Your week
This is a rhythm, not a programme. There is something on most days and nothing on some. You can take any of it or none of it.
Absolutely nothing is compulsory. One of the most important parts of the week is having time to yourself. You can sit by the pool, read, nap, have a treatment or do absolutely nothing at all. That is not wasted time, it is part of the retreat.
At the château
A lot of the week never leaves the château. Somebody else cooks, the spa is under the same roof. There is always a sofa with company on it and a room with nobody in it.
Every meal
Lindsay, our private chef on site, cooks every meal and dinner is at one long table every night.
Nobody eats alone here and nobody has to work at it. Tell Jo before you come what you cannot eat and it is handled, quietly.
Under the stone
A hammam, an infrared sauna, a traditional stone sauna, a jacuzzi and an indoor heated pool. Most women plan an hour in there and lose the afternoon.
Massages and facials can be booked while you are here and are the one thing that costs extra.
Only if you want to
There are movement sessions in the week, indoors or in the cloister garden, for anyone who wants one. Nobody is counting, nobody is watching and nobody minds if you are still in bed.
It is not a fitness retreat. You move because it feels good, not because anybody needs you to.
The rest of the time
Fifteen women, most of whom arrived not knowing anybody. By the middle of the week there is a sofa that is always full and a group chat that carries on without you asking it to.
There is also time on your own, which is the other half of the point. At some point Jo will ask you to write a letter. People talk about it afterwards.
Out in Gascony
This is a retreat in Gascony rather than a retreat that happens to be in France. Some of the week is spent out in it.
The market
The weekly market, on foot, with baskets. It is a working French market rather than a display for visitors: cheese, bread, olives by the bowl and more tomatoes than anyone needs.
Then coffee under an umbrella while somebody decides whether she really needs that hat.
Eating out
Twice in the week the kitchen at the château gets a rest and we eat out: lunch at Jo's favourite brasserie and dinner at Jo's favourite evening restaurant. Lunch is a typical French menu du jour, the set lunch of the day that the locals eat. Nobody has to choose anything. It is simply put in front of you, which after a year of making every decision yourself turns out to be a treat.
Wine and Armagnac
Gascony is wine country that has never made a fuss about it. The wine tasting is an afternoon out of its own: you taste at a vineyard rather than a counter, with somebody who made what is in the glass.
The Armagnac tasting is a separate outing. Armagnac is Gascony's own spirit and one of the oldest in France: an afternoon at Maison Aurian in Condom, being shown how it is made and then tasting it.
The villages
Condom and the villages around it are old, quiet and built of the same pale stone as everything else here. We also visit the Abbaye de Flaran, an old Cistercian abbey close by. There is usually time to wander, to sit down somewhere and to come back with a cheese you did not plan to buy.
On foot
The route to Santiago de Compostela runs through Gascony. A guided thirteen kilometre stretch of it passes close by and takes about three hours. It is not a hilly walk. There is one slight hill at the start and after that it is about distance, not climbing. If you are comfortable walking for three hours, you will be fine.
On other days the walks are slower, there is a group at the back. Jo usually walks with it. Everything here is optional. Women who sit it out have a very good day at the château.
Enquire
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