Among Beauce, Perche and Haute Normandie, already 3 cabins’ villages have been visited for the team “Justine and Mahery”, and a HopConf in Rouen with the Neoma Business School’s students. The team “Jean-Luc” has been busy as well with the discovery of 2 cabins’ villages. The mission for La Cabane en l’Air has actually begun !
April 11th to 14th : two domains, two great properties, 15 cabins, and some rich encounters.
We (Justine et Mahery) arrive at Domaine de Courtalain on april 11th, after lunch. Rythm is given : Anne-Charles shows us around the whole area, from the reception rooms of castle to the cabin perched over 8 meters, through the wooden barn, and he likes to point out that it cost him less than a conventional construction in sheet metal!
Tone is given for this mutli-hats entrepreneur who will devote the necessary time to the discovery of his activity and the good practices that could extend to several structures in the network (such as the solar pannel that provides some electricity in the cabin).
[box type=”shadow” ]In terms of values which animate him : encounter and sharing of his familial heritage. Those values, we find them again on April 13th, when we arrive at La Grande Nöe, in the natural park of the Perche, at Agnès and her family’s.[/box]
The Perche ; amazing little piece of our hexagon, that we didn’t get the chance to see last summer durin
g our Tour de France. Small valleys, horses, lots of woods… nice countryside ! Agnès, her kids and her sister Sophie, a farmer who has transformed the whole grain farm in an organic way. The property is stunning. Three cabins (including one, Le Chêne Fou, can welcome over 9 people on 2 different levels, in the same tree !) are nestled in large hedges bordering the fields ; two others are perched in the heartwood. All are nicely decorated, plainly but with really good taste.
Here, families will find everything they need with the bicycles available to all or the sightseeing, in which Agnès will guide her guests with good pleasure and passion.
[box type=”shadow” ]It is with a heavy heart that we leave this lovely familly, with an apointment this summer to do a HopTrip in good standing this time ;-).[/box]
15th of april : not a musical interlude, but a training one.
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[/one_fourth][three_fourth_last]We then hit the road to Rouen to provide a day of training with the Neoma’s Bachelor students. As the first time, the day is going well and when we ask our 10 students at 16:30 what they retained of the day, the answers make us think we did the job![/three_fourth_last]
- Responsible tourism gathers a huge diversity of structures.
- It’s mostly common sens.
- And mainly, the approach is doing good as much for the client than for the environment and of course, the field’s actors that thus perpetuate their activity.
This day has also been the occasion to broadcast for the very first time the HopSolutions part of our WebDocumentary, made in partnership with Evea Tourisme and FrapaDoc Productions, and that we will soon make public on Hopineo.org.
16th to 18th April : Cabanes de Fontaine Châtel.
Jean-François manage the Fontaine Chatel forest that he inherited from his grandfather. With his younger brother Edouard, they decided 5 years ago to inaugurate tree houses (cabins) to show their family heritage and ensure its prosperity. Rich idea !
In the heartwod, 10 cabins, each one is unique, both appearence, accessibility as their capacity (couples and families), are waiting for their guests. Well … thay don’t wait that much because they are a lot of people willing to come.
[box type=”shadow” ]After we took up residence in the « Fer à Cheval » (horseshoe), Edouard took us on a tour. Zip line, monkey bridge, Tarzan’s net, and so on, not to tell you everything. A little sweat, drown in our rich exchanges, flew during this … challenging afternoon ![/box]
The two brothers, as well as their collaborator, did a short interview and show us thei good practices, taking the time to share a delicious lunch in the small town of Gustave Flaubert, and his famous Madame Bovary… Cultural time. Thank you to our new friends for those many discoveries and their good mood that already entered the legend ! 🙂
[box type=”shadow” ]Agnès, from La Grande Nöe, and Jean-François and Edouard, from Cabanes de Fontaine Châtel, are now part of the Hopineo community to become HopHost. Welcome 🙂 ![/box]