French Village - About the village

Our house is just a minute's walk to the shops, which includes a bakery, a grocer, a butcher, bar, a 'cave' for wine-tasting, etc. There is a Tourist Office, a hotel-restaurant, a medical centre, several hair dressers, banks and more. The street market is open three days a week, selling a variety of fresh local produce including excellent wines from the Minervois and Corbières which you can sample. Rieux Minervois is a lively village of about 2000 people, with many active social and sporting associations. It has tennis courts, a football field and a boulodrome for playing pétanque. Within easy reach there are fishing opportunities and three golf-courses. Two kilometres away the next village (Peyriac Minervois) has a public swimming-pool. Several times a year the City council organises fêtes, often with music, dancing and fireworks for the 14th of July.

Rieux boasts a unique heptagonal 11th-century church with magnificent sculptures, which draws visitors from all over the world. Concerts are held regularly in the church and in the château. There are plenty of great places to walk and explore nearby. Cross the 17th-century bridge near the house, stroll along the stream and through the village vegetable gardens, or walk to the vineyards and beyond them the woods, and to the garrigue with its intoxicating scents of herbs.