What can I say about the Chateau de Maulmont: it's expensive (though not crazy-expensive), but hey you only live once lol. I realize that's not very objective however, so here's a bit more detail.

The Chateau is located in a great area that overlooks a picturesque valley, it is very near to the town of Vichy (yes, the same Vichy you're thinking lol), and is set in a beautiful wooded area that begs to be explored. There is a small park for children to play, hiking/biking trails, two excellent pools, a sauna and a helicopter pad that can be used to arrange a heli-tour that leaves right from the hotel if you're so inclined.

We stayed in the Princess Adelaide room which is at the top of the right-hand side tower and has as its main feature a 360 degree 'balcony' of sorts (I dont know a better word for it, though I'm sure there is one lol). Be warned, being in a tower the room is at the top of many, many stairs lol, so if you have trouble climbing you'de be better off in one of their other equally excellent rooms I'm sure. The room was well decorated with beautiful huge beams in the ceiling, a very comfortable bed, an alarm clock ipod dock, coffee and tea making facilities and minibar. The bathroom was also excellent, very spacious.

The front desk staff were excellent as well; very friendly (she even remembered me by name from an email I had sent 4 months ago), and were more than patient when we ignorantly left the windows unlocked in our room. While we were away a storm came in, blew them open and apparently got the room quite wet, but we had no idea because they had dried our bedding and everything else before we even got back that evening. And, unlike many hotels where you would be yelled at for this, they told us about it apologetically, it was clear they were concerned about our comfort rather than any damage WE may have caused to the room.

This hotel was the perfect end to our vacation, I highly recommend it and absolutely hope to return one day.

We had chosen the Chateau de Maulmont for a nice and sophisticated stop on our way to the Côte d'Azur. The surroundings and the Chateau are very pleasant, our bedroom was big and comfortable if a bit dark on the sunny afternoon we arrived. We could notice the red staircarpet inside was in need of a good hoover. But these were mere details as we were looking forward to our dinner on the terrace, we had decided on the "special menu" at 75 euros a piece, each of the 4 courses was claimed to come accompanied with its glass of wine...
The experience :
-Service was so amateurish the course arrived a long time before the wine supposed to match it was served.
- The cuisine was of extremely poor quality : first course was a 2" x 1.5 " block of raw salmon served with a lemony transparent stick of gelatin with dry and tasteless salad that was a very unpleasant to swallow.
Main course consisted of a plain "filet de boeuf" with tasteless sliced potato cake cooked dripping with butter, we noticed that my wife's filet was half the size of mine...
For cheese we had the house special preparation : this ended up by being some local cheese stuffed into deep-fried breadcrumb spheres with that same tasteless dry salad, when you managed to crack them open with the fork the decomposed and very greasy cheese substance would then drip onto your plate : the taste was atrocious.
Desert was something designed to be sophisticated but turnd out to be a mixture of artificially rose flavored Ice cream with some tasteless custard, rectangles of red gelatin, three dried up raspberries in what seemed an industrially made "biscuit" cup : an insult to good taste !
We complained to the young and obviously inexperienced lady that served us, she mentioned that we were not the first customers that had complained about the food and acknowledged there was a problem with the kitchen crew, she said that she would try to minimize our disappointment …
I have never eaten so poorly for 75 euros ! The following day at check out I was told that our dinner bill had been reduced by 20%. OK fine and thank you, but I have never eaten that bad for 60 euros either…

The chateau was exactly what we wanted. It was just beautiful. Restaurant was excellent, the owners delightful, the staff couldn't do enough for you. We upgraded from a "comfort room" because of stairs and were out in a suite which was really good. The history of the renovation of the Chateau is very interesting and the Owners (her father was the civil engineer that renovated it) are really fantastic. Wish we could have stayed longer.

I was first greeted by a lovely woman Elliot who helped us to every end, even though we had arrived late. Staff were friendly and very helpful. It's in the countryside so be prepared to drive a while to get to anywhere but that is why we stayed there to get a dose of the french countryside. The pool was lovely and our apartment was so fantastic. We had the best view of the entire place! I recommend the apartment for stays longer than a few days as you have your own cooking facilities and can eat on your own terrace over looking the countryside. It is quiet at night and then you are surrounded by the sounds of birds and frogs during the day. Bliss. Couldnt recommend this place more.