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Les Jardins de Marqueyssac – Fortunately today we had a day away from La Treille and visited this magnificent garden.  It was a bit of a jaunt from La Treille at approximately 100km (or 1.5 hours drive) south near Sarlat.  It was well worth the visit in my opinion and I would recommend it.  It was quite a hot day with temperatures hovering around the 28 degrees C but the garden walks were lovely and shady.

Box hedges line the shady walks

We took Ruben as dogs are allowed as long as they are on a lead.  Some of the paths were quite steep and there were also many view points along the walk that had magnificent views across the Valley looking down and across the Dordogne River.

View from the Garden walks

The gardens are well planned out with plenty of benches, well designed children’s play area’s (that blend in with the gardens), toilets, picnic area’s as well as the cafe/restaurant that’s situated within the chateau.

Here’s just a few more pics I took today…

Jeff & Ruben at the garden entrance

One of the peacocks within the gardens

The box hedges at Marqueyssac

The chapel within the gardens

View from the Garden heights

Stone heads at Marqueyssac

This is our 5th season of running our gites and we are proud to say our best year yet.  The availability calenders for all 3 gites are showing the much sought after ‘booked’ message for the main school holiday weeks with  many ’shoulder weeks’ also booked.

It isn’t all a bed of roses though, just when you think you’ve cracked it. our healthy bank balance has taken a beating with a few unexpected expenses cropping up as well as the usual stuff…

• £5000 on a new car – had to replace the old banger -  back in November last year we were on our way back from visiting Jeff’s brother in Catalunya in Spain when the engine decided to blow-up on the motorway.  After searching our local garages for a replacement 2nd hand car we gave up as they’re sooooo expensive here in France.  We really would have preferred buying in France but resorted going back to the UK for one and are now the proud owners of a Citroen Picasso… it’s 5 years old but very tidy and with only 4500 miles on the clock was perfect.   9 Months down the line and ‘touch wood’ it’s been fine, not as nifty as the old SAAB (I miss that Turbo kicking in) but much more practical with 5 doors for airport pick-ups and for taking Ruben out.
• 9000 Euros on New Gnashers – Yes, that was a shocker but Jeff had used and abused his so our Dentist was on to a nice little earner there!
• 1400 Euros on New Garden Furniture – Finally got around to replacing the white plastic tables and chairs that have given almost 5 years service.  Well, Tempete Xanthia gave a helping hand back in February but I must admit the new wooden furniture looks a bit classier, just hope the gite guests appreciate it and don’t swing about on it too much.  We originally had our eye on some lovely ‘all weather raffia’ furniture that we’d seen in our local E Leclerc supermarket.  Their summer promo catalogue came out back in February and we hurried along to the store on the first day of the promo only to be told that although they could order the furniture they couldn’t give us a delivery date.  With the customary Gallic shrug the sales assistant told us that it could be 1 month, 2 months maybe even 3 months.  That’s France for you but being ever optimistic I did place an order and here we are 6 months down the line and still no sign… that reminds me, I must cancel that order or we’ll have 2 sets of lovely garden furniture turning up that we can’t now afford.

Nearly £500 wasted on non-performing gite directory listings – Advertising has proved to be a major headache, we still class our selves as ‘beginners’ in this business and rely heavily on web based directories for promoting our gites.  Trying to find the right company that works for us is not an easy task, researching different sites, speaking to other gite owners locally and via forums (a very useful one is Lay My Hat) we’ve tried and tested quite a few over the last 5 years.  What may work for us will not necessarily work for others and vise a versa.  I still do not know the answer to this illusive question although I have come to the conclusion that you cannot be complacent and simply rely on one company/directory year on year.  For some bizarre reason they seem to have a ‘positive return rate’ for the first 2-3 years and then drop off . This last month I’ve reviewed our advertising (again), we’ve spent nearly £2000 in the last 12 months (that includes nearly £1000 on this new website).   I was recommended a oouple of sites to try to encourage more European guests, gites.nl for the Dutch market – this was over 300 euros and we only got 1 booking… arghhh.  The other was ‘pourlesvacance’ for the French market – this was even worse, not a single booking nada, zilch, rien!!!  Fortunately ‘ownersdirect‘ have proved very successful with over 16 bookings in the 12 months I’ve been with them and we have just renewed our subscription for another 12 months listing.  We’re forever receiving unsolicited emails from companies promising to ‘get you lots of bookings’ and you could waste a fortune trying them all.  As well as Owners Direct I thought I’d give ”flipkey‘ (the lettings directory for Trip Advisor) a try, they are currently offering a 60 day free trial, my ads went live today so we’ll see how that goes although I’m not holding my breath…

