Patience is a virtue

For anyone deciding to make a new life in a new country by starting a new business in hospitality, a list of qualities beneficial to the task ahead might well include: a knack for teamwork, steely determination, a grasp of logistics and courage in the face of adversity, all topped off with a well-evolved sense of humour.

- GREG COOK

It’s fair to say there are few professions that usefully instil all of the above, but the Armed Services are undoubtedly one of them. Fortunately for Hywel and Melanie Lewis, proud owners of luxury guesthouse Manoir de Jouralem since 2017, both have previous long-serving army careers that have stood them in excellent stead for this exciting new chapter in their lives.

Between them the couple have spent time in Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany and the Balkans, but today they find themselves ensconced within wooded vales on the western edge of the Loire-Anjou-Touraine regional nature park. Here, in countryside just a few kilometres from both the sedate southern banks of the River Loire and the bustling café culture of Angers, a thriving historic city that was once the seat of Plantagenet kings, they have made a home and created a stunning guesthouse that seamlessly blends period charm with luxury mod cons.

A SHARED VISION

This is a truly beguiling pocket of the world, a sybarite’s paradise created in equal parts of historic splendour, rural idyll and gastronomic majesty. Little wonder this verdant valley, a tapestry of vineyards, orchards and forests over-stitched with many of France’s most opulent and important châteaux, is now one vast UNESCO World Heritage Site.

For many over the centuries, this special region has come to represent France at its finest, an arcadia demarking the junction between north and south, that offers visitors a perfect synthesis of the country’s most treasured archetypes and cultural exports. It’s also a part of France that Mel and Hywel had no intention of settling in.