Le Tarabel, Broquiès, Aveyron

About Le Tarabel

Le Tarabel means........ a type of local thistle (I think), and also the name of a pretty commune in the Arrondissement of Toulouse.

Le Tarabel is a small winehouse and an acre, or so, of working vineyard situated high on a South-facing slope near the small commune of Broquiès in the Aveyron.  It looks down toward the Tarn River, and across the valley toward..... well just lots of hills, valleys and trees.

We first saw Le Tarabel in the summer of 2005, immediately fell in love with the views, climate and locale.  At the time it was owned by a friend, Doug, who had bought it with the intention of renovating it to retire to.  He was at the time part way through his current project, building a house in a small hamlet about 60km away.  Anyway, as things happen we ended up buying Le Tarabel.

To be sure renovation wasn't going to be a short term job, we live in the North of England, have busy jobs and although there are cheap flights to Rodez and Carcassone, it's not exactly "just around the corner".  However, we weren't in a great hurry and decided to let the resident ants, mice, two large bats and subsequent owl (who is currently top of the Le Tarabel food chain), retain tenancy until planned work commencement in Spring 2007.

The plan was to renovate the old building, before it fell down. This was just my paranoia. There were cracks in the walls, but once the building work was completed, along with a chainage of reinforced concrete around the perimeter, the builder didn't seem too concerned, in fact he only suggested the chainage as advisory. The walls are about 600mm thick as well, and it's been there since the mid-19th century, so it'll more than likely outlive me.

Along with the new floors and kitchen extension, the builder opened up all the windows and built a veranda, accessed from the main room's patio doors.

Then new roof trusses were installed and once completed, Doug and myself tiled the roof.

Throughout the summer we continued to make progress with electrics, plumbing etc. before the next phase began in 2010 - the extension!

The ultimate plan is to have a pool overlooking the vineyard and valley.