Costumes, Accents, the romantic notion of lingering meals with many bottles of wine and good food artfully scattered about the outdoor dining room. Yep, pretty sure we all have seen “that movie”, which ever one in particular got you going on the idea and have day dreamed about being Russell Crowe happily wondering the French countryside. In an earlier article we had suggested buying and renovating a chateau, and we’ll stick to our guns on that one, but if you don’t have the time or the money, or experience for that, renting is a “must option”.
Renting a Chateau isn’t all that hard and not as expensive as you might think, couple thousand Euro a week or so. But if you do it as a family gathering / vacation and you carve out how many bedrooms per night, you can stay in a beautiful Chateau in the Loire Valley or Bordeaux for less than a hotel.
Soak in the ambiance, feel the history, discover the countryside, enjoy a laid back and carefree lifestyle even if it’s only for a week or two. The French also drive the correspondingly “correct” side of the road to Americans. So you got that going for you.
There are lots of great resources out there to help you find the perfect place, specifically think what area you want to be in, maybe even so far as what village nearest to and then what you want to do, food, wine, culture, et cetera.
The Pure France Website is a great place to get started, they have listings of vacation rentals like you wouldn’t believe.
