Even the most committed francophile has moments when their Britishness breaks through. Mine comes well after midnight as we walk through the stone arch to the fortified village in Gascony, with whispering voices and tiptoeing step. It sounds normal until you consider there is no one to wake up - for the weekend, we are the sole inhabitants of the medieval castelnau of Lagarde Fieumarcon.
Our splendid isolation is pure serendipity - though you can book the whole village of 16 stone houses for a snip if you divide it between 52 friends, extended family and hangers-on, booking off-season à deux meant we were paying the chambres d'hôte price of just £39 each per night but reaping the benefits of having the place to ourselves.
Let's face it, renting a whole village has to be the ultimate in travel one-upmanship, something to drop into the dinner-party conversation and watch the fumes of jealousy rise over the boeuf bourguignon. It's unique despite the growing trend to take over whole places - castles, islands, even the tiny state of Liechtenstein. If you think the last-named sounds interesting, be ready to part with up to £330 each for several hundred guests and to share the place with 33,000 locals.
At Le Castelnau des Fieumarcon, once a bustling community of several hundred people, there are no locals. It's a kind of isolation that comes with all sorts of possibilities - the chance to run around outside naked, to play music at full blast before the dawn chorus strikes up, to stage a rowdy argument without checking if anyone's in earshot. We, of course, do none of these.
What we do is carry out a night-time perambulation of our kingdom in the light of stars so fierce they seem to be burning holes in the sky. We walk down one of the two streets and up the other, still with muffled steps before - nervously lest we happen on someone else - trying our own front door.
It opens on to a rustic style typical of French country houses, but with lots of comfortable trimmings. So while the floors are in original tiles or wood, the rooms packed with old furniture, exposed timbers and open fireplaces, there are ornate canopies over the beds and enormous baths in the modern bathrooms. There are two bed rooms and bathrooms (which will presumably come in useful after those noisy rows) but the other 15 houses are of varying sizes, all with their own little extras - an ornamental trunk of a cherry tree struck down by lightning, beds set into wood alcoves, a piano placed by a window with a gorgeous view.
When morning brings with it fresh bread and strawberries as if by magic, we happily consume them in our private garden, though the whole village is our back yard, with its view to the sea of green space that is Gascony. We explore it again, almost jumping at the sound of another voice. It turns out to belong to owner Frederic Coustols, who has painstakingly restored the castelnau from the ruins he bought in the late Seventies, first renting it to local families and more recently to tourists, including wedding parties and family groups. He is, of course, the mysterious harbinger of breakfast - everyone who stays at Le Castelnau des Fieumarcon gets a few goodies on arrival, though if you want to go the whole hog and hire the village with meals and activities laid on, he can do that too.
'Next month, I've got a group coming who are going to be doing everything from ballooning to star gazing,' he says. 'And I can hire a two-Michelin star chef to cook.'
Though we have no activities planned, we are not at a loss for things to do. This is the perfect base to explore one of France's loveliest quarters, favoured on repeated visits by Tony, Cherie and the kids. And who can blame them for loving this gently rolling land of sunflowers and vines, where ducks outnumber people by more than 20 to one and where British number plates are in a blessed minority?
This is Armagnac country, where the ripened fruit from vine-covered hills is distilled and transferred to oak barrels, and left to give off a heady aroma called the 'angel's share'. Finding an Armagnac producer where you can sample the amber-coloured drink is not a problem; with around 1,000 producers in the area, it's more of a problem to choose which one to visit.
We cover the two ends of the spectrum, visiting the elegant cellar at the Chteau de Cassaigne and glimpsing the impressive round ceiling of the sixteenth-century kitchen as we do so, and then heading into the home of a local farmer who grows a few hectares of vines on the side. Here, we spend an hour chatting about the lack of appreciation people have for a good digestif while he serves up a fine Armagnac with gnarled hands, then settles back as we let the fumes fill our nostrils and the strong oaky taste slide over our tongues. It is more rustic than the more rounded taste from the Cassaigne Armagnac, but more to our liking, and we leave with a bottle.
We add more clinking souvenirs of our stay at Chteau Monluc in St-Puy after admiring first the impressive cellar and then the old wine vat sunk into the stone floor for grape treadings of yesteryear. The speciality here is a deliciously orange-tasting liqueur made from Armagnac and mixed with sparkling wine to produce Pousse Rapier (Sword Thruster).
Don't be deceived into thinking that Gascony is all about drink - the area dubbed the granary of France is also stashed full of good food. True, much of this is Arma gnac related, but there's also lots of hearty country cooking including confit de canard and, if you are not a politically correct foodie, foie gras. We treat ourselves to a slap-up meal at Le Florida in Castera-Verduzan, munching our way through delicacies such as chestnut soup, duck pot au feu and potatoes with truffles, and still get change from £30 each, with wine. The next evening, a Sunday, we are not so lucky - though our out-of-season visit means we have our village to ourselves, it also means most restaurants are closed. The only place that seems to be open is in Lectoure, a few kilometres away.
A pretty little town and worth a stroll round after dinner, Lectoure is a mere entrée to the quaint villages in the neighbourhood, including Montréal and the uniquely circular bastide of Fourcès. Getting to them, in fact getting to anywhere from our little stronghold, we find ourselves yo-yoing through the snigger-inducing town of Condom, which turns out to be quite an elegant place by the river with some very good eateries.
