Tag Archives: bb

Adding a Heating System to our Swimming Pool

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Villa Roquette is located in the South of the South of France – recently, to avoid confusion with the other bit of the South of France, North of us, the coast from Marseilles to Menton, including St Tropez, Cannes and Nice, the tourism people here started calling this area Sud de France. Call it what you wish, but Languedoc gets more sunny days than any other part of France and is in the same temperature belt as North Africa.

With all this sun it seems silly not to use it for heating. I have been planning to do this for years, but always had something else to do more urgently – I still have a pile of work to do, but next week (if it is not raining) I will start on a heating system for our Swimming Pool.

Thanks to the Internet I have found plans which are simple, inexpensive and work – I found a calculator online which takes into account pool size,  latitude, sun, shade, and a host of other factors and reckon I need about 15 square meters of solar heating to give me a very comfortable pool temperature and this will extend the use of the pool from April through to October.

Making and fitting the system is straightforward and materials cost abut 100 euro, but I already have most of the items in stock, piping, plastics, tubing, mountings etc – so, hopefully the cost will be very small and the befits enourmous.

I will make notes and write up the progress.

Here is our pool as it is – next time I will outline the first stages of construction and installation of the heating system.

Heated swimming pool at Villa Roquette in Languedo the South of France

The Pool at Villa Roquette

Vias Herault Ten Minutes from Villa Roquette

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There is a network of villages in our region, each about 5 kilometers form each other, yet each having a completely independent character. Ten minutes from Villa Roquette is the town of Vias – a thriving market town only a couple of -kilometers from the popular seaside resort of Vias plage.

In medieval times it was a very wealthy town, as were many of the towns and villages in Herault – wool trade, shipbuilding, mining and rich agriculture providedLanguedoc with wealth and even very small communities could build magnificent churchesandhouses.

The local building materials were used for construction and in Vias and Agde the local stone is black basalt – a very hard volcanic rock. Theblack stone gives buildings a characteristic look.

Vias still has many fine buildings, most of the town wall has dissappeared intp the local buildings, but some vestiges remain – every town and village was protected by huge strong walls, until recent times, right into the 18th century, raiders from North Africa, corsairs, would come and take prisoner any person they found in the fields and take them into slavery or as galley slaves for their trading and war ships.

Here is a brief photo essay on a short walk around Vias

Guest House in the South of France – Sud France

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Villa Roquette is a guest house, but it is difficult to define what a guest house is. Is it a Chambre d’Hote (a bed and breakfast) or is it a hotel, is it a Gite or a lodge ?

Even defining a Bed and Breakfast establishment is difficult, are BB or a BnB, B&B, banb etc the same thing?

In France, a Chambre d’Hote is clearly defined, it is a home with a room or rooms specially set up to receive paying guests and which supplies a breakfast included in the price of the room. The home must have the owners living in it and must be registered wit the local Town Hall (Mairie).

A guest house has no clear definition, we call Villa Roquette a Guest House as we also offer evening meals for guests and have individual private self catering apartments, plus a lot of other services and extras for guests in our home.

To further complicate our marketing, we are in Languedoc, or Languedoc-Roussillon, which is now named the Sud de France and is further south than the South of France , so we get more sunshine and have a better climate than the traditional South of France.

Whatever you call us, a Guest House, Bed and Breakfast, Gite, Holiday Apartment , B&B bb banb -whatever – we guarantee you a warm welcome.

Road to montblanc and villa roquette

Welcome to Montblanc and Villa Roquette Guest House