To address our problem of  not being able to gain bookings from the French (well anything other than 1 or 2 night enquirers) we are going to get classified by our local tourist board (www.dordogne-perigord-tourisme.fr).  unfortunately we will have to wait until after 2nd October 2010 (after our last guests leave) for an inspection visit.  The visit will result in us being rated and awarded stars (up to 5).  We will then be listed on their website and in the local tourist guide book which is distributed throughout the Tourist Information Centre’s in the whole of France.

We’re obviously pleased that we’ve had a successful year with our gite bookings this year and hope to at least match it next year if not improve on the figures.  I’m probably sounding a little pessimistic which isn’t like me at all but I have come to realise that no two years are the same in the gite business.  We have raised our prices slightly for 2011 (the prices are now listed on the rates page) although we are promising to hold this years prices for any bookings confirmed before 1st January 2011.   I would be absolutely delighted if 2011 was as successful and 2010 so lets say ‘bring on the bookings’ and make me a happy bunny!

Fun in the pool

Are you looking to book a gite during the months of April, May, June or September? Perhaps you can’t get flights or ferries on a Saturday or would prefer a short stay of just 3-6 nights – well, hopefully we can help!

Where possible we will try to work with you for your preferred dates, just ask and we will do our best to make sure you get the holiday you deserve on the dates you want! – click here to enquire!

We are almost fully booked during July & August with just 2 weeks left in our small  gite from Saturday 10th July 2010 – click here if you are interested in booking these weeks!

 European Christmas markets are world famous and France boasts some of the best inlcuding our favourite in the Beautiful city of Bordeaux – just one and half hours drive from our lovely holiday cottages – La Treille Gites.

The Bordeaux Christmas Market or ‘Marche Noel’ is held every year and is ideally placed right in the heart of the city, it’s open during the whole month of December with the stalls trading their unique wares up till 8pm on weekday evenings and 10pm at weekends.

We went with friends and had a lovely time browsing around the pretty market kiosks searching for ’special gifts’, having lunch in one of the numerous bistro restaurants and then sipping hot mulled wine later in the evening.

Getting to Bordeaux was a breeze with 90% of the journey on the motorway.  We drove straight into the centre of the city and parked in the underground car park at the Allee de Tourny  – this was immediately below the market stalls – perfect!  We purchased ourselves a Sat Nav a few weeks earlier and although we took it we really didn’t need it – we found our way directly to our chosen car park with not a single wrong turn… an unusual feat for us!

In between visiting the markets we stopped for lunch in a lovely little bistro restaurant.  The prices are amazingly good for city centre dining – in our eatery we chose the menu de jour which consisted of 3 courses including a bottle of wine for just 11 euros each. Fully refreshed we hit the streets again and made our way to the famous ‘rue St Catherine‘ – one of the longest pedestrianised shopping streets in Europe.  Here we discovered France’s top department store ‘Galeries Lafayette‘ and many other trendy French high street stores… A shopaholics mecca!!!

There are so many interesting places and buildings to see in Bordeaux including The Grande Theatre, museums and many churches and monuments including this beautiful bell tower ‘Gross Cloche’ and Cathedral Saint Andre… Here’s a link to a very good site with lots of information.

We had such a lovely time and would definately recommend a visit to Bordeaux – especially at this wonderfull time of year… we’ll definately be coming back to explore more that this amazing city of culture and all it has to offer.  If you want to come too you’re in for a treat!

It might be early winter here in the Dordogne but that doesn’t mean we have to hibernate.  The local towns and villages are just as pretty as we may remember in the summer but they take on a different hue and are just as pleasant to visit in these cooler seasons. 

Just a 10 minute drive from La Treille heading NE on the D78 towards Brantome is the pretty village of Bourdeilles.  The narrow cobbled streets and pretty little houses are clustered around the Renaissance Chateau and it’s Fortress.  The River Dronne meanders along side the chateau and through the village making it perfect for a brisk afternoon winter walk.  Others obviously had the same idea as us as there were quite a few people promenading arm in arm along the river.  It’s possible to take a tour of the chateau and a climb up to the top the tower gives visitors a magnificient view over the town and surrounding countryside.

