Our slice of peace
In December 2005 we purchased a charming old cottage in a hamlet called La Bourbouille. The house has three bedrooms, an open plan-dining area, open fire, wood burning stove, 2 bathrooms, large sun terrace, a small kitchen and a variety of interesting cellars and rooms under the main house. It came with a ‘spare house’ - a tiny cottage attached. Built of stone a long time ago, the original farmhouse was refurbished in the 1970s with new floors. We have added the modern bathrooms, hot water throughout and a new roof on the spare cottage.
The layout is basically kitchen, dining room and lounge downstairs, leading to a double bedroom with en-suite shower and toilet. Upstairs is the main bedroom and second bathroom, plus the upstairs ‘sitting room/third bedroom’. The sun terrace leads off the lounge, with further stairs going down to the walled courtyard and gate to the lane outside. The front door opens into the kitchen area. Of course, all the windows have traditional shutters, and we also have a (non functional) traditional bread oven too.
The house is pretty sound (especially now we have upgraded the electrics, and added the luxuries of hot water, new cooker, fridge, TV, DVD and so on!)
Conveniently located 1.5 hrs drive from the airports of Carcassonne or Montpellier, the house is in the hamlet of La Bourbouille. It is 2 hrs to the airports of Nimes and Perpignan - so there is plenty of choice as to where to fly to. At a pinch, Toulouse would do. We tend to fly Ryanair from East Midlands to Carcassonne, or from Stansted or Luton. You can get to Perpignan from Gathwick via BA connect, but I detest Gatwick (or rather the drive there). From whichever airport we arrive at, we just take the motorway to Beziers, then drive inland for half an hour!
