November 2–8, 2026 · 7 Days · Four Rooms · Six Guests Maximum
The Rhône in its quietest, deepest season — black truffles and golden vines, popes and Roman stone walks, walls, and ruins. Five nights in a private villa above Séguret, founder-led by Desta with a guide and driver and our personal bon vivant Gus, to accompany us down the Rhône River valley. Solo travelers prioritized; with two couples at most. Our travel is not pack travel. This is not a tour. It is a way of being there.
By early November the crush is over, the crowds are gone, and the southern Rhône exhales — vines turned gold and rust, woodsmoke in the lanes, the first black truffles coming out of the cold earth. This is the season the locals keep for themselves.
You live it from a single villa above Séguret — no packing and re-packing, no hotel lobbies. Mornings on the terrace, days among Roman ruins and papal vines, nights at one long table with a private chef and a bottle of Châteauneuf. Small, slow, and yours.
Five nights in one stone villa above Séguret — tadelakt walls, linen sheets, a pool over the valley, and the Dentelles on the horizon. Only four rooms, each its own quiet world in the same calm hand. Step inside.
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Each day brings new discoveries. Click to expand and explore what awaits.
Land in the City of Light and let it hold you for a day. Settle in, wander where the mood takes you — the Seine, a café, a quiet church — and gather at night in the worn velvet and gold of Joséphine Chez Dumonet: soufflés, Burgundy, the Paris that still exists. (Depart the U.S. November 1.)
Lunch beneath the gilded Belle Époque ceilings of Le Train Bleu, then the TGV south. In Lyon, Gus takes the bags so we can fill our baskets at Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse, then drive through the syrah terraces of Côte-Rôtie. We reach the villa at dusk — a private chef has dinner waiting. Soup, for sure.
A slow morning in Séguret, one of the most beautiful villages in France, then a walk beneath the limestone lace of the Dentelles de Montmirail. Lunch in Gigondas among the grenache. The afternoon is yours; the evening, a village table we have chosen.
Out into the cold morning for the first black truffles of the season — a trained dog, the turned earth, that impossible perfume. Then two thousand years of Rome: the ruins and medieval haute ville of Vaison-la-Romaine, and the great antique theatre of Orange.
The great Friday market at Carpentras, once the capital of the popes' own land. Then the Pont du Gard, where we open a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape beneath the Roman aqueduct as the stone turns gold — the popes' wine under Rome's engineering, two empires in one pour. Avignon glows at dusk; home to the long table.
A day with nowhere to be — the day the villa earns its keep. Sleep in. Walk the lanes of Séguret, or hike up into the Dentelles de Montmirail for the long view back over the valley. A slow lunch, the fire lit, a book and a blanket on the terrace as the afternoon cools. One last optional wander — an olive mill at the November pressing, a village you haven't yet seen — and then the chef returns for a farewell dinner at the same long table where the week began.
North to the Palais Idéal — a country postman's impossible, hand-built dream, thirty-three years in the making. A last lunch around Tain-l'Hermitage, where the syrah is legendary and the chocolate is Valrhona. The journey ends in Lyon: a train to Paris, or stay in France's greatest food city.
Your own room in the villa — with en suite bathroom.
For two humans who share one room and bathroom. Two couples / double rooms maximum.
Six guests maximum — up to four solo travelers, and/or two couples and two solo travelers. Part of the application is finding the right fit — we build each trip with a healthy mix of shared time together and room for everyone’s own. A $1,500 per-person deposit confirms your place.
Every traveler is chosen for the journey. Apply, and hold your place with a $1,500 deposit.
Apply for Fall 2026