 We walked around the narrow streets and then called in for a warming coffee in one of the little cafe’s that still had a few tables and chairs outside. The cafe owner was preparing a huge couldron of duck and vegetable soup ready for that evening.  He asked us if we would mind tasting his soup to make sure he hadn’t over salted it… it was delicious!

Want to know more about Bourdeilles – click here!

We finally got back from our short break in Spain and although we had a lovely time staying with Jeff’s brother and visiting lots of amazing places, to be honest we were quite pleased to get back to our ‘home’ here in the Dordogne.  You may have heard rumours that we have been considering selling-up here at La Treille and perhaps even making a move to Spain but the trip has opened our eyes of exactly what we have here and how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful part of the world.  So, to put it plainly we will not be going anywhere, well, not for quite a few years yet at least and let’s face it, the market (yes, even France’s property market) isn’t at it’s best to be selling. So, with our re-newed passion we are staying put!

We have always kept the gites and gardens in tip-top condition, personally I wouldn’t like to stay in a ‘tired gite’ and would not wish to subject our guests to one either,  but with our batteries fully re-charged and this new inspiration in our hearts we are enthusiastically putting those finishing touches to the property.  Jeff started in the Spring by starting to re-paint all the shutters a beautiful shade of terracota and is now pointing-up the exterior walls to bring them back to their traditonal ‘Pierre-Apparent’ glory.  What a difference it makes… photo to follow!

I’ve been doing my bit too, mowing the lawns – hopefully for the last time this year and collecting the ever falling autumn leaves as well as collecting a few of this year’s bumper walnut harvest.  It’ll soon be time to go marron (chestnuts) collecting in the woods – I love all this ‘freebie food’!

With all this going on unfortunately I have been neglecting to keep my eye on the gite admin. You cannot afford to sit on your laurels in this competitive market.  Having checked my daily analysis (yes I know, I’m turning into a ‘gite owner anorak’) I realised I needed to sort out which advertising directories were performing for us and which were not.  We have been advertising with Chez Nous since we started 4 years ago and dissapointingly for us they are no longer performing.  You cannot afford to be loyal to these businesses and I made the decision to not re-new my subscription for our 2010 advertising budget.  As well as Chez Nous, I have also dropped Holiday Rentals and French Connections.  It may have been a risk as all 3 of these companies are well-known within the French lettings market but they were just getting so expensive – I was spending nearly £1000 annualy just on these 3!!!  So far I have no regrets and with our brand new website and brand new adverts taken out with Owners Direct, Pour les Vacances, North Of The Dordogne and many others we are optomistic for a busy 2010.  These are holding their own on the numerous search engines but I really need to keep up to date with regular blog posts too.  These help to keep our own website on page 1 of the search engines – especially Google. 

No 2 years are the same in the gite market as we’ve discovered over the last four years of renting our gites.  Although we are well-established now (I think, although I try not to get complacement) we are still in our infancy in comparison to other gite business within this area.  Last year started off a little shaky with only a few bookings received by the end of December compared to previous years.  This was perhaps hardly surprising considering the credit crunch and although we tried to tap into a broader European market including French, Dutch and German visitors to broaden our customer base they have proved elusive to date – this is obviously something I need to work on.  Never the less the bookings did come in, fortunately for us from the loyal UK market that obviously still loves France, these included 8 re-bookings from previous guests and although we were ‘down’ on the previous year we did a lot better than some of our competitor’s.  2010 is looking much more promising so far with 22 weeks booked-up already (again from the ever loyal UK market) thankfully/  This is unusual but as I said no 2 years are the same and if things carry on in this fashion we may just have a bumper year next year (fingers crossed) and perhaps we’ll have a little left over to get the pool heated!

1 – Rambling around La Treille Gites in the glorious September sunshine -

It’s been an absolutely perfect summer and even now during late September the sun is out giving us temperatures in the mid twenties.  It may well be the end of the main summer holiday season but there is still so much to see and do around our gites this time of year.  If you are looking for an Autumn break in the French countryside the Dordogne is a wonderful region with so much to offer all year round.

