Château de Saint Paterne

We’ve just left after our second stay, this time with our son, who loved it as much as we did on our first visit as a couple. The grounds and hotel are beautiful, the staff are lovely, and the bed was comfortable. It’s great value and makes a perfect stop on the way farther south. We’d love to come back.

We stayed for one night and found the setting magnificent and wonderfully relaxing. The chateau is beautiful, the food was lovely, and the price felt very fair for what you get. They pay close attention to the details. I’d highly recommend it for a short break or an overnight stay.

A beautiful setting and excellent staff, and the food alone makes it worth a visit. You’ll be well looked after.

The chateau, grounds, and pool are pleasant, though a bit cluttered and eccentric, which perhaps suits the place. The food was a different story. Dinner was unacceptable: the blackberry-colored gazpacho, which barely looked like tomato, was almost inedible and disgusting. The chicken seemed like the cheapest bulk-buy breast, served with tinned peas and potatoes, and was at school-dinner level. Dessert was a few very thin pineapple slices curling at the edges, with an eggcup of white stuff flavored like piña colada. I seriously doubt it cost even EUR 10 per person to make. Breakfast was very basic too, with the usual bake-at-the-table mini croissants and poor-quality jam and cheese. We waited through 10-minute gaps while the thermos of hot water for tea was refilled. Dinner, bed, and breakfast for our family of four, including our teenage children on poor-quality sofa beds, plus a EUR 38 bottle of wine and a dull white-wine aperitif, came to just over EUR 700. Chateau, yes. Food, no. Avoid.