Chateau Sentout is welcoming guests from many countries, offering an opportunity of making international friendships.
The Château's differing architectural styles which mark the passing years lend to its elegance and charm.
An Italian feel is created by the Genoese storehouse and its Tuscan columns found in the courtyard. The inner courtyard's patio is Spanish in style and the windows leading from the main house to the bishop's bedroom are Moorish 'Retour d'Egypte'.
The window bays of the main house were originally arched. These were bricked up long ago and replaced in the eighteenth century by larger rectangular bays. However, an example of one of the original bays can still be seen in the library, but only from the inside!
The main house, flanked on both sides by two massive square towers surmounted by balustrades, is embellished by two turrets and a large square tower, all three roofed with slate. The terrace at the front of the house is decorated with a stone balustrade offered by Château Lacaussade in settlement for a lawsuit.
The bakery, situated next to the entrance gates and in which the oven is surmounted by a slate-roofed turret, was where Madame Fichot lived from 1948 for a few years until she died aged 94 years old. The staircase was built by Monsieur Giresse, a carpenter at Langoiran and grand-father of the famous footballer, Alain Giresse. He re-used the wood kept since 1936 from the old wine press when it was replaced by a 'modern' wine press in steel and cement. It is one of the specialities of Château Sentout and certainly many other old properties to continually re-use its materials.
The interior of the Chapel was originally coated with lime and daubed with ochre and redchalk. In 1864, it was heightened, columns were added, a trompe l'oeil oak panelling was painted by Monsieur G. Coudray.
Monsieur Lieuzere, painter and glass artist, made the stained-glass windows in 1864. Badly damaged by storms and children, they were restored by Muriel Goupil, an experienced glass artist, in 1985.
The floor is paved laterally with the typical tiles from the Gironde, the centre of which is decorated with black, green and vermilion hardened plaster.
New roofs now cover the wide-arched coach house, stable and hayloft (the row of buildings closest to the swimming pool). Sadly, the old crumbling roof and beams had fallen on the rusting carriages below destroying them beyond repair.
The storehouse containing the wine barrels is a typical example of Bordeaux's eighteenth-century architectural style with its four-sided sloping slate roof and double triangular gables, which caved in during the 1970s due to lack of maintenance. The adjacent storehouses which housed the wine press and the oak casks met with the same fate in 1981. The wine press can however still be seen standing in the open air in the rose garden.
Finally, the tour of the large courtyard and the estate is brought to an end by the statue of the Virgin Mary standing on a rock sheltered by an arbour. According to Monsieur Fichot's descendants, the arbour was designed by Le Notre, famous landscape architect, who created 'Jardins a la française' in the 17th century.
Aquitaine, situated less than an hours flight from Paris, and less than 2 hours' flight from the major European cities, offers golfers, amateurs and professionnals alike, some fifty-odd courses scattered over the region.
The geographic diversity of the region means that there are all kinds of courses, as varied as their surrounding landscapes and their settings, that are playable throughout the year in a particularly pleasant mild climate.
We have a long-standing golfing tradition here.
It was in Aquitaine, in Pau to be precise, that Willie Dunn laid out the very first golf course in Continental Europe in 1856.
You will be able to choose between the Atlantic cost line, with its string of reputated seaside resorts, and the Hinterland, with its fantastic array of vineyard, wine chateaux, picturesque villages, prehistoric caves and babbling brooks.
Many of the courses in Aquitaine offer accomodation facilities on the spot, but you can also be sure of finding the type of accomodation to suit your needs nearby, with a choice of prestigious guesthouses, hotels and inns.
