Maison Lavande|Bed and Breakfast in the South of France|B&B|Chambres d'hotes

Maison Lavande a luxury bed and breakfast in the South of France. A family-run chambres d'hotes in south west France, we cater for up to two couples. bed and breakfast ideal for de-stressing, relaxing and pampering. Great for property hunting

Nearest airports: Rodez: Rodez -Marcillac Airport Tel.: +33 (0)5 65 76 02 00

The Rodez-Marcillac airport is the main aerial platform in Sud Massif-Central with over 145,800 passengers in 2004.

Shuttle to Paris-Orly (BritAir/Air France): schedules
3 dailies (flight time: 60 minutes)
Shuttle to Lyon-St Exupéry (Hex'Air): 2 dailies (flight time: 40 minutes) : schedules
Shuttle to London/Stansted (Ryanair):
1 daily (flight time: 135 minutes): schedules

Touluse: Toulouse-Blagnac Airport - +33 1 70 46 74 74 from abroad or 0 825 380 000 (€0,15 MIN/INC. VAT) from France

About.com: Your French Lodging is chambres d'hotes. You like to feel at home, even when on the road. The chambres d'hotes, much like the American bed and breakfast, is lodging in which the proprietor has a few rooms in his or her home. You usually dine at night with the owner and fellow guests. It is a wonderful way to truly get to know the French people and have a more authentic experience.

When you visit France it is useful knowing that a bed and breakfast holiday location is called a chambres d'hotes. Chambres d'hotes literally translates as 'room and breakfast'. You may also come across maison d'hotes. Table d'hotes means breakfast table.

A "chambres d'hôtes" is a room in a house almost always with breakfast and often with the possibilithy of having other meals, so comes closest to "bed and breakfast".

Words you might search for: "Maison lavande, chambres d'hotes, Holiday, bed and breakfast, Bnb, French, France, South France, st antonin noble val, St antonin noble val, rural, retreat, tarn et garonne, tarn et garrone, Aveyron"

The Area
with thanks to www.midi-maisons.com
Tarn 81 –Tarn et Garonne 82 – Aveyron 12 – Lot 46

Situated in the Northern half of the Tarn département, Cordes is perhaps the best known of the bastides (fortified medieval towns), built dramatically on a hill in the Cérou valley. It is fascinating to wander round; in fact it is one of the region’s prime tourist attractions, and is well served with shops, facilities and cultural activities. It is near here that our Tarn office is located.

The Gaillacois, the wine-producing area around the town of Gaillac, consists of rolling countryside largely given over to vineyards, pretty villages, and fine rural properties built of limestone. With its proximity to Toulouse, and its popularity with the wealthier classes, this is premium price territory, especially the so-called ‘golden triangle’ between Cordes, Gaillac and Albi.

Albi is the main town of the Tarn where the prefecture is located. It is also a pleasant town to visit, with its famous cathedral built entirely of local bricks, and the surrounding old town being well supplied with shops, boutiques, and restaurants.

To the south west of Albi, is an area of rolling agricultural land with the Black Mountains as a southern backdrop. Lautrec is probably this area’s Cordes, a medieval town in a scenic setting. To the east of here is higher ground with wooded hills and steep valleys, known as the Sidobre. It is probably the wildest part of the Tarn, an area of lakes and woods popular with walkers and canoers.

East of Cordes in the area around St Antonin-Noble-Val (Tarn et Garonne) the scenery becomes more dramatic with the Gorges of the Aveyron, and the thickly wooded hills bordering the Aveyron valley. Again this is prized territory with some finely restored properties. The scenery between here and Najac (Aveyron) is more open and wild with fine views. Here you will find villages like Verfeil and Parisot.

Where the Aveyron and Viaur rivers meet is the village of Laguépie, a local communications centre with a weekly market, a good range of shops and a train station.

To the north and east of Cordes you come into an area known as the Ségala, with rolling farmland, mainly used as pasture for cattle. This area covers the northern reaches of the Tarn and into the Aveyron, and is known for its veal and for its chestnuts. It is criss-crossed by steep wooded valleys, notably the Viaur valley, where time almost seems to have stopped. Here you will find ruined castles clinging to the valley sides. It’s a more rustic area where your money will go further, but you are still not far from the urban attractions of Albi.

Apart from its magnificent scenery, the highlights of our part of the Aveyron département are Najac, a fine medieval village and castle set on a saddle of land, Sauveterre-de-Rouergue with its magnificent colonnaded market square, and Villefranche-de-Rouergue, known for its excellent weekly market, which fills its streets every Thursday.

