Château Mitaud - How to find us

Château Mitaud is located on the D220 road to Cabanac et Villagrains near (but not actually inside) the village of St Morillon, south of Bordeaux in South-West France.

Don’t worry, we will send you full details on how to find us, but the postal address is Vignobles Château Mitaud SARL, Château Mitaud, 843 Route de la Brède, Lieu-dit Mitaud, 33650 Saint Morillon, France and the fixed line is +33 05 56 203381. It is on the left bank of Bordeaux in the Graves wine region and quite close to Barsac and Sauternes where the famous sweet white wines are made.

The nearest sizeable town is La Brède which is a lovely rural town with an old church and a weekly food market, just 4 km away. It has several boulangers selling great French bread, baked fresh daily.

Château Mitaud is not served by any public transport, but there are several trains each day from Paris Gare Montparnasse to Bordeaux St Jean station and flights to Mérignac from London, Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam and Istanbul among others. You can hire cars from there or, if you ask in advance, we are more than happy to pick you up. You can also hire a car from Bordeaux (Mérignac) Airport or from Gare St Jean. It takes around 40 minutes to drive to and from Mérignac, depending on the traffic.

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From Mérignac airport, head for the signs "Sortie" as you come out of the hire car parking area and turn left as you come out of the hire car service road and follow the signs for "Rocade/Autres Directions" at the first roundabout and then straight across at the second following the green signs for Mérignac and the white sign labelled Rocade (A63/E5) (the ring road around Bordeaux) . If you are on the right road, you will go past a short straight section, with Airial Park (a business park) on the left and CBRE/BNP Paribas office buildings on the right. When you get to the roundabout which is the spur onto the motorway, go straight across keeping slightly right and follow the green motorway signs for Toulouse, Bayonne and Arcachon (nearest beach and great surfing for those into that kind of thing). It is the second exit (go past the first exit where there is a restaurant (La Courtepaille) set back on your right) and is a fairly sharp turn left onto the motorway (watch out for cars coming up from behind you especially if you are not used to driving in France). Do not take the exit that goes to the airport hotels at the first roundabout (third exit) and do not follow the signs across the motorway bridge for Paris or Mérignac (the town) at the second roundabout unless you are looking to go shopping at Carrefour and others in the Merignac Soleil complex.

You need to follow the Rocade for about 15-20 minutes to exit 19; as you approach the exit, you will see signs for the 'Technopolis' on your right. Follow the blue signs to the slip road off to your right in the direction A62/E72 Agen/Pau/Toulouse watching out for cars coming from behind joining the motorway in the same lane (if you have got it right you will go past Jardiland, a gardening centre shop with a rainbow logo on your right), as you turn you veer off to the right (don't go too far right as that leads to some emergency services slip road) and then join the traffic on your left on the A62/E72 until you get to Exit (Sortie) 1.1 signposted La Brède, and in blue the motorway to Tarbes, Pau, Agen (don't confuse this with Exit 1 to St Medard and Martillac which is the last exit prior to this). If you do get off too early at Exit 1, either go over the roundabout and get back on the autoroute or follow the road that runs parallel to the right of the autoroute which will take you to the roundabout by Lycée de la Sauque (see below) at the entrance to La Brède, via a beautiful tree-lined road typical of rural France.

As you approach the exit from the autoroute, look out for the Aire des Landes motorway services signs (the services are on the paying stretch beyond the correct exit) and La Brède signs. Exit at Sortie 1.1. It is not well signposted and very easy to miss at night, so you need to follow the signs carefully and get into the right hand lane early – if you have come off at the right place, you will go up a steepish incline past a Dal'Alu factory which is lit up with rings of different coloured lights at night and stop at the intersection about 50 metres on. Keep in the right hand lane as you go up the gradient. If you have stayed on the motorway and missed the turn, you will have to go through the peage (toll booth) and pay in cash or by credit card and then come back by getting off at the next exit (and paying the toll again!) and then turn left at the top of the gradient as you come off the motorway. Once you see the Sortie 1.1 2000m and blue sign for péages (toll booths) you are getting very close to the exit, and should shift into the right hand lane. Keep in mind we are the last exit before the toll section starts.