It is Condom we drive through on our way to Larressingle, marketed in my travel guide as 'probably France's cutest fortified village'. After crossing the drawbridge, we areenclosed within castle walls that can be circumnavigated in minutes. But call me spoilt - cute as it may be, the sight of other tourists makes me plan a hasty retreat to Castelnau des Fieumarcon. Why share when you can have a fortified village to yourself?
Factfile
A stay at Le Castelnau des Fieumarcon (00 351 21 886 2582) costs £78 (110 euros) per room. Whole houses cost £356-£1,425 for six days. The castelnau can be rented for £8,190 for three nights (sleeps 52 plus a few children). Full programmes, including meals and activities, can be arranged on request.
Air France (0845 0845 111) has fares to Toulouse from Heathrow from £82 including taxes in June.
Holiday Autos (0870 400 0010) has three days' car hire from Toulouse airport from £71. A week's hire in June starts at £125.
Le Florida at Castera-Verduzan (00 33 562 681322) has set lunchtime meals from £13.80. Another good eating spot is the Hotel de Trois Lys (00 33 562 283333) in Condom.
I'll take the lot... five other villages available for hire
Umbrian borgo
Small, historic villages known as borgos are scattered all over Umbria, but it's rare that you can get one all to yourself. This tiny hamlet, called Borgo San Biagio, is high in the hills near Umbertide and is made up of five stone properties with timber beams and open fireplaces galore. They include the 1,000-year-old Renato's Tower, with one room per floor and 80 steps leading to a bizarre battlement roof terrace that comes complete with a small swimming pool and sundeck. There is also a large heated outside pool. There is room for get-togethers in the converted chapel with its satellite television, and also for privacy, with a romantic bedroom area of The Priest's House, which comes with a Jacuzzi in the bathroom. The owner, Renato, lives nearby and will happily arrange everything from horse riding in the surrounding hills to parties with local musicians and feasting on roast suckling pig.
Sleeps: 15
The damage: From £3,485 to £5,065 a week. Properties can be hired individually, from £765 a week in peak season.
Contact: CV Travel (020 7591 2800)
Rent-a-state in Liechtenstein
At just 60 square miles, the statelet of Liechtenstein is actually 11 villages, wedged in the Rhine valley between Austria and Switzerland. Infamous as a financial shelter for drug barons and dictators, Liechtenstein put itself on the hospitality rental map last year. Rent it and you get a scenic Alpine backdrop, plus access to wine-tasting in the prince's cellars and dinner in the castle. Though taking over Liechtenstein is more for business entertainment than tourism, corporate events company Xnet also rents out villages in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, and says it is willing to talk to anyone who can scrape together a few hundred friends. One of its schemes is the Austrian village of Brand, snuggled in a valley at the bottom of the Brandner glacier, where the population of 650 welcome guests into their homes. The cost includes transport from the airport, food and entertainment.
Sleeps: Hundreds
The damage: Anything from £200pp a day to £330 based on large groups travelling.
Contact: Xnet (00 423 230 1696)
Rural Spain
One of Spain's villages abandoned in the Sixties as a result of demographic change, Valdelavilla in the Tierras Altas de Soria has been completely renovated. There are 12 charming stone houses capped by red-tiled roofs dotted along cobbled streets and with low stone walls separating them. Inside, they are rustic but comfortable, with lots of wooden beams. The largest can sleep 10 people. There is also a restaurant, a TV lounge and a farm for children. The village is surrounded by woods, and there are lots of outdoor sports, including horse riding, cycling and trekking.
Sleeps: 73
The damage: Price for the whole village on application. Double room with breakfast £50 (€70).
Contact: Turismo Rural Valdelavilla (0034 975 18 55 32)
Tuscan hamlet
The eight cottages that make up the medieval hamlet of Pieve di Caminino in Tuscany's Maremma region are clustered around a Romanesque church (the Pieve), now used for dining. With large Tuscan fireplaces and timbered ceilings, the stone houses include La Scuola (The School House), Casa della Maestra (The School Teacher's House) and Casa del Guardia (The Gamekeeper's House), plus others named after saints believed to have lived here in the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. The hamlet is set in a natural amphitheatre, with olive groves extending from the wooded, rocky backdrop towards the coast. Beaches are within half-an-hour's drive and mountain bikes can be hired. There are also extensive gardens with plenty of terraces and pergolas, vast tracts of woodland to explore and an ornamental lake with lawns seemingly made for sunbathing.
Sleeps: 18 in beds plus five more in sofa beds.
The damage: From £3,173 to £4,338 a week. Properties can be hired individually, with prices starting at £473 a week in peak season.
Contact: Invitation to Tuscany (0121 429 5016)
Gascon gathering
There are only three buildings in the Domaine de Loustau making up the hamlet of Lamaguere, set in 125 acres in South West France. The main house is an imposing six-bedroom maison de maitre , all stone with oak interiors. It comes with a two-bedroom apartment, both bordered by a three-sided moat and the river Arrats. A four-bed farmhouse is also available on the estate, whose only other buildings are an old mill and a church. It's five miles to the nearest shops at Seissan. The hamlet was once part of the estate of Chateau de Lamaguere in the Gers, which was destroyed by the Huguenots.
Sleeps: 22
The damage: £3,160 a week in high season. The farmhouse can be hired separately for £810 a week.
Contact: The Gascony Secret (01284 827253)
