Stylish Manor House with Private Pool on picturesque vineyard in Carcassonne, France Reviews

We stayed at the Manoir de Cantalauze during the summer of 2009 with our 3 children of 4, 10 and 13. We had the most fantastic time!

The house is furnished and decorated to an extremely high standard with beautiful oak furniture. The bathrooms are really nice and light and the master bedroom had me wanting to move in! My children loved the fact that we were in the middle of vines and beautiful rolling countryside and that they could roam around at will. Its great cycling country with the canal du midi at the bottom of the drive - you can go for miles. We used to cycle into Trebes (the local town) for bread and croissants - it was the highlight of the childrens day to ask for their pain au chocolat at the fantastic boulangerie there.

The kitchen and downstairs area is quite open plan which could be a bit noisy but it has a great feeling of space. It even has a fireplace in the kitchen which would be lovely if you planned to go there off season.

The pool area was just stunning!

You feel like you have arrived in a film set its so beautiful. There is a lovely long pool if you have the energy to do lengths and my littlest appreciated the shallow kids pool very much.

There is also a great barbeque corner in a huge pool house - more like a barn - which also has a separate loo.

Cantalauze is extremely well situated for exploring the local area as it is close to all the main routes. It took us 40 minutes to get to the beach (lots to choose from) and you can get to to Carcassonne in 15 minutes. The old cite is a must. We also loved the Minervois area - lovely little villages and the impressive site of Minerve. There are lots of local markets to visit - Mirepoix is worth the trip on a Monday and Carcassonne has markets on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Trebes itself has a lovely Italian restaurant (kids loved the pizzas) and a fish restaurant (you can see how fresh the fish is as it is a shop also) They are right on the canal du Midi and you can take boat trips just there. There is a local tourist office which is very helpful.

We will definitely be going back!