DOMAINE DE MONTLAUR
Charming guest houses with pools. South of France
Fabulous gardens
Push the large iron gate, aventure along the paths lined with irises, rose beds, olive trees and lavender. Contemplate the long and spectacular avenue of oriental plane trees, remarkable trees, the century-old box hedges cut into topiaries, the Apollo laurels... Timeless, the Domaine de Montlaur park is an invitation to daydream..
After a long shady path, the garden opens onto a vast lawn where majestic cypresses evoking Italy stretch towards the sky. At the back of the garden, boxwood paths wind their way and get lost in the darkness of pine trees. Mysterious, overlooking a river, the small grove that closes the walk offers the vision of a poetic and secret universe .
Labeled by the ETBS (European Boxwood & Topiary Society), the garden has several remarkable topiary elements.
The park of the Domaine de Montlaur received the first prize for Aude gardens in 2022.
It is considered one of the most beautiful gardens in languedoc.
Created at the end of the 19th century for the Mas family, the Domaine de Montlaur park is one of the great landscaping achievements of the flourishing era of Languedoc wine estates. It has since undergone very few transformations, the swimming pool having been built on the site of a basin never executed.
Exclusively reserved for our guests in residence, the park is open to visitors each year, the first weekend of June as part of the "Rendez-vous aux jardins" national event.
A SECRET GARDEN
A break of calm and tranquility, this garden is a refuge for birds, squirrels, bees, butterflies and earthworms. A peaceful home sheltered from the world, it serenely welcomes the small, anonymous and discreet inhabitants who populate our gardens and work for the good of all.
Note rare species and remarkable trees: Sapo pines (a fossil species 20,000 years old), American hazel trees, maples, lime trees, Oriental plane trees and improbable survivors, such as three magnificent abalones which, in the background of the park, appear as miracles of graphiosis.
Note rare species and remarkable trees: Sapo pines (a fossil species 20,000 years old), American hazel trees, maples, lime trees, Oriental plane trees and improbable survivors, such as three magnificent abalones which, in the background of the park, appear as miracles of graphiosis.
Out of sight, THE SWIMMING POOL
In front of the castle, in the middle of the lawn bordered by the astonishing avenue of plane trees, the swimming pool... Twelve meters by six, it is reserved for the guests of the Suite de la Bastide and the Pavillon du Régisseur... A dip in the fresh water, the sweetness of a siesta, the caress of the wind, a ray of sunshine... the true sweet life.
Sensitive to the charm of the place, the painter
Christian Bastian
loves to capture its beauty. Above is one of his paintings representing the park and the castle of Montlaur.
Christian Bastian
loves to capture its beauty. Above is one of his paintings representing the park and the castle of Montlaur.
The gardens of the cottage
On the other side of the road that runs along the park of the castle of Montlaur, the gardens of the cottage have a country air. Former vegetable gardens of this "ramonétage ", a long building once inhabited by the "ramonés" (the people who took care of the horses on the estate), they now consist of various walled spaces. It is accessed by a Muscat alley that leads to a wide lawn framed by cypresses where fruit trees, a vegetable garden of aromatic herbs, another of tomatoes surround a swimming pool.
Higher up, a few stone steps are crossed, perennials and roses run along the wall of the Maison du Village where a Muscat of Hamburg trellis stretches.. A hundred-year-old almond tree, oleanders and lavenders frame the summer dining room of the house. Separated by a small wall of laurels, the small gardens continue grassed up to a gravelly courtyard where opuntia aciculata (prickly pears) gild themselves in the sun in the company of invading fig trees.
The gardens of the cottage also won the first prize of the Aude gardens .