Our last guests of the season arrived yesterday (Saturday 26th September) and are here for 5 nights – the forecast is good all week with no rain predicted.

In the meantime we donned our walking boots and went out to enjoy a little ramble (sounds like we’re really getting into this country lark) around our patch of the woods.  We headed down the lane to the hamlet of Bernichoux, up the white calcaire track and then down into Tocane St Apre.  It’s only a short walk of about 45 minutes but quite lovely this time of year.

Jeff & Ruben enjoying the late summer sunshine

Lovely walks around La Treille Gites

Julie the rambler

Blackberries and elderberries are in abundance and the walnut trees are promising a good harvest. I scrumped a few apples and made some scrummy apple and blackcurrant pies and crumbles

… mmm lovely comfort food for stocking up the freezer and to remind us of our summer’s past during the chilly winter months.

Home-made Crumble

Ruben in the Dronne

Here’s our dog ‘Ruben’ cooling down in the River…

2 – Autumn Harvest in the Dordogne -

All our local farmers are busy right now and the Combine Harvester is working overtime – the sunflowers were harvested at the end of August and they are now starting to harvest the corn crop.

Here’s a few pictures showing the harvester working around La Treille… they worked well into the night and were still going strong at around 1am!

Mr & Mrs Harris

Corn Harvesting

Corn Harvest

Fortunately I’d pre-warned our gite guests this might happen but they were absolutely fine about it…  even commenting in our guest book “that ‘it was magic”‘!

Harvesting into the night

The municipal workers have been around and trimmed all the hedge rows and cut the grass verges – it’s all looking very neat although there’s a secondary reason for keeping the grass verges short… when the walnut’s fall from the tree’s lining the lanes a few local folk are out collecting them for hours on end.  It must be a back breaking job and I hope it’s all worth while when they take them to the local markets to sell. (they must have claim to these particular trees)

The walnut trees at La Treille

Walnut harvest

This is a picture of our neighbour James Hatton…

James on his Tractor

Sitting proudly on his latest project, ‘A Massey Ferguson Tractor’.  He bought it off our other neighbour and has been restoring it over the last few months to it’s former glory.  James along with his wife Jane and their two lovely boys successfully run a dog and cat kennels just over the hill from us – it’s where Ruben will be staying in a few days.  The Kennels are called Pattes et Griffes Pension Canine (Paws & Claws boarding kennels).

We were passing through St Astier today and there was a farmers fair along with the usual Sunday vide grenier (car boot sales that seem to be in every village on every Sunday these days).  The farmers had this old fashioned bailing machine, at least I think it was old fashioned it looked ancient and they were demonstrating it… it was really noisy and creating a lot of dust but fascinating.

Bailing machine

St Astier Farm Fete

Well, that’s about it from me for a while as we’re off on a well earned break to sunny Spain to visit Jeff’s brother who lives in Catalunya.  Our last guests have left, we’ve closed the gites and put away all the garden furniture and Jeff’s even cleaned the car (a very rare event) so we’re almost set for the ‘great get-away’.

Autumn at La Treille

Jeff & The SAAB

I’ll be back though with posts throughout the rest of the Autumn and Winter of our life here in the Dordogne.

If you are into street car racing or classic cars you would have loved today’s event… the streets of the ancient city of Angoulême were closed off to normal traffic today to allow hundreds of classic cars owners the chance to rev their engines, don their racing gear and hit the streets with their mean machines trying to win a place in history at the CIRCUIT DES REMPARTS IN ANGOULEME.

Classic car

It’s actually a weekend long event held every 3rd weekend in September and this year was the 70th Anniversary.  Thousands of spectators from all over the world came to see the spectacle.  The programme of events runs from the Friday when all the cars are exhibited in the stands around the city.  On the Saturday there is the ‘Rallye International de Charente‘ starting fromm 8.30am and departing from the Géant Casino (Supermarket) in the North of Angoulême and finishing at 5.30pm at the place Victor Hugo Square. There is also the ‘Présentation du Championnat de monde des Rallyes 1973 : Alpine A1100 Gr 4‘ – this starts at 3pm at the Esplanade du Champ de Mars.  These events are all free!  Then on the Sunday you have the main street racing events…

Spectators at Circuit des Remparts

There were ancient Bugatti, Morgan’s, Maserati, Alfa Romeo and dozens more actually racing.  The roar was incredible as they raced through the streets, taking the hairpin bends at break-neck speeds and  thundering towards the finish lines.  The crowds were loving it even the rain couldn’t dampen our spirits and the when the sun came out everyone cheered.

