Le Mas de Pié Caud

We are very glad we stayed here, but it was an unusual experience. You should make a thoughtful decision about staying here. The owners live here. They have built a separate addition to their house which has two large guest rooms - suites, really. Each has its own entrance separate from the main house. The good parts: The room was spacious and even had a touch of elegance, although it was also a little rough around the edges. The room was comfortable and enjoyable, and it had its own deck looking out onto, partially, a nearby natural vegetation area. (But it also looked out into their front yard area. See below.) The bathroom was particularly spacious. We did demi-pension. The breakfasts were typical continental breakfasts: breads, preserves, etc. The dinners were wonderful. First course, main course, cheese course, dessert, plus wine (red or white or both) and bottled water. The unusual parts: By the time you get to the place, you will be worried. The paved road ends, and you are on a rough dirt road that seems to be going nowhere. (Use map coordinates in your GPS to find this place. Our Tom Tom could not find it otherwise.) When the dirt road ends, you are there. Then you will be a little more worried. "There" is the front of a nice house, but the area is a mishmash of dirt, gravel, construction materials, and unkempt vegetation. But when you knock on the door, you get a warm welcome and when you are shown to your room (even though you have to haul your luggage uphill on a gravel path to get to it), you are starting to feel much better. The owners are in the final stages of installing a swimming pool at the back of their house, and hinted that the condition of the front area of their home was due to that. Perhaps. But there was a general lack of attention in that area that is confusing. Why would any place that is trying to attract guests allow such an unfavorable first impression to be presented? While things got better after we knocked on the door, we almost drove away without knocking. If you do demi-pension, you will not be served dinner by the owners -- you will join them for dinner. Turned out to be great. We speak virtually no French. One of the owners speaks virtually no English and one speaks a little, so dinner conversation was a struggle (lots of writing things down and using the dictionary), but a very pleasant struggle. We talked politics, kids, travel, etc. Thoroughly enjoyable. However, we were the only two guests both nights, so we had one-on-one conversations. I can imagine that with more people around the table, the "fun" of struggling through such conversations could diminish quite a bit. In fact, at the second dinner a high-school age student who apparently boards with the owners joined us for dinner, and his lack of interest in joining the conversation dampened the situation for everybody else. But, he ate and left quickly. The location, outside of Rognes, was convenient for sightseeing in the area. As I said, we are very glad we stayed there. But if you go there, brace yourself for the first ten minutes.