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Our first year in the Dordogne was absolutely amazing!

Dordogne
Our first year in the Dordogne gîte Loups d'Or luxury holiday home Pimm and Marcel van der Donk
9 April 2023
by Loups d'Or

Our first year in the Dordogne was absolutely amazing!

Our first guests of the season just left, but today one year ago, we opened Loups d'Or for business and what a first year it has been. A busy year but with absolutely great guests from all over the world, Iraq, Thailand, the UK, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Poland, the USA and Australia.

Then,

  • our gîte Loups d'Or obtained an official French classification and was rated with 4 stars;
  • we had an interview with French Property News, the longest-established and most comprehensive UK guide to buying French property, about our move to Lusignac;
  • and to top it all off, only 6 months after opening Loups d'Or, we became part of the Sawday's family, which feels a bit like being awarded a Michelin star for hospitality!

Without help and support we wouldn't have managed this all in such a short time.
We therefore want to thank a couple of people who made it all possible:
Nathalie Wolf, the lady and estate agent, who urged us to see the property; the Gîte Gurus, Frank + Rupert, for helping setting-up our gîte business; Cath + Marc from Dragonfly Media for the great photos and drone video; Vanessa, Chloé and Kati for helping us making the gîte ready for our guests; Sylvia Edwards Davis from FranceMediaGroup; Nicky de Bouille and Lillie Mitchell from Sawday's; Jean Marc Louis from Dordogne Périgord Tourisme France; Catherine and Andy + Wayne for introducing us to a lot of our new friends; Heather + Tony, Sheila + Michael and Sarah + Allen for being the perfect neighbours; our great guests….and, that goes without saying, both our wonderful families.

Every day here is a first and we therefore wanted to enjoy every day of the year here in the Périgord, which means that we also had our first Christmas and our first New Year's Eve at home. We’ve used this winter for a couple of alterations and for the general winter home maintenance, before our first guests arrive again in March. We were also able to do some sightseeing in our own country and started with a lovely long weekend to our new capital Paris, only 1.5hr by train from Angoulême.

As we live in a pretty authentic part of the Dordogne, near the border with the Charente, there are daily markets in all the villages around us and many restaurants are open during the winter, so the area is definitely not deserted. Also, there are not as many second homes in this part than in other parts of the Dordogne, so most people here, French and non-French, live here permanently. In an interview we had with French Property News, we were asked what had surprised us the most about living here and our answer was that especially in winter, there is something going on every day, dinner party here, drinks there, definitely never ever a dull moment here in our lovely Lusignac!

We are looking forward to the coming season!

Pimm + Marcel

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Most of our blogs are written to give you more information about the Dordogne, Périgord, where we have Gîte Loups d'Or, our 4-star, luxury, self-catering holiday home. We write about subjects we think are interesting for you to know and to give you inspiration to explore this beautiful part of France yourself. If you have any questions or if you want more information, please feel free to contact us.

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