MONTARGIS, Centre-Val de Loire, Address available on request

A waterside house and Scottish-style inn, facing a canal, tucked away in the valley of the River Loing in France's Centre-Val-de-Loire region. The old inn, which was once a coaching inn, the house, an open-sided barn and a chalet hidden among vegetation lie together by a towpath that edges the Loing canal, on a little cul-de-sac that was made on the hillside, just outside the local village, in 1900. Higher up, there is a small, fenced garden. A wooded plot extends it. Any gardening-lover would take great pleasure in redesigning this lush corner.