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Evaluación del anfitrión
100 %
Last replied
14 nov 2024
Porcentaje de respuesta
88.9 %
Usually responds ≤ 1 dia
Comentarios
41
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Detalles
Descripción
There are two of us, Bill and Anette with Lila and Rosie the two yellow Labradors, a cat, chickens, and goldfish, etc. We have a wide range of life experiences and we're good teachers. The report from the nieces and nephews is "they are fun!"
Tipos de ayuda y oportunidades de aprendizaje
Jardinería
Construcción y bricolaje
Mantenimiento general
Intercambio cultural y oportunidades de aprendizaje
Bill's degree is in fine arts, he is retired now, but his career was in energy-efficient building in San Francisco. He mentored many young people in the construction trades. This project offers a combination of modern building (the plumbing, heating, and electricity conform to current French normes or building standards) with traditional French building techniques in stone and wood. There is also a large workshop available for your personal projects.
Anette works as a consultant for large corporations. She conducts seminars to integrate corporate cultures after a merger, and does personal coaching.
We are an hour away from pre-historic Celtic monuments, Roman ruins, the Mediterranean, cathedrals, and medieval villages.
The chateau is embedded in farm country, with typical country things; crops, tractors, firewood, horses, and dogs. The main crops are apples and onions. The farm manager has been here 35 years and knows a great deal about commercial farming. We raise our own vegetables. Anette is a great cook, and there is an opportunity to learn and to cook with fresh local produce. We don't really have processed food.
We both have strong science inclinations, so we can't have workawayers with fundamentalist views, and as the world seems to be polarizing, we are definitely of the humanitarian, progressive persuasion. On the other hand, we're very interested in your life experience, and love hearing stories of faraway places.
It takes at least a week to get oriented, so please plan on four weeks.
We speak English (American), German, Portuguese, and French, and our library has books in all four languages.
We have internet, but no TV.Ayuda
We are remodeling a large 18th century chateau. It incorporates a number of energy-efficient features. We recycle almost everything that comes out of the chateau, and we install used or up-cycled material wherever we can; it's a great opportunity to explore a combination of high-tech and low-tech. There is a continual need to clean tile, mix concrete, paint, dig, etc. The finished work is of very high quality.
We also have large vegetable and flower gardens, and there is constant work starting, planting, weeding, and harvesting. It's a mixed menu of things to do, and the work changes depending on the time of year and where we are in the project. We work every day. You will help us 4 to 5 hours, 5 days a week, and you'll probably be happily tired by the end of the day! We want this to be a fun experience for all of us.Idiomas hablados
Alemán: Fluido
Inglés: Fluido
Francés: Fluido
Portugués: FluidoAlojamiento
We have a guest rooms with their own bathroom and shower on the top floor for Workawayers. The accomodations are quite simple, but they work really well... and they're charming. The house is quiet, except for the church bell, the owl, other birds and the frogs in the spring.
We eat meals together in the dining room or on the terrace, depending on the weather. We love food, we’re in France after all. We spend a great deal of effort making delicious food. If you're a unadventurous eater, it's not going to work very well. We're not rigid about the hours, but helping with preparing meals and cleaning up afterwards is expected but is not really part of the 4-5 hours of work.Algo más...
Le Vigan (pop. 4,000 +/-) is five minutes away by car and forty minutes walking on trails. There’s the Musee Cevenol and a great market Saturday mornings. We are in the Cevennes National Park with amazing hiking and biking opportunities.
At the chateau there is a large bassin to swim in, and the Coudoulous river is just across the road with wonderful swimming holes and barriers to jump off. Note that swimming is a summer activity, in the winter you can admire how fierce the rivers become.
A 2 euro bus ride takes you to Nimes - a Roman city, or to Montpellier. It's easy to go there and back on a weekend day.
To get here, take the train to Nîmes or Montpellier. Then take the bus from Nîmes or Montpellier to Le Vigan and we'll pick you up.Un poco más de información
Acceso a Internet
Acceso a Internet limitado
Tenemos animales
Somos fumadores
Puede alojar familias
Puede acoger a nómadas digitales
Yes, afternoons are a good time to work online. We have fiber-optic high-speed internet. It's much faster in some rooms than others (70 cm thick stone walls!)
Espacio para aparcar autocaravanas
The main gate is quite narrow, 2.4 meters. There are level places to park a camping car.
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Más de dos
Comentarios (18)
She just fit in… read more
The welcome was fantastic and I immediately felt at home. The work was well organised, varied and enjoyable and their enthusiasm for the chateau renovation project was contagious. Both are great and skilled workers, always available to listen and help. Their ability to teach and instill… read more
They explored the hiking and biking… read more
Fotos
Comentarios
Son opciones de calificación adicionales para cuando los miembros dejan sus comentarios. Se muestra la calificación media dejada en cada opción.
Precisión del perfil:
(4.9)
Intercambio cultural:
(5.0)
Comunicación:
(5.0)
She just fit in… read more
The welcome was fantastic and I immediately felt at home. The work was well organised, varied and enjoyable and their enthusiasm for the chateau renovation project was contagious. Both are great and skilled workers, always available to listen and help. Their ability to teach and instill… read more
They explored the hiking and biking… read more
She arrived and finished a difficult project that had been hanging for a month – grouting a bedroom tile floor. She was so good at it, that we had to hurry… read more
The hosts
We arrived and it was basically “my chateau is your chateau” as of day one. As fully integrated members of their family we were eating together, meeting their friends, jointly raising eight puppies, going to the Saturday market for groceries plus the obligatory terrace croissant and tea, … tons of… read more
Helping with the renovation of this lovely and historical house is… read more
The dinner table conversation was always interesting with her, everything from nursing to geopolitics, to graduate schools. Taiwan is much closer… read more
Anette and Bill are a hardworking couple who are kind, generous and patient. Some of the jobs we did while there included tidying the park, clearing the outdoor drainage and painting… read more
And of course I can not forget the… read more
He's a native… read more
They drove and hiked around the country (Helle swam in… read more
The castle rebuilding project was very well-organised by Bill with expert knowledge from a long life in American construction business.
The work was meaningful and all tools and materials was available.
Anette was great managing to keep everything running and to… read more
They were both a big help… read more
We enjoyed Annet's magic skills in the kitchen :9 and learned some recipes from her.
We did a lot of different jobs to renovate the new apartment and another task outside the… read more
The weekday mornings were taken up with a variety of projects, some more interesting than others. We often… read more
Days started with the best breakfast we've ever had, tea-time around 12 and an Anette prepared lunch that is always a hit around 2-3 o'clock.… read more
They have a wonderful property, with a lot of projects and it is really interesting to see what is already done (with such a good taste) and what is yet to do ! Bill's work experience is… read more
Jonathan is basically skilled, but more important, a quick study, easily able to master new techniques. At first, Camille doubted that she… read more
It's been an absolutely amazing experience with them. With their vast knowledge and intellect, conversations about many different topics are often very interesting.
Anette is a fantastic cook and with the (currently) 7 Chicken that gave us eggs every day, the onions… read more
She had great cooking ideas, and the building project is noticeably improved thanks to her detailed work. She's such a positive and joyful person that she is always welcome; a world traveller, she has lots of stories to tell.
Marcela and the girls helped Anette in the garden, and they… read more
There are many kinds of work to do, heavier and lighter. I helped with things like stripping wallpaper, shifting loads of removed tiles/plaster with a wheelbarrow, gathering tomatoes and lettuce from the garden,… read more