It’s hard not to get distracted by the scenery, in a region where the next bend might reveal a fortified chateau topped with turrets looking like witches’ hats, or perhaps a flock of Lacaune sheep – source of the world-famous Roquefort cheese. But Aveyron is no longer quite as isolated as it once was with direct flights from London Stansted to Rodez, Aveyron’s chief town with Ryanair. What better way of arriving in la France profonde?

My normal route into Aveyron takes me across the River Viaur, a steeply wooded valley that feels almost untouched by the passage of time. This was once the front line in the religious war between the true Catholics in Rouergue (the old name for this part of Aveyron) and the heretic Cathar Albigeois. Romantic ruined castles, like that of Roumégous, stand silent witness to seven centuries of rivalry, fortunately now limited to grievances about the Albigeois invading on sunny autumn Sundays to pick mushrooms and forest fruits. The Viaur valley has few roads either along or across it, so preserving its ‘out of the way’ feel. You can walk the randonnées, or canoe down the river, appreciating its beauty in peace.

Najac, an exquisite village dominating the Aveyron valley, has had its share of strife in times gone by. It’s no accident that the castle dominates the village, for it was built in medieval times by the nascent French crown to intimidate and subjugate the wild people of Rouergue. Now it looks out over a tranquil valley well appreciated by French and foreigners alike. It’s a place on the summer tourist trail, with excellent restaurants, and a large open-air swimming pool – making it a perfect staging post for walkers following the grande randonnée running north from Cordes, or for travellers aboard the picturesque rail line that runs between Toulouse and Brive.

Following the railway and the Aveyron valley north, you come to Villefranche-de-Rouergue, an ancient fortified town with narrow cobbled streets and a wonderful arcaded square, all of which become crowded every Thursday morning by one of the largest street markets in France. There are treats on the stalls to whet your appetite, or maybe even to turn your stomach – depending on your tastes!

The land to the east of Villefranche is known as the Ségala, an area that transcends departmental boundaries extending from North Tarn to Southern Lot. It is named after seigle (rye), the only crop – apart from chestnuts – that would grow in its acid soil before the use of lime. Nowadays it’s an area famed for its beef and veal, with pastureland crossed by steep wooded valleys, and wide open vistas that, on exceptionally clear days, stretch from the volcanoes of the Cantal to the Pyrenees – a distance of 250 miles. The English have been here before – the last time burning churches in the 13th century, but all that seems to have been forgiven.

North of Rodez you come to the Marcillac valley, a climatically favoured place where vineyards cling to the steep slopes above bustling villages with sandstone houses matching the colour of the soil. Where there’s wine, there’s wealth, and fine manor houses and chateaux show that this was once an economically favoured part of an otherwise poor département. Again this area provides good walking and sightseeing. Its sights include the abbey town of Conques, one of the architectural treasures of France, which lies on a pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela.

Property values remain reasonable compared to other better-known areas of France, but you may have to be prepared to do some work on the cheaper properties, as their condition is often quite rustic.

With its new transport links, its natural beauty and its traditions, Aveyron is a département with immense appeal – particularly for British Francophiles in search of their share of rural peace. For practical information on the département, including areas not covered in this article, why not take a look at www.aveyron.com?

We also get properties in the southern part of the Lot département around the Lot valley and the charming little town of Figeac on the river Célé. Away from the river valleys, this is primarily limestone causse country with oakwoods – great for wildflowers in springtime – and good for typical limestone Lotois houses with pigeonniers.

A final word of advice: it's impossible to convey the diversity of this rich part of France. It's a good idea to visit and get an idea for yourself of what it's like, and where you might wish to be before visiting properties. It's perhaps the most enjoyable part of your research!
Introducing Aveyron

History

Existing from at least the 5th century BC, Rodez was founded by the Celts. After the Roman occupation, the oppidum (fortified place) was renamed Segodunum, while in late Imperial times it was known as Civitas Rutenorum, whence the modern name. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it was captured by the Visigoths and then by the Franks, being also ravaged by the Arabs in 725. Later it was occupied by the armies of the Dukes of Aquitaine and of the Counts of Toulouse. English troops occupied Rodez during the Hundred Years War.

However, in medieval times the city's history was marked by strong rivalry between the Counts and the Bishops of Rodez, who exerted their authorities in different sectors of the city, divided by a wall. The counts were able to defy the royal French authority until the submission of count John IV by the future King Louis XI in the 15th century. In the following century bishop François d'Estaing built the Rodez Cathedral.

