Welcome to the first entry of the HiddenGems series! I’ll try to collect here interesting places around the world, which are not exactly the top attractions. However, there’s certain charm in going off the bitten path, wouldn’t you agree? I’ll be posting about the places I visited personally as well as those, that my friends told me about (and kindly supplied the photos). If any of you feel like taking part, please, contact me via tinyexpats@gmail.com!

Today we will visit Château de Montaner, where my former school mate Alexandra went to together with her husband and a 7 year old son. This 14th century castle is located in a tiny town of Montaner in the South of France.

This castle has 4 stories with a single room on each floor. You can walk around the grounds and go inside as well, where you would learn interesting facts about those who lived here centuries ago. For example, you would find out that their dinner started at 10 in the evening, I guess, they didn’t care that eating so late at night can be bad for your waist line.

There’re regular medieval shows staged in the Château de Montaner, which, I’m sure, would be interesting for the kids.

You can get to Montaner from the neighbouring cities Pau and Tarbes by car or train. For more detailed travel instructions, please, visit the website of Château de Montaner – it’s all in French, but I’m sure you can work it out or else use Google Translate ;) There’s also more info there on their medieval programme.

Alexandra and her husband are also expats and have a video blog on YouTube, called CapTV France, where they tell the viewers about their everyday life in France (the commentaries are in Russian).

Have fun travelling and take your kids along – they will definitely enjoy this trip!