Arriving in the Dordogne Valley, I had no idea what to expect. We’d flown in from London after almost two months of travelling, and this time, I’d left most of the planning to Lloyd.
I was knackered upon arrival in Brive and slept all the way from the airport until we reached our very first stop, Château de Lissac.
*In fairness to me, though, I’d been up late the night before sorting through photos – coulda gone to sleep, but my excitement got the better of me.
Arriving at Château de Lissac was probably my first clue that this trip to France would be unlike any other I’d been on before.
The towering Chateau gets even more impressive when you walk in through the deceptively modest white door…
…with a rather cosy reception area
…leading to a stunning garden and living area.
I’ll show you the garden in a little bit! First, let’s head to the living area.
The living area was filled with knick-knacks and all sorts of cornucopia that make the most of the space in it but still leave it with a rather homely feel! (Which would be even ‘homelier’ once we got that fireplace going!)
I know I said, I’d show you the garden but let’s head into the kitchen first…
Why the kitchen? Because there’s food in the kitchen, which by default, makes it my favourite place in the entire Chateau!
An array of food was all laid out, just waiting for us…
… of course, I had to oblige! Wouldn’t wanna be rude. 😉
With my plate crammed as high as I could balance it without losing as much of a pea, I made a beeline for the outdoor area…
The kitchen is lovely, but London was cold this morning, and an opportunity to sit outside with food is not something any Londoner turns down!
I may have snuck back in several times to rebuild my ‘food tower’ back to its original glory after it was destroyed multiple times by yours truly.
Food over and done with, I finally had time to head out to the garden properly.
You can probably see why I was quite taken with it all! And to be fair, I don’t think I’d been in a Chateau like this anywhere else in France…
… especially not one with this amazing view!
I figured I might as well make the most of it and go for a proper nosey around.
By this point, I’d had a couple of glasses of wine, which had the joint effect of a.) getting rid of my drowsiness and b.) making me far too curious to consider what might be deemed good manners in a French Chateau.
The wine appeared to have the same effect on Lloyd as he pottered around…
Just think – this was someone’s home at some point! Actually, scratch that – this is someone’s home right now!
After wandering around the property, I started to miss my glass of wine (we’d already bonded so much by this point), so I headed back to the garden/patio area to find it.
There, I found out it had made friends with a block of cheese! Any friend of my glass of wine is a friend of mine, so wine and cheese it was.
Cheese, however, came with its posse of friends – dessert!
Petits fours…
It’s a French dessert I can’t quite spell or pronounce (blame wine) but which tasted kinda like rice pudding and a crumble had a baby! (It was pretty good too!)
The belle of the ball, however, was the panna cotta! Seriously, panna cotta, along with crème brulee and Sticky Toffee Pudding, are my absolute favourite desserts, especially when done just right (like these ones were).
I ordered the wine glass to top itself up (which it failed to do, and I ended up having to do all the work on that) so that I could enjoy a nice French white wine with my dessert tower (yes, I also managed to build a tower of my dessert).
By this point, though, I was reliably informed that the Chateau actually had rooms that members of the public (like you and me) could actually book to stay for a night (or several).
Just imagine being able to legitimately call this place your home—even if just for a night! I also inquired about the rates, which weren’t as expensive as you’d think.
I was offered the opportunity to take a sneak peek and jumped at it immediately!
(To be entirely honest, I’d been dropping not-so-subtle hints about wanting to see the property since I found out you could stay in the Chateau – I’m nosey like that).
Here’s the first room…
How cool is that bath in the alcove?
There’s also a room with a 4-poster bedroom (*not the official name – just what I remembered it as).
… and a whole host of other room styles and designs. It’s quite an eclectic mix!
When I was done with the rooms, I quickly rushed downstairs to finish my wine before we hit the road again! According to Lloyd, there would be lots of chocolates at our next stop.
Lloyd’s the chocolate fiend, really, but I’ve got quite the sweet tooth—mix that with my gluttony, and you’ve got yourself one excited Londoner who just couldn’t wait to see what we would get up to next.
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