Château des Chevaliers de Londigny

The Château Des Chevaliers De Londigny is an absolutely stunning building in a glorious setting. It is obviously an “Escape to the Chateau” project with the building being gradually restored. We had a corridor of restored bedrooms to ourselves which were imaginatively decorated and nicely clean. So why my relatively low rating? Because - be warned - if you arrive on a Sunday afternoon with only a couple of bottles of warm water in the car and a few grapes as we did, there are NO food or drink-making facilities on the premises apart from one tiny bottle of water in each room. In effect, you are a bird in a gilded cage with no sustenance. A lady (maybe a housekeeper?) met us, gave us the keys and disappeared. Then we were completely on our own. I had tried asking her if it was possible to have a cup of tea (I’m always gasping for a cuppa in the afternoon) but was told “non”. My English sensibilities were screaming for her to offer to boil a kettle for me - after all, I travel with my own teabags so did not need more than hot water. Luckily we managed to find an open take-away pizza place in nearby Ruffec so we did not starve, even though my tea craving was unassuaged. The following morning breakfast was laid on and Kevin (the owner?) appeared to collect his 10 euros per person for a rather stale spread of pastries. I asked him why there were no tea or coffee-making facilities in the rooms and his reply was that if they were to offer them, French guests would not then stop for breakfast and he would therefore miss out on his 10 euros per head. So my advice is to arrive with a lovely chilled bottle of wine, some decent delicatessen food, a travel kettle and you can then have a fabulous afternoon and evening pretending you are Lord/Lady of the Manor and give the place a 5* rating!