The last count of Rodez, Henry VI of Rodez, who became Henry IV of France, sold his title to Royal Crown in 1589. The city remained a flourishing merchant centre up to the 18th century, but it lost much of its importance when Villefranche-de-Rouergue was made prefecture capital in the wake of the French Revolution.

Guide to Aveyron
With thanks to www.travelandleisure.com
Almost forgotten for centuries, this sparsely populated département in the south of France stretches over a wildly varied landscape of medieval villages, adventurous terrain, and fairy tale– worthy hotels.
From September 2007

By Marcelle Clements

Clearly, it is always a mistake to arrive in a French provincial capital on a Sunday, unless you are looking to understand why Madame Bovary felt she had to have some action or die. There is no slower clock in all of space and time than that which ticks and tocks in the south of France on the day of rest, and no bell tolls with less urgency than that of the cathedral in Rodez. Mind you, this bell tower, rising up nearly 300 feet and surmounted by a Virgin, is a sumptuous gem of late Gothic Flamboyant style, surging out of a colossal red sandstone edifice begun in the 13th century and finished in the 16th. Three hundred years! Why the hurry? But then, that's one of the attractions of medieval architecture, created by people who didn't even have a word for the future or a concept of progress. The only escape from the present was eternity.

In the shadow of the Rodez cathedral, the Place d'Armes is deserted. I am the sole customer in the one open café. Luckily, I order a traditional Aveyron dish called aligot, for which an astonishingly elastic local cheese is slowly stirred into garlicky mashed potatoes, producing a dense, instantly addictive purée. It's comforting enough to push aside thoughts of eternity and even my anxiety about the immediate future: figuring out a trajectory for the next few weeks with a guidebook that fails to tell me much of anything about most of the points on the map, not to mention the wide spaces between.

It's very quiet here.

Aveyron, with Rodez at its center, is perhaps the least-known département in France, one of the biggest and most sparsely populated. "Even in the summer," local people say, "there are still more cows here than tourists." Few Americans have heard of it unless they remember that François Truffaut's film The Wild Child was based on the true story of Victor of Aveyron, a young boy who was found in 1798 in the forest, hirsute and mute. I myself knew next to nothing about it, although I often travel in France, where I was born. This is la France profonde, the heartland, which Parisians seldom visit and cannot fathom, where there is some of the world's most stunning, geologically diverse countryside—much of it unspoiled. Aveyron is in the rugged Midi-Pyrénées region in the south, and part of the Massif Central, a huge elevation formed by fire and ice. Peaceful lakeside resorts are an hour's drive from vertiginous peaks, waterfalls, and mind-blowing chasms, under which flow subterranean rivers. Deep valleys alternate with eerie and vast limestone plateaus, or segue into undulating meadows, peat bogs, and hot springs. Some of Aveyron's caves are big enough to shelter the Rodez cathedral.

Aveyron has five bastides—planned walled towns that were the first urban experiments, built in the 13th century—and 304 communes (more or less equivalent to counties), some a mere handful of houses hanging on to a cliff, others nestled among the caves where prehistoric people lived, still others clustered near thermal baths or scattered downhill from a 12th-century fortress. Ten villages in Aveyron (the highest concentration in any department) meet the 30-odd criteria required to be officially included among the "Most Beautiful Villages of South France."
When to Go
Fall and spring in Aveyron have heavenly weather and few crowds. But in summer, the water sports and hiking are just as enticing.

Getting There
Fly to London or Paris and catch one of the daily connecting flights or the train to Rodez. Or take the high-speed train (TGV) from Paris to Montpellier, and rent a car for the 1 1/2-hour drive to Millau, which takes you over the Millau Viaduct.

Getting Around
Plan to drive, bike, or hike between villages; in the more bucolic areas there is little in the way of bus or taxi service.

What to Do
There is no good guidebook to Aveyron, so you'll want to rely on tourism offices for both advance and on-the-ground planning, not just for additional sights and hotels but also for sports outfitters of all kinds. They can show you how to follow the pilgrims' road to St Jacques de Compostelle, for example, a route that includes the magnificent abbey in Conques. Many castles and fortresses offer tours. In Paris, contact Maison de l'Aveyron (33-1/42-36-84-63; maison-aveyron.org). If you're researching online, try the Comité Départemental du Tourisme de l'Aveyron (tourisme-aveyron.com); their site will also provide a list and interactive map of the region's Most Beautiful Villages of France (a designation made by a historical preservation association of the same name). The two biggest centers for outdoor sports are Millau and Najac.

Caves of Roquefort
Roquefort-sur-Soulzon; 33-5/65-58-54-38;roquefort-societe.com.

Micropolis City of Insects
St.-Léons; 33-5/65-58-50-50; micropolis.biz.