On the motorway slip road, keep right as you go up the gradient and turn right (you will see the green signs for Tarbes, Pau and Agen going left – this is the wrong way). Continue along this road for about 200 metres past the first T-junction coming in from your left going past what looks like a cement plant on your right and with Aquiter a centre for all sorts of building materials, decorative rocks and ornamental stones (we have used them in our own designs), round a sharp curve to your right. Do not take the first turn on the left opposite the cement plant that goes past Aquiter (there is short cut this way, but it is a bit harder to follow). Just after the curve, you will see a roundabout signposted for La Brède on the left. Take a left at the roundabout. If you end up going straight across the roundabout and along a road lined with trees on both sides you have missed the turn and need to turn back (this is the road running parallel to the autoroute and goes to Martillac). If you are on the right road, you will go past a school on your left (Lycée de La Sauque), a sports stadium and then a supermarket (Auchan) on your left (this is the nearest supermarket) and various bread and other shops (boulangeries – we go to the one just after the Citroen Garage next to the AXA Insurance agency) on your right. This is La Brède.

Go straight across several mini-roundabouts following the other traffic before you come into the small town of La Brède proper.  There are various banks here with cash machines Crédit Agricole, Natixis and so forth: these are the closest ones to Château Mitaud.  At the first roundabout opposite the church, you need to turn left (third exit) in the direction parallel to the church going past a restaurant on your right, then La Poste (French Post Office) and Crédit Agricole on your right. At the second roundabout just past Crédit Agricole, fork right with the church on your left and the town hall in the middle (left by the church leads to the square by the village church where the nearest Pharmacie and some shops are located; you can park there to visit the town and banks) going past a jewelry store on your right.  Go straight on for about a hundred metres past another boulangerie on your left and just after a few houses followed by stunning old Chartreuse up on the hill on your right (visible by day). Turn left when you reach a mini-roundabout with a car repair garage on the right hand side and the local fire station on the left, then immediately right again onto the D220 signposted Cabanac et Villagrains at a blind T-Junction (left will take you back into La Brède – and a free car park). If you go past a petrol station on your left after the roundabout before turning left you have missed the turn (this leads to the château de la Brède, a famous monument and home to Montesquieu, a famous French author). Follow the road round the sharp corner to the left until you exit La Brède and start going into agricultural land and forested countryside.  There are vineyards on your right and then you arrive at a crossroads, where five roads intersect. There is a floral tribute to your left (this road is the shortest way to the autoroute). Do NOT follow the signs for St Morillon (as this leads to the village), but follow the signs for Cabanac et Villagrains D220, going through forest (the landes) on both sides and past piles of recently cleared cuttings.  Keep going through another small hamlet of houses (Peyron) until you pass Château Belon (which looks like a Disney-style fairy-tale castle with turrets and is specifically signposted) with vineyards in front of it on your right, and then you will see a small sign for Château Plantat on your left.  The house is about 100 metres past the signs for Château Plantat, on your right just past the T-junction coming in from the right which runs parallel with part of the property (Mitaud - Chemin de la Veyrière with signs for other hamlets like "Hardeau").  There is a small blue signpost facing the other way saying “Mitaut” in front of the house. Look for the newly-planted vineyard on your left and the olive tree and fish and large ceramic "boule" (ball) in a fountain in front of the Château.

On the way back to the airport just do the same journey backwards,  join the A63/E73 at La Brede and then take the A630 left fork where the road forks off right to Begles (if you are going to Bordeaux train station you would take the right fork and then take the Paris direction turning off at the exit for Bordeaux centre that hugs the banks of the Garonne until you see specific signs for Gare St Jean) once you get onto the Rocade it should be clearly signposted to Mérignac with the plane symbol as you come off the Rocade– exit 10 twoards Merignac centre, follow the road round to your left to the traffic lights as you come off the motorway (Chemin Long to the right leads you to Merignac the town) going straight across the roundabout and past Airial Park on the right and then keep to the left  as you arrive in the airport so that you end up at the arrivals level. The hire car return bay is on your left after the main car parks and before you reach the terminal building. It is signposted.

Watch out for the fork in the road coming from the Rocade merging onto the A630: the right fork takes you to Bègles and Paris and it is quite hard to double back from there so keep left to avoid having to force your way in later once the road forks: if you do go the wrong way, leave at the Bègles Centre Commercial exit or the earliest exit with a bridge over and go back over the bridge when you can, following the plane signs to Mérignac.

On the way back, watch out for seasonal traffic jams on the stretch before the turn off for Arcachon after you are on the A630 airport road, particularly during the summer months, as this can add quite a bit of journey time – we have had many close run things when we got caught in the summer jams. Keep to the left, as the two right hand lanes are generally jammed with strange bedfellows of lorry drivers and surfers heading to Arcachon and beyond.