A château in Gascony,kept for fifteen at a time.

The château and its grounds, from the air and inside.

In plain terms

The retreat takes place in a château in Gascony, south west France, near the village of Condom in the Gers, about an hour and twenty minutes from Toulouse airport.

The château holds fifteen women at a time, each with a bedroom of her own inside it.

There is a spa with a hammam, an infrared sauna, a traditional stone sauna, a jacuzzi and an indoor heated pool. Outside there is a natural plant filtered pool and forty hectares of grounds.

There is a lift and there are ramps. Two of the bedrooms are adapted for restricted mobility.

The approach

You come up the driveand the noise stops.

The château sits on its own, at the end of a drive, with fields on every side and no through road. The first thing most women notice is not the building. It is how quiet it is.

You arrive in the afternoon. Jo shows you to your room and around the château, there is tea and then you can settle in. Nothing is asked of you on the first day beyond turning up.

The château at the end of its drive, the gravel curving in past clipped hedges and a bare tree.

Inside

One long tableand enough cornersto disappear into.

Dinner is at one table, every night, all fifteen of you. It is the part of the week guests write to Jo about afterwards. It is the reason nobody eats alone here.

The rest of the château is the other half of the answer. There are sofas and a piano inside and outside there is the courtyard and the amphitheatre if you want to sit on your own. If you want company it is downstairs. If you have had enough of people for a bit, that is a normal thing to want and there is somewhere to go.

Fifteen women seated along one long candlelit table under a beamed ceiling, with a stone arch through to the next room.

The spa

Stone, steamand a pool that isactually warm.

The spa is in the vaulted part of the château, under a stone ceiling. There is a hammam, an infrared sauna, a traditional stone sauna, a jacuzzi and an indoor heated pool.

Treatments are the one thing that costs extra. Massages and facials can be booked while you are here and are not included in the price.

Pam.

The indoor pool under a vaulted stone ceiling, one woman swimming and others sitting along the edge in the arched windows.

Outside

A pool the plants keepand a bridge over it.

The outdoor pool is plant filtered, so there is no chlorine in it and no smell of it either. A low stone bridge crosses one end. In October the water is bracing and some women swim anyway; in May it is the best thing in the garden.

There are loungers and there is shade.

The château seen across the natural swimming pool, with a low stone bridge arching over the water and reeds in the foreground.

The grounds

Forty hectaresand no reason to leave them.

Forty hectares of grounds, with woodland, water, long grass and paths through all of it. You can walk for an hour here without meeting anybody or crossing a road.

Some women walk it every morning before breakfast. Some never leave the terrace. Both are a perfectly good way to spend the week.

A path through the grounds beside water, with trees on the far bank.

The amphitheatre

Somebody cut an amphitheatreinto the hill.

Curved stone steps set into the slope below the château, with rosemary grown up all around them. Nothing is scheduled there. It is somewhere to go when you want some time on your own: bring a book, sit and do nothing at all. There is a pond close by where you can listen to the frogs.

Curved pale stone steps cut into the hillside, with rosemary grown up all around them.

Getting around the château

The plain answeron access.

This is a real question and it deserves a real answer rather than a brochure sentence. The château has ramps, disabled access and a lift. Two of the bedrooms are adapted for restricted mobility, with accessible bathrooms.

Every walk is optional. If you tell Jo what you need before you book she will be honest with you about what would and would not work, which is more useful than being told everything is fine.

A row of tall arched windows and stone columns in a bedroom, opening onto the grounds.

Being here

What a week hereactually looks like.

By the second day you stop checking your phone for the time and start reading it off the light. You learn which staircase is quicker, where the quiet corners are and that nobody in this château needs anything from you.

The tower and the old buildings across the natural pool in evening light, with three guests sitting on the edge with their feet in the water.

The loggia from outside, arched windows and pale columns, with a drawing of the Vitruvian man on the stone above and a guest standing at one of the openings.

The salon seen through a stone arch, orange sofas and a chandelier, one guest reading in an armchair by the window.

A guest sitting between the stone columns of the loggia in the shade, face turned to the light.

The pavilion in the grounds, pale stone with a tall bronze horse on a plinth in front of it.

A bedroom made up before the guests arrive, towels and robes folded on the bed.

One of the two saunas, pale wood benches under a stone ceiling.

A corner of a sitting room, with teal armchairs and a sofa under a framed print.

Two guests asleep in armchairs in the afternoon, heads back, eyes closed.

Enquire

Ask for the brochure.No sales call.

Dates, rooms, what a day actually looks like and the full price list. It comes by email from Jo. You can read it and never speak to us again.

The 2027 retreats10–17 April 2027, The Pilates week17–24 April 202715–22 May 20274–11 September 20272–9 October 2027