Is it only travel writers who get so excited about a bulging house manual that’s filled to the brim with insider’s tips from the owner? Mas du Marechal’s is like a book, only it never has an ending… you could return to this little village for years with a wish list and only ever achieve half of it!
Guide books to Provence and the Côte d’Azur jostle with cookbooks on the kitchen island, so you can quickly brush up on Roman history or learn about the strange storage ‘bories’ you saw in the middle of lavender fields that day … all while you’re cooking dinner. And cook you will: with fabulous farm stalls dotted along the country lanes, you’ll not only make your way through a box of the juiciest fresh cherries every day, but stock up on delicious local cheese, honey, fruit and veggies.
Evenings are long and truly glorious in summer: swallows tweeting constantly and feeding their young in the eaves, church bells chiming on the hour… and there’s a moment when the stone turns a buttery gold against blue, blue skies and a sense of bucolic bliss descends. An evening stroll takes you past a thoughtful game of boule at the village square and La Grange, a lively restaurant, often with live music bringing gatherings of friends and neighbours together for a quick catch-up on this sun-drenched corner.
Back home, dinner is always outdoors, often with dripping wet kids just out of the pool, while autumnal evenings are about cooking delicious meals together while tasting local wines and planning activities for the next day. There’s always a buzz of conversation in this kitchen where cookbooks jostle with every guidebook imaginable in the sociable central island!
Ancient beauty, timeless charm
The house itself is a much-loved family home with two staircases – from the outside, the 1869 farmhouse looks like one home, but inside the upstairs bedrooms are accessed via two different staircases. One is a rather grand stone ascent added during the restoration and the other is behind the kitchen, leading from an entrance door with the largest lock and key ever seen – one you’d expect to find in an ancient monastery or church. Bedrooms are named after wine estates on the Cape Winelands, so if you’re South African, you’ll feel very much at home, even though the village is in the heart of the Côtes du Rhône wine region and the perfect base from which to explore Provence.
Reviewed by Michelle Snaddon