Farm stay near Bordeaux with your family & friends

An old cowshed converted into a two story sleep 12 gîte on a 20 acre micro farm for stays with family and friends. 45 minutes drive from Bordeaux. Easy access to the Atlantic Ocean (Arcachon/Dune of Pilat), medieval castles and villages, thermal spa, many châteaux in the Bordeaux wine regions, tranquil canals, lakes, scenic Dordogne, and even the Basque country and the Pyrenees. A good base for cycling, fishing, and walking holidays, or for a farm stay to experience tranquil French farming life. Clavaillon is a small working farm working with biodynamic principles. At the moment, we grow vegetables and fruit, and keep Sussex Light hens. We also temporarily keep our neighbour’s sheep in our field. Our produce is used by several top restaurants and other food professionals in Bordeaux and Paris. We also sell our produce to individual customers in our local area as well as the Bordeaux metropolitan area. We don't use pesticides or chemical fertilisers. We spend a lot of time and effort to nurture and improve the soil quality which is vital to healthy plants and environment. We look at the whole farm as an organism and try to achieve harmony, rather than just dealing with localised acute problems. We encourage predators of pests to thrive, hoping they achieve a good balance between them. We also use a wide range of companion plants to deter them, improve the growth, and achieve a better flavour. We hope you will enjoy the peaceful surroundings in the French countryside. Come feel four distinctive seasons at Clavaillon, in which you see different flowers, birds, and colours of foliage and sky. Or even different smell in the air. If you feel more active, Clavaillon is in a very good position to go out for walking, running, cycling, canoeing, horse riding, swimming, etc. Also, by car, you can easily reach many scenic areas with natural beauty, as well as tourist attractions including Bordeaux city centre. You will receive a welcome gift of complimentary local organic wine etc and a basket of seasonal local produce from our farm (except for stays only between Sunday night and Friday morning during the off peak periods. Please note that availability of produce differs depending on the season and weather etc). We have implemented enhanced cleaning methods during the COVID-19 pandemic. Please ask for more details. Your pets are welcome, as we have our own cat and dogs! When you make a reservation, please just tell us you'll be bringing your pets. The gîte is self contained and it has all the facilities you may need. Please just let us know, however, if it is missing something. Please feel free to walk around the 20 acres of land, which includes grass fields, some with farm animals on, a kitchen garden, an orchard, a pond, and deciduous trees. We live on the other side of the farmhouse which houses the gîte, a storage and a boot room, and our living quarters. We are often working in the fields or kitchen garden. If you have any questions, or just want to have a chat, please find us! In this pandemic, we have been trying to achieve as little physical contact as possible between guests and ourselves. However, please do not hesitate to speak to us at all. We are here to help your stay special and memorable. Clavaillon’s nearest town is Bazas, famous for its local breed of cattle, the Bazadaise, and a medieval cathedral, part of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France. The cathedral was the venue for the wedding between the heiress apparent to the Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy empire and the heir to a dynasty of Italian winemakers in 2005, which was featured in Forbes Magazines, 10 Most Extravagant Weddings. Bazas has many amenities you would look for, including several restaurants, cafes, bars, supermarkets, boulangeries, wine shops, butchers, ice cream shop, banks, post office, petrol stations, and tourism office. Bordeaux city centre is a 45 minute drive from Clavaillon. Though it used to be called ‘the sleeping beauty’, with abandoned warehouses on the riverfront, heavy traffic, and facades of buildings blackened by air pollution, the long running redevelopment programmes has transformed the city into a beautiful and vibrant place where even Parisians would love to move to, as, since July 2017, the new high speed rail line lets you travel between the two cities in 2 hours. Since 2007, half of Bordeaux has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, too. Clavaillon is situated towards the South East corner of the vast and world famous Bordeaux wine region, including Médoc, Graves, Pomerol, Sauternes, Saint-Émillion. It will be a great day out to visit those regions or even a chateau or two, not only for wine but also for a sumptuous meal, bucolic scenery, and horse riding. More details of places to visit or get more active, and shops, cafes and restaurants we recommend, please have a look at our Guidebook which you may see after confirming a booking. Also, please feel free to ask us any questions at any time! The nearest international airport (Bordeaux Merignac) and TGV station (Bordeaux St Jean) can be reached from Clavaillon in 45 minutes by car. The nearest local station to Clavaillon is in Langon which is 25 minutes drive away. Other major airports around Clavaillon are in Bergerac (90 minutes away by car) and Biarritz and Toulouse (2 hours away each). There is a private parking space in front of our gîte. For 12 people maximum, with 5 permanent beds across 4 bedrooms and 4 additional fold up beds. We also have two cots available. Please let us know if you would like us to get the fold up beds or cots ready for you. Towels and bed linen are provided by us so you don’t have to bring them with you. When you check out, please collect all the towels and bath linen which you can leave in the kitchen in large bags provided by us. Plant based organic hand soap bars (which could be used as shampoo and body soap as well), dish washing liquid, and dish washer tablets which are less harsh to the environment are provided, too. To reduce the carbon footprint and plastic usage, we buy the hand soap bars in balk which are sent without any plastic packaging, and dish washing liquid in large containers and refill the dispenser. In the kitchen, we provide a copper sponge, which is more sustainable and naturally hygienic compared to a plastic sponge. We used to keep leftover non-perishable food which previous guests left in the cupboard. However, since the start of this Covid pandemic, from hygiene perspectives, we only keep basic items, including salt and pepper, oil, and tea and coffee. Coffee filters for the coffee machine is also provided. If you'd like anything else for cooking, please bring your own, and take it with you when you leave our gîte. We sell seasonal vegetables and fruits to our guests for a reduced rate. Please ask for details. The check out time is at 11 am. If you would like to leave the gîte later than 11am, please request when you make a reservation. If you would like to have continental breakfast provided with tea, coffee and juice, we accept additional charge of 10€ per person per serving. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we are only allowed to serve breakfast inside the gîte provided the social distancing and mask wearing rules are strictly observed. Please ask for more details. If you would like daily cleaning, we accept additional charge of 30€ per cleaning. We have a table tennis table, rackets and balls, and a badminton set to play at Clavaillon. Also, the next door village, Saint-Côme has a communal tennis court. You can borrow rackets and balls from us.