Casa rurale La Bégude des Alpilles : Your Staging Post in mediaeval

La Bégude des Alpilles, a maison bohème, is a quirky town house offering a quality stop for discerning travellers, a staging post for cyclists and a base station for climbers in the historic village of Orgon between St.Rémy-de-Provence and l'Isle-sur-la Sorgue, just southeast of Avignon. Spend a relaxing night with us in the generously-sized guest bedroom with own bathroom in a private stone town house in the middle of the village, and tuck in to a breakfast to keep you going for most of the day. One-night stays also welcome. Feeling lethargic? Cycle up Mont Ventoux in the morning, get lost in the perched villages of the Luberon for lunch, then spend the afternoon climbing the cliffs of the Alpilles just down the road!

Accommodation
High-ceilinged, spacious guest bedroom (23m2) on the first upper floor, with two single beds (with comfortable mattresses, choice of pillows), which can be combined into a double bed. Soak your weary bones in the large, modern, private bathroom (big window, marble double sink, corner bath tub, WC). Use of dining/reception room on the ground floor. In-house bike-park. The second upper floor is reserved for the owners’ accommodation.

This is a mediaeval stone town house on three levels, right in the middle of an historic village and at the foot of the Alpilles range. We don't have a garden, let alone a swimming pool. But we do have everything you need for a quiet, comfortable night away from home, together with all the trappings of a solid breakfast on which to start the next day!

Breakfast with freshly squeezed orange juice, and tea, coffee or hot chocolate; French bread, croissants and butter, jams, honey etc. This is a substantial breakfast and can be served at any time with a selection from the following two choices, subject to arrangement the day before:
• Standard breakfast (included as part of the fixed B&B price): with selection of cheeses, cold meats.
• English breakfast (surcharge of €6 p.p.) : 2 fried eggs, fried tomato, sausage, bacon, baked beans.
Special requests will be graciously considered!

Surroundings
• Supermarket: 700 m
• Fruit & veg stall, with adjacent baker: 350 m
• Restaurant, delicious: 270 m
• Rock climbing: 2 km to internationally known site, 70 m high
• Swimming and water skiing: 1,5 km (gravel pit surrounded by cliffs and woodland)
• Swimming pool: 7 km (in Cavaillon)
• Massage, beauty salon: 300 m
• Tennis courts : 500 m
• Bridle paths: start 500 m away
• Dedicated cycle paths : two converted disused railway lines very close. One starts 4 km away and extends 12km. The other (Eurovélo 8) starts 8 km away, 40 km long. And several others further away covering hundreds of kilometers.
• Bike hire: 7 km in Cavaillon
• Horse-riding: 9 km, outskirts of Orgon.
• Golf: 23 km in Morières, and two others (Maussane-les-Alpilles, and Pont Royal) within 28 km
• Coastline: 60 km, bay of Marseille with sand beaches
• Balnéotherapy: 13 km in Eygières
• Wine and olive oil tasting: 4,5 km (Valdition), and countless others.

Find yourself squashed directly below the cliffs at the eastern end of the limestone Alpilles range and the Durance river, where in former centuries the villagers exacted tolls from passing travellers. Look over to the right bank of the river and the mighty Luberon range and, further afield, the Vaucluse culminating in the Mont Ventoux of Tour-de-France fame.
The house is near the town gate of Sainte Anne, though which Napoleon passed in 1814, on his way to the staging post a little further down. The building is distinguished by the copious hanging plants on the façade, 30 m downhill from the gate, on the left. Orgon itself, founded in the Middle Ages, boasts a monastery high on the cliffs of the Alpilles range, the ruined castle of the Duc de Guise (whose family married in to the English royal family), and a splendid church dominating the town square.
The town is ideal as a base for outdoor activities, and we should be delighted to advise. It is at the hub of countless cycle routes, whether for road racers (e.g. the Alpilles Roquemartine trip, or up to Mont Ventoux), tourers or mountain bikers. Just outside the town is an internationally known rock-climbing site, as well as a gravel pit developed into a pleasure area with cable-operated water-skiing.

Transport
This may be a small town with a village character, but it does still have its own railway station, with about 6 services to Marseille and Avignon each day. If you bring a car, unload at the front door, then park just outside the town wall and walk back 50 m. If you have biked in, then store your bike inside the house, on the bike racks or deep inside the bowels of the rocks.

Interaction with our guests
We are happy to retire into the background once all the introductions have been made and the breakfast served. But we are essentially gregarious and happy to talk to our guests at length if we sense that they would welcome it.