Millau Viaduct
Office du Tourisme de Millau, 1 Place du Beffroi, Millau; 33-5/65-60-02-42; ot-millau.fr.

Musée Fenaille
14 Place Raynaldi, Rodez; 33-5/65-73-84-30; musee-fenaille.com.

Site Archéologique de la Graufesenque
Millau; 33-5/65-60-11-37.

Where to Shop
Aveyron's famous Laguiole knives can be bought at the new factory, designed by Philippe Starck,

Information about bed and breakfasts and Guest Houses
Source: Wikipedia.com
house is a kind of lodging. In some parts of the world a guest house is similar to a chambres d'hotes or bed and breakfast. In other parts of the world bed and breakfasts are the only kind of accommodation available for visitors with no local relatives.

Among the distinguishing features that distinguish a guest house from a hotel or bed and breakfast is the lack of full time staff. Bed and breakfasts are usually family owned, with the family living on the premises. Hotels maintain a staff presence 24x7. A bed and breakfast on the other hand will have limited staff presence. Because of the limited staff presence checkin is often by appointment.

Specialized courses in how to run bed and breakfast are available.

In Japan a tenant in a bed and breakfast has to pay a substantial damage deposit, and has to pay a cleaning fee when they leave.

Bed & breakfast is commonly known to be a stay in a private home when travelling abroad. It predates hotels, inns, guesthouses, etc. There are several origins of bed and breakfast depending on geography and culture.

In America and Europe, bed and breakfast was usually provided by the local minister. There was, in the minister's home, the "Bishop's room." It was a room reserved for the Bishop or other important dignitary of the ministers denomination. It was nicer than the rest of the home because of its expected occupants. Whenever the Bishop visited the area he stayed in the Bishop's room. When it was not so occupied the minister was free to use the room for other occupants. Some did, others kept the room for its intended use.

Ministers' made very little money, but usually had very nice homes - mostly provided by their Church. One way they earned money was to accept people travelling through their town, village, etc. who needed a place to stay. The usual way this happened was - the traveller wrote a letter to the minister telling of their intended trip, the dates of their stay and something about their background, occupation and references. It was always good to have a reference from someone who could vouch for the persons' character.

The minister wrote back and invited the traveller to stay in his home, if he thought this was someone he could house for a very short term stay. The traveller would write back to accept. There was no fixed fee for the stay. When the traveller left the ministers home, they usually left a sum of money discreetly on a bureau in the bedroom where they stayed - which was the Bishop's room. On many occasions money did not change hands, but the traveller would have something to offer in trade - a farmer could offer produce, animals, etc.

A boarding house is different from and has a different history than a bed and breakfast. The boarding house was for longer term stays, bed and breakfast was for people travelling through the area on short stays.

One advantage of the bed and breakfast, which doesn't exist today because of the prevalence of hotels was that it provided a source of income for the home owner and the money stayed in the community.

Generally, guests are accommodated in private bedrooms with private bathrooms, or in a suite of rooms including an en suite bathroom. Some homes have private bedrooms with a bathroom which is shared with another guest or sometimes more than one other guest. Breakfast is served in the morning - either in the bedroom or, more commonly, in a dining room, on a terrace or sun porch or the host's kitchen.

B&B, chambres d'hotes, bed and breakfasts and guesthouses may be operated either as a secondary source of income or a primary occupation. Staff can consist of the home's owners and members of the family or you may find some bed and breakfasts where the home's owners have hired cleaning, cooking and other help to make a smooth operation if they are otherwise employed or not able to do those chores. A property which hires professional management is no longer a bed and breakfast, but enters the category of Inn, Guest House or Small Hotel.

Staying at a B&B can sometimes offer better access to locations "off the beaten path" which may not be convenient to the city center or other heavily travelled locations. B&B properties can be located where larger lodging competitors may not place a guest accommodation because of market conditions.

Because bed and breakfast has become such a popular concept and the industry has grown so rapidly, hotels, inns and other lodging possibilities adopt the generic "bed and breakfast" to trade on the concept and to attract travellers, who want to experience bed & breakfast, but are not ready to try other than the hotel way of travel. That can result in a disappointment to the traveller because it is misleading advertising. Often, in such cases, breakfast is juice, coffee and a Danish pastry, while in a private home breakfast is usually a substantial meal.

