour, meaning, The Old Courtyard.

For many generations, the house was a working farm, owned by the same family.

As is the case with rural villages in France, large houses are sometimes just known just by their status or position in their village and don’t often have or need a name.

We realised that we’d need to give the house a name if we were going to rent it to others, otherwise how else would people know they were at the right place?

So as the renovation was approaching completion, we started to think what we could call the house.

We wanted the name to reflect its heritage and so we came up with La Vieille Cour. The Old Courtyard.

10/02/2019

What do you look for in a holiday?

Is tranquility or adventure important to you?

Do you like to chill out, or do you try to fit as much action into your holidays as possible?

Are you a nature loving outdoorsy type, or do you prefer city trips?

Perhaps it’s a chance to enjoy limitless food and wine, or is healthy living on your holiday agenda.

What makes YOUR perfect holiday? We’d love to know...

03/02/2019

Here’s a little bit about La Vieille Cour and the story behind how we came to own this incredible place.

Limited bookings are now being taken and we’re working on an early bird price for the first 5 weeks booked.....

Get in touch if you’re a wine loving, food loving, sunshine loving large group or family who want to be seduced by all that this beautiful part of France has to offer.

[email protected]

https://spark.adobe.com/page/e5B1lsYtx1Ugn/

03/02/2019

Four return flights from Luton to Bordeaux for £84!

You read that right.

That’s what our flights cost last weekend when we took a quick trip over.

It can be sooo cheap to fly to Bordeaux, especially if you get your timing right.

We were on the flight at 6pm, in the hire car at 8pm and in front of the log fire at 9pm. Bliss.

That’s us crossing the river Dordogne, heading north, on the outskirts of Bordeaux. A little rainy but several degrees warmer than the UK.

31/01/2019

Caught in the act! That’s a guilty look if ever I saw one...

Who said it was a good idea to have an X-Box here? 🤔

27/01/2019

**n

Pantry p**n is apparently the latest aspirational kitchen trend to dominate social media.

It’s great to know we’re keeping up with the Jones’ at La Vieille Cour!

https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/homes-and-gardens/pantry-p**n-kitchen-trend-cupboard-nigella-lawson-zoella/

26/01/2019

We’re here in France this weekend, for a quick whistle-stop trip.

It’s been a little while since we posted here....the winter distracted us and we got caught up with Christmas and the grey skies of home.

It’s also been a little while since we were last here at the house, so this weekend is a chance to put our minds at ease that everything’s ok, and grab some family time away.

The sense of calm and tranquility we feel when we arrive here is like no other. The house has such a lovely feel about it. It has done from day 1.

We’ve slipped straight back in to the French way of life (it’s not hard, to be honest) even if it is just for a few days.

For now, the fires are lit and the wine glass is full.

Keep an eye out for more posts and get in touch if you’d like to stay here for your 2019 holiday.

24/09/2018

Here at La Vieille Cour we LOVE bathrooms - we have 4 of them! 🛁.

We gave our builder a lot of headaches in working out how to retain the big beam above the basins in the master bathroom. It must be hundreds of years old and it’s beautiful, so there was no way we were hiding it behind plaster.

He told us the master bathroom was the hardest room in the house to renovate; we reckon it was worth the perseverance.

For a holiday home to be luxurious, the bathrooms have to be stunning.

[email protected]