Unusual: Tree Houses with Swimming Pool (Normandy), near Rouen & Caen

To book this hut, here is the Expedia link of the family hut (up to 5 people, 110€)

Second cabin

The second hut is ideal for couples. It is accessed via a suspension bridge. It is 7 meters from the ground so you should not be afraid of heights. This small hut has two floors: the second floor is the bedroom. Then one reaches via a small staircase inside the hut, to a super comfortable bathroom. Here too, there is hot water, electricity, normal toilets, Wifi and even heating (wood stove in winter). The rope you see on the picture is used to pull up the breakfast basket.

To book this hut, here is the Expedia link of the hut for couple (110€)

Breakfast

Either you can choose to have breakfast on the terrace, or you can have breakfast in the veranda, right next to the guest rooms. All products are fresh, homemade (even butter, yoghurts…) and come from the farm. It’s delicious, extremely consistent (we didn’t even need to have breakfast afterwards).

Heated swimming pool

Next to the veranda is a small heated swimming pool. The water should be about 30°C. We didn’t have time to swim there, but other guests enjoyed the pool.

Table d’hôte

A few days earlier, we asked about the “table d’hôte”. When the mistress of the place explained to us that the menu would depend on what is in the garden and in the farm, we sniffed out the good stuff! For 17€ per person, we were treated to an almost gastronomic meal (aperitif, starter, main course, cheese, dessert, wine and digestif). Everything, but absolutely EVERYTHING (except maybe salt and olive oil) came from the farm. Even the pork chops come from the farm! We had potato gratin to fall, and a raspberry tart to make the best pastry chefs in the area go pale. At the end of the meal, they served us home-made calvados, bottled by the owner’s father 60 years ago! The quality/price ratio is absolutely incredible.

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My only knowledge of the world of agriculture comes from the show “L’amour est dans le pré”. We dine at the table with the owners and can ask them any question that comes to mind. The discussion is super enriching because there are a lot of things that we are shown in the show, which aren’t done anymore, or not too much in real life. For example, they still show us farms where milking is done early in the morning in semi-automatic milking machines, whereas many farmers now use robots that take care of the cows almost autonomously. The cows are better treated and happier because they can eat at any time of the day. There are also machines for massaging them, and then the system detects on its own which cow is at risk of being sick etc. Yves tells us that he will be able to show us a farm of this type during our next stay.

In the meantime, it is his old farm that we visit.

Here, we are no longer on the discourse: the earth is poor, what we eat is only water and chemicals. On the contrary, Yves asserts that the land is more fertile and better worked than before, and that you only have to look at what a hectare of wheat yields before and after to realize this. However, what you have to be careful about are products that grow outside the soil. They also told us how his family went from 6 cows, milked by hand, to about 60 cows + machines + wheat to feed them… and how at that time, we had to make butter next to a water source to keep the milk fresh.

Next to it is still his childhood home, the typical farmers’ house with the thick wall and space to keep the cattle (which was used for heating in those days).

It was taken over by another farmer, but he still keeps a small plot to provide food for his guest house

There is also some breeding: hens, goats, pigs … but food is abundant. During the confinement, they spent all the time here and the few times they had to go out, it was for very simple products, like salt or olive oil, which they do not make on the farm.

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