Château de Vault-de-Lugny

Somewhere inside most travellers lives a small aristocrat who would like, just once, to cross a moat on the way to bed. In Burgundy, that wish is easily granted. Vault-de-Lugny sits in the green north of the region, near Avallon, ten minutes off the motorway from Paris and far from the busy wine villages of the Côte. It has a moat with real pike in it, and plumbing from this century.

The castle's lords once picked the wrong side in a royal quarrel, and Louis XI had the place knocked down, sparing only the keep. A calmer, classical house went up in the seventeenth century, along with a plane tree on the lawn that legend calls a gift from Louis XIII. One king flattened the house, a later one sent it a tree, which in royal terms counts as an apology. Today it is among the oldest plane trees in France, and in summer dinner moves into its shade.

One night here is as close as most people get to a title. The best rooms in the main house have a fireplace and a canopy bed dressed in toile de Jouy. The Chambre du Roy goes one better, with fleurs-de-lis scattered across the ceiling, and its occupants tend to come down to breakfast standing a little straighter. Some rooms are newer and plainer, so would-be royals should say so when booking.

Then comes dinner, with a twist nobody expects in Burgundy. The chef, Franco Bowanee, grew up in Mauritius and has cooked here for nearly twenty years. Most of his vegetables come from the château's own organic garden, and once in a while a breath of the Indian Ocean drifts across the plate. The restaurant, Le Valucien, is a glass room facing the park. His wife, Karina Laval, takes care of dessert, so the evening stays in the family.

The park handles the rest of the entertainment. Peacocks stroll the lawns with the air of people who own the place, and a truffle dog called Oméga takes its job very seriously. When it rains, a warm pool waits under the vaults of the old wine cellar. When it shines, the hilltop basilica of Vézelay is twenty minutes away, and Chablis lies near enough for a tasting on the way back.

Like any self-respecting aristocrat, the house takes the winter off, closing from mid-November to mid-March. The decor is traditional to the bone, and wellness stops at that pool and a jacuzzi, plenty for guests mostly busy eating. What it has instead cannot be bought: the same faces, year after year. The owners, Élisabeth and Pascal Bourzeix, are there every day, and the maître d'hôtel has been at the door for two decades, so a stay soon resembles a visit to relatives who happen to own a moat. It is made for couples touring Burgundy, and for closet aristocrats who have always fancied being lord of the manor, if only for a weekend.

By the tree's standards, everyone here is a newcomer. The family arrived not quite sixty years ago, the chef less than twenty. And the tree itself came from the East, when France had barely seen a plane tree. Four centuries on, it is the most Burgundian resident of the lot, and even the peacocks treat it with respect.