Mrs Nicky Webster: It's our kind of place ... We loved it!
Mr Asquith: It was a lovely house, and very well equipped. If anything, it exceeded our expectations.
Major & Mrs W. Davies: We were delighted with the villa and our holiday in general. The house is a hidden gem.
Mrs J. Abbott: Property in general was very good. Exactly what we wanted.
Mrs Amanda Cunningham: Delightful - a truely comfortable villa, with a superb kitchen.
Mrs F. Street: We had a really relaxing, peaceful holiday. The house was exceptionally well equipped which made the property ideal with a large family.
Ms Clifford-Jones: Gorgeous!
Mr John Moore: Favreau is a much loved home which is ideal for family holidays. Much thought and attention to detail has gone into its presentation.
Mr Michael Proto: Favreau lived up to and exceeded our expectations and every member of our family (ranging in age from over 70 to one year old), had a fantastic holiday.
Kate Hurst: Emma (the caretaker) did a great job while we were in France. She was great with the kids and the food she prepared was excellent. The arrangement worked very well and she was extremely helpful, flexible, reliable and easy to be around.
An article by Luke Proto who stayed at Favreau in August 2007
SAME THING NEXT YEAR?
My name is Luke and I am three years old. This summer Nana and Grandpa organised a holiday at Villa Favreau in France for me, my Mummy and Daddy and my little brother Toby, my Auntie Alex, Uncle Barry and their baby Joe. Toby and I slept in the upstairs nursery and thought it was the best playroom ever! Everyone else slept downstairs, which was really good ‘cos it meant we could make as much noise as we liked in the mornings and nobody complained. My Grandpa did all the cooking and I found out that I liked lots of things I’d never eaten before, especially paté, Grandpa’s dauphinois potatoes, apricots and melon. I still don’t like mushrooms though.
I spent hours in the lovely warm pool doing Monster Jumps with
Barry, while Mummy and Daddy took photographs of me. Every
time I did especially good swimming or jumping, I was
allowed a Smartie. I always chose a blue one ‘cos you don’t get blue Smarties at home. Auntie Alex looked after Toby (who can walk now) and Joe (who still crawls everywhere) and Nana had something called a “well-deserved rest”.
Mummy said that she had planned lots of places nearby for us to visit but we didn’t go to any of them because it was such fun staying in the garden and playing in the pool. We did go for long walks outside the garden, and I saw a deer and some red squirrels as well as lots of cows and horses. The things I liked best were the tiny lizards which ran everywhere.
Sometimes when the grown-ups were eating outside and I was
upstairs in bed but not asleep yet, I could hear them talking and I
meant to ask Mummy in the morning what “a best equipped villa ever” was, but I forgot. It sounded like something nice
though.
The best bit of all was when Grandpa said “What would
everyone think about doing the same thing next year?” I really, really hope we do!
An article by our client Mrs Elizabeth Moore who stayed at Favreau in June 2006
VISITING THE GIRONDE IN EARLY SUMMER
Sometime last autumn I had a dream of being in Southwest France for a week with all the family together. It was the Dominique’s Villas brochure which inspired the dream. We found the perfect house to accommodate ten of us, which included a dormitory/playroom at the top of the house which our four grandchildren could share. It took little persuasion for our daughters and their husbands to agree to accompany us.
We arrived at Favreau by different routes. John and I drove down from Cherbourg over three days, Louise and John with Nell ten, and Ruby five, flew from Stansted to Bergerac. Alexa and Rupert with Xavier seven, and Joe four, took the Eurostar from London to Paris, and the TGV to Bordeaux. Both families hired cars.
It was wonderful to see their faces on arrival. Our daughters could not believe the beauty of the house in its setting; the children were so excited by the pool, the toys and the activities available, our sons-in-law loved the space and the fact we were in rural France at its best, surrounded by vineyards. The house and grounds provided sufficient space for each of us to do our own thing.
For six days we lived the dream. Rupert and one of the Johns collected our croissants and pains au chocolat from the boulangerie in the nearest village, for breakfast each morning. We shopped in the local markets for our fruit, vegetables and fish. Cherries and asparagus were at their peak, as were strawberries and apricots. Even the children enjoyed shopping in this delightful way, with the added bonus of spending their pocket money at the toy stall. We purchased our superb wine from the nearby cave.
Xavi, our naturalist, formed a meaningful relationship with the frogs in the pond. Joe discovered the game of badminton, in which he was partnered mostly by Grandpa. Nell and Ruby set up home in one of the outhouses by the pool. Younger John and Rupert had fiercely competitive games of table tennis, and cooked gourmet food on the barbecue. We all loved the swimming and sitting round the pool reading or drawing in the children’s case. The wine town St-Emilion, one hour’s drive from Favreau, is a good place for a family outing. But mostly we just walked about the local area listening to birdsong, watching the croaking frogs in the pond, and generally appreciating the unspoilt countryside.
Favreau is the kind of domaine which imposes no demands of modern life on its visitors which is why it is so relaxing. It is a place where doing nothing at all is possible; a rarity in today’s world. We all adored it; the children in particular. How hard it was to leave.
