I received this postcard last week from my mother who’s been down in south-west France for a few weeks. I spent most of my childhood summers on the south-west coast of France in our bungalow (see my post about it here) and although I haven’t been there in about 10 years, my mother still goes every year. Bordeaux is the nearest large city and the whole region is just one big vineyard, with stunning chateaux dotted around the countryside at every turn where you can do wine tasting and take tours.

          For a couple of years we escaped from the bungalow near the beach and spent our summers in Château Peyronnet, a stunning château on the outskirts of Bordeaux, with an abandoned vineyard. How we ended up spending our summers there is a long story that I won’t go into here, but below are some photos of the chateaux as it is now. However I didn’t really appreciate the wine part of the local area aged 13-14… I suppose my surroundings were rather wasted on me back then.

           I’ve stumbled upon a website called Simply Chateau which rent out 270 luxury chateaux across France, so if you fancy being the lord of your own manor then it’s a good place to look. When you split the cost between 10-15 people it actually works out quite cheap and I’m now really tempted!