Contact Book now

Beautifully located luxury cottages, where dogs are more than welcome

On holiday with your dog? Looking for a nice and cosy holiday destination to take your dog for a walk? From May 2025 you can come to us at Courcenay, especially if you like nice luxury and you do like to take your dog(s) with you. Or do you simply need some peace and quiet? On our beautiful Courcenay estate, you can enjoy the silence, but you can also look for cosiness in our bar, the general terrace, the library or community room.

We open with 1 spacious holiday home (gîte Boyar) for up to 4 people. This has 2 bedrooms, each with their own luxurious bathroom. Gîte Dubhan will be available shortly afterwards for up to 6 people and counts 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. The beautiful ‘Marquis’ bedroom has its own en suite bathroom, the other 2 bedrooms share a bathroom and there is a separate toilet.

Dogs: Yes, your dog(s) can definitely come along! We have created a luxurious, dog-friendly, but also safe environment around the gîtes. The private terraces of each gîte are enclosed by a fence of 1.5m high. Moreover, these terraces are located in the enclosed courtyard.

Don't have a dog? Then of course you are also very welcome, but bear in mind the occasional bark. Dogs are not allowed in common areas such as the bar, swimming pool and library. Read more about our dog rules here.

In principle, we allow 3 dogs per gîte. Please contact us if you want to come with more than 3 dogs.

Children: Our location is not suitable for (young) children. We apply a minimum age limit of 15 years.

Location: Our domaine is delightfully peaceful in the Beaujolais Vert northwest of Lyon. Besides hiking, the area is perfect for cycling or spirited mountain biking. Keep in mind that few roads or paths are flat, the Beaujolais Vert has quite a few hills (it goes up to 900m here and a bit further away even up to 1700m). The beautiful city of Lyon can be reached in an hour by car or train. A 15-minute drive away is the lake ‘Lac de sapin’, where you can swim, do all kinds of sporting activities and even go horse riding.

Villages and shopping: The villages of Thizy-les-Bourgs and Cours-la-Ville are a 10-minute drive away and have a supermarket and a few restaurants. If you want more choice, there are several fine restaurants in the area and Roanne (25 minutes) has several hypermarkets and many restaurants of all classes, even the famous 3-star ‘Troisgros’.

Tips: We ourselves like and regularly enjoy our region by road bike, mountain bike, hiking boots or on horseback. This allows us to give you a lot of advice and tips. You can, of course, also grab a book and lie down at the lovely 12 x 6 metre heated swimming pool.

All indoor spaces are non-smoking.
Bar with coffee machine, beer on tap and various wines. (€+)
Dogs are more than welcome.
Mardore FR
Arrival between 15.00 - 21.00
Departure until 10.00

About us and Courcenay

How nice that you are interested in staying at our Courcenay estate.

First something about ourselves.

‘Us’ is us, Marloes and Richard.

By profession, Richard has always been an optician/optometrist with his own well-run optical shop. Since we live in France, chores on Courcenay have been at the top of the hobby list. Much of the ‘inside’ chores have been done by Richard. Immediately after odd jobs comes cycling in the beautiful surroundings here in the Beaujolais Vert, which doesn't always get the time it needs, but it remains enjoyable.

Marloes is a toxicologist by profession, something she still enjoys doing 1 to 2 days a week as a consultant. The advantage of being an independent consultant is that you can arrange your own time, which in turn fits in perfectly with the Courcenay chores, where Marloes is mainly occupied with ‘outside’.

Our ‘us’ also includes our dog, Nouki, the cats Gijs and Chablis, the pigs Marie Antoinette and Jean D'Arc, the donkeys Loulou, Balko and Quiri and the horses Tulsa and Polly.

Nouki is a rescue dog from Bulgaria and came to us through RSDR. She is of the guarding type, and thus not suitable to meet other dogs.

Courcenay is a beautiful estate with a considerable history. It is first described in the year 887, although at that time it was still the old castle. Around 1700 it was a ruined castle, and from the stones a large part of the current house was built. Courcenay has always been an important house: a fief, where taxes were levied, justice was administered and elections were organised. We found evidence of this in the house. Unfortunately, the prison tower has not stood the test of time.

With 11 hectares of its own land, the estate is still generous. The advantage of this private land is its quiet location; we find the first neighbours a few hundred metres away.