Spectators on the remparts

The city of Angoulême (the capital of the Charente Department) is, at any time pretty spectacular… with it’s Beautiful cathedral, churches, ancient fortifications (known as the ‘remparts’) encircling the city and so much more to offer visitors, that this most unusual weekend event only adds to it’s many attractions.

There were numerous ticket offices about were you could purchase entrance tickets for 13 euros each which allowed you to enter the remparts for excellent viewing or an armband was available for 26 euros each which included entrance to the remparts, the seated viewing area’s and the paddocks.  Not sure what the prices were for children – sorry!

There was also a very good Programme available from the ticket offices.  Here’s all 48 of the photo’s that I took on the day as well as a few scanned snaps of the Programme pages…

!

So, if you fancy joining in all the fun next year why not book yourself in to our lovley gites here at La Treille which are only an hour away from all the action!

]]> http://www.dordogne-gites.net/local-events/circuit-des-remparts-angouleme-2/feed/ 1 http://www.dordogne-gites.net/chit-chat/vide-grenier-at-tocane-st-apre/ http://www.dordogne-gites.net/chit-chat/vide-grenier-at-tocane-st-apre/#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:06:58 +0000 admin http://www.dordogne-gites.net/?p=3199 Our first and last Vide Grenier (Car Boot Sale)

Jeff doing the 'hard sell'!

We’ve been living here at La Treille in the Dordogne for over 5 years now and still have many ‘un-packed’ boxes of ornaments and ‘who knows what” sitting in our barn.  I’ve been threatening to do a ‘Vide Grenier’ now for about 2 years and clear out all that ’stuff’ that we no longer want or use.

It took us about a week to go through all the boxes and decide what was ‘going’ and what was ’staying’… we were going to be ruthless, that collection of crystal sugar shakers, pictures that we’d got bored with, a set of crockery that I was never going to use and lots of other stuff including all the ‘nail technician equipment, products and paraphanalia’ from my former life.

We re-packed the items, boxed them and loaded them into the car on Saturday night.  We still have gite guests here and didn’t want to disturb them too much with our early start on Sunday Morning.

Getting up before 7pm was a novelty for us and felt like we were going off on our holidays not just popping down to our local village.  We set-off down the lane to Tocane St Apre where the Vide Grenier was being held.  It was chaos with cars trying to get-up to the main square to set-up their stalls and unload their wares – I think most must have arrived at least an hour earlier looking at their neatly laid out gear and unbelievably buyers were browsing already!

Fortunately our friends Janice & Paul who recently opened their new café bar ‘Rouge’ right in the Centre Ville of Tocane had reserved us a ‘prime spot’ right opposite their already bustling café. Paul had obtained a special ‘one-day’ licence enabling him to sell alcohol without food (although food was certainly available) and it looked like it was being appreciated by a few ‘early birds’!

Janice & Paul serving at Rouge

We quickly got to work setting up the tables and laying out our cherished possessions.  It was an unfamiliar and weird feeling seeing your possessions being scrutinized by the general public and quite rewarding when somebody chose to buy something.

Browsing our stall

Jeff & I trying to off-load our 'junk'

Fortunately it was a glorious sunny day, good job we’d remembered to bring our parasol or we would have got quite frazzled.

The crowds really picked-up about 10am and then thinned out at lunchtime for a couple of hours.  Well we were in France after all and nothing stops the French from their 2 hour lunch break.  We made the most of the lull and I sent Jeff off to order lunch from ‘Rouge’ – take-away fish et chips… perfect fodder for car booters!

After lunch the crowds  came back out into the sun and started browsing again.  We’d sold many items and had made just over 200 euros so were very pleased with all our hard work.  There were still many people ‘browsing and buying’ but the crowds were starting to thin-out a little so just after 3pm we decided to call it a day, we were both shattered but had had a thoroughly enjoyable day.

We packed away what was left and headed home feeling quite rejuvenated having de-cluttered and made a little bit of cash into the bargain.

Just not sure that we will be doing another for a long time though!