Les Chapelles is a small hamlet in the Charente-Maritime department of France (it’s a little more than half way down the left-hand side of the country if you’re looking at a map). We’ve been living here for nearly eight years now and love it. The sun often shines – in fact there’s only one area of France in which it shines more – which means we can get down to the beautiful beaches which are less than half an hour’s drive away. There’s easy access to all the things you might be looking for: stunning scenery, historic towns like Saintes, Royan and La Rochelle, magnificent château, great restaurants and, of course, some fantastic wine (we’re about an hour north of Bordeaux, which is a smashing city in itself).

Why am I telling you all this? Well, because you can come and enjoy it too.

We’ve renovated a couple of lovely old buildings into two splendid holiday gites. One, Le Cadran Solaire, sleeps six people in three big bedrooms. The other, La Cachette, is a cosy two-bedroom apartment sleeping four. We’ve also got a rather spectacular indoor swimming pool for when you need to cool off (or those odd occasions when it might be raining).

We’d love you to come and visit. Plenty of people have and seem to quite like it (you can read some of their comments in our guestbook). Have a dig around the site for more details – you can follow the menus above to find all the information you need, and there are lots of photos here. And, of course, feel free to get in touch. You can also find us on Facebook here.

LATEST NEWS: Les Chapelles was featured in the Wall Street Journal Europe as a great place to stay!

À bientôt.