We had a little lie in, the weather outside was cloudy, snowing hard and miserable – so glad we weren’t skiing today. Took a good few hours to pack up and get going, stopped off to pick up a lump of cured peppered ham and said goodbye to our group of friends.

The mountains were ever so misty and the visibility was very poor going down. The sat-nav took us down an old windy and narrow road. A close call with a lousy French driver, who didn’t like being on his side of the road; didn’t help the journey anymore pleasant.

However, did see a fantastic waterfall as we drove down. Half way down the weather stopped being misty and rained very hard instead, it poured it down non-stop and by the time we were at the bottom it was even worse. As we passed rivers they were swelling up and fields were flooding.

Finally after 3 hours drive, we made it to our destination, a small town called ‘Bagnols’ in the Beaujolais wine region. We had booked to stay in the ‘Chateau de Bagnols’. A very fancy posh hotel and Michelin star restaurant. We pulled up in front of the electronic gates and buzzed reception; they let us through the gates where we were greeted by a porter and a receptionist as we parked up.

We unloaded our luggage and gave it to the porter. The receptionist proceeded to show us to our suite and the rest of the Chateau. The hotel was very grand throughout and when we got to our suite (Anne Douge), it was really impressive. There was marble bath tub big enough for two, a dressing room (the size of our lounge) and the bed was a fancy deluxe Queen.

We changed for dinner and headed down in to the restaurant which looked like the old hall. There was a HUGE fireplace at one end and the set up was ever so posh. We ordered a 3 course meal but we were served up a 7 course banquet instead. We both had a glass of champagne to start, followed by canapés then another dish (piece of cured duck with pineapple) before we even got our starter. After our starter and main dish, it was then proceeded by a trolley of cheese (unlimited choice with some lovely chutneys). Next, we thought we were going to have our dessert, another plate of food showed up and Li being dappy thought they brought out the wrong dessert. The waiter explained it was a small chocolate mousse with a raspberry sauce and he also gave us a large plate of petit fours. We were both full by now and finally our dessert showed up – Hot Banana Shouffle, it was huge!! We couldn’t finish it; even came with a palate cleanser (Banana and Rum ice cream). The local Beaujolais wine we had was really good (Marcel Lapiere).