Chateau Guiton

Château Guiton is located in Frontenac, in the Gironde, 45 kilometres east of Bordeaux, in the heart of the Entre-Deux-Mers vineyards. The campsite is 2 kilometres from the Roger Lapébie cycle path, a former 55-kilometre railway line linking Sauveterre-de-Guyenne to Bordeaux.

The estate occupies a former Bordeaux vineyard, around a manor house and its wine cellars built in the 18th century. The campsite *** offers 30 spacious pitches of 150 to 250 m², partly shaded, shaded or sunny, some with electricity. There are also two treehouses, two safari lodges installed in 2021, three gîtes in the château’s outbuildings and two rooms upstairs in the château itself.

Château Guiton favours calm and rest: children are not particularly welcome, and the campsite does not organise noisy evenings or sports activities. The estate is a member of the Fédération des Espaces Naturistes and works with the Fédération Française de Naturisme. Nudity is compulsory at the pool and in the shared sanitary facilities; elsewhere a sarong or towel is tolerated, but no shorts, briefs or swimwear.

The season starts on 30 April. Paul and Vincent took over the estate in 2020, after running a naturist hotel-restaurant on the Île du Levant for seven years.

In the evening, to unwind after a swim in the pool, holidaymakers enjoy an aperitif under the shade, a selection of Bordeaux wines and a good dish prepared by Vincent from fresh produce, desserts included, or, once a week, a convivial dinner around the wood-fired oven set up in the meadow. The restaurant is open every evening except Thursday, and bread and pastries are offered every morning.

The pool measures 11 x 11 metres. Wifi is free around the château, but does not cover the whole estate. The sanitary facilities, housed in old buildings, provide free hot water, produced by solar power and also usable for washing up and laundry thanks to the washing machine made available.

A library with games and a pétanque court round out the offer. On site, a selection of local wines can be tasted, with advice from the estate on organising cellar visits in the Entre-Deux-Mers vineyards. Arrivals take place between 1:30pm and 6:30pm (from 3pm for rentals, by 7pm at the latest), and departures between 8:30am and midday (11am for rentals). Vincent, one of the two owners, also works as an artisan craftsman: he paints on silk and porcelain, a practice for which he holds the title of Meilleur Ouvrier de France.

Nearby, the Roger Lapébie cycle path (55 kilometres, a former railway line) runs alongside the estate 2 kilometres away and can be downloaded in advance from the campsite to plan a route. The region also invites hiking, tree-climbing adventure parks, canoeing on the Dordogne and spa treatments, amid the forests and valleys of the Entre-Deux-Mers.

The Entre-Deux-Mers, between the Garonne and the Dordogne, is discovered through its vineyards, wine châteaux, Romanesque churches and bastide towns: the Abbaye de la Sauve-Majeure, the Château de Rauzan or Malagar, the home of writer François Mauriac, are a few stops. Local producers’ markets also bring the surrounding villages to life, a good opportunity to taste the region’s specialities between two visits.

Bordeaux is 45 kilometres away: a pleasant stroll from Place de la Bourse to the water mirror, past the Saint-André cathedral or the striking architecture of the Cité du Vin. 20 kilometres away, the medieval town of Saint-Émilion and its vineyard are listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site. The Arcachon Bay with its oyster huts, the Dune du Pilat and the great beaches of the Landes are around a hundred kilometres away, as are several historic naturist centres on the Atlantic coast.