One major difference between bed and breakfasts and hotels has to do with privacy and anonymity. Both offer and insure your privacy. Hotels offer anonymity, while bed and breakfasts are for people who want to interact with others or who, while maintaining their privacy, are willing to give up anonymity for the additional comforts offered in a home setting.
St-Antonin-Noble-Val
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coordinates: 44°09′10″N 1°45′21″E / 44.1527777778, 1.75583333333
Commune of St-Antonin-Noble-Val

Old street in St-Antonin-Noble-Val
Administration
Country
France
Region
Midi-Pyrénées
Department
Tarn-et-Garonne
Arrondissement
Montauban
Canton
St-Antonin-Noble-Val
Statistics
Elevation
110 m–395 m
(avg. 300 m)
Land area¹
106.12 km²
Population²
(1999)
1,887
- Density
17/km² (1999)
Miscellaneous
INSEE/Postal code
82155/ 82140
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
2 Population sans doubles comptes: single count of residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel).

St-Antonin-Noble-Val is a commune of the Tarn-et-Garonne département, in south France.

History
Anciently known by its Celtic name of Condate (confluence), legend recounts that the abbey of St-Antonin (Occitan: Sant Antoní) was founded in the 9th century in honour of the St who brought Christianity to the province of Rouergue, on the western edge of which the town now stands. Successful in this, he decided to convert Pamiers, his hometown in the Pyrenees. But resistance there resulted in his beheading, following which his body was thrown into the Ariège River.
Legend recounts that angels then descended from Heaven to collect the pieces and place them in a boat which, miraculously, floated downstream into the Garonne and on to where the Tarn flows into it; then up the Tarn to its confluence with the Aveyron and up through the Vallis Nobilis of the Aveyron Gorges to the confluence of the little Bonnette river at a point where the ancient lands and bishroprics of Rouergue, the Albigeois, and Quercy meet. There the corpse was retrieved and reassembled by Festus, the Count of Noble-Val, who placed the relics in a reliquary-shrine, now lost.
The Benedictines started rebuilding the abbey in the 11th century, and it was finished around 1150 or later. By the end of the 12th century it passed into the control of Augustinian Canons Regular. It must have been a very fine and prestigious building, perhaps - to judge from the quality of the carving and the stone of the surviving fragments - one to mention in the same breath as Moissac to the south of the same département. The old town hall (even as controversially restored by Viollet-le-Duc) is also of very high quality - as shown by this exquisite carving of Adam, Eve, the Serpent and the Tree of Knowledge.
The troubadour Raimon Jordan was the viscount of St-Antonin in the late twelfth century, on the eve of the Albigensian Crusade. The town, however, was taken by Simon de Montfort in 1212 during the Crusade. The Albigensian castle of Penne a few kilometres downstream was burned by de Montfort and survives now only as a romantic ruin overlooking the river Aveyron. In 1227 St Louis occupied St-Antonin which at this point enjoyed great wealth. The town was besieged and taken by the English in the 14th century, and subsequently suffered considerable damage in the Wars of Religion in the late 16th and again in the early 17th century (former Cathar lands tending towards a Protestantism which survives to this day, for there is a Protestant 'temple' in St-Antonin), when the collegiate church and the Stly relics were destroyed by anti-Catholic mobs. It was presumably after the restoration of Catholicism in the town that the corbels were placed on houses without risk of destruction. It was at this time that Louis XIV renamed the town St-Antonin-Noble-Val and financed important improvements.
Movie location
The town was used as a location for the 2001 movie Charlotte Gray, starring Cate Blanchett.

Maison Lavande offers luxury accomodation for your holiday in both the Tarne et Garonne and Aveyron region, south france. Ideally located near beautiful historical towns such as St Antonin Noble Val and Corde it is the perfect place to relax and unwind Maison Lavande: a most exemplary chambre d'hotes offering the very best bed and breakfast in South France! Come and enjoy French history and lifestyle and the most spectacular views in France!

Travel Insurance UK - travel insurance online for UK residents. Single trip, annual multi-trip and winter sports insurance options to buy securely online.

City Guide to Toulouse, France
An in-depth Toulouse city guide featuring information about Toulouse tourist attractions, sightseeing, where to stay, what to eat, and other useful Toulouse, France travel tips.

French books
1000s of French fiction, nonfiction, language books and audio books, mp3s, cds, dvds, forums, French courses and children's products.

Holiday villas France
Holiday villas and real estate for rent and sale throughout France.

Car Hire France - Car Hire in France and Worldwide, Find the best deals on car rental and vehicle rental in many countries worldwide, UK, France, Spain, Ireland, Portugal and more

Accommodation classified ad - free property advertising - Accommodation - worldwide classified adverts at Accommodation-Search.info listings worldwide. Includes rental property, property for sale, shared housing, FSBO, hotels and many more types of accommodation. Free advertising of rental accommodation.