Claudette, we're back in England and now we must thank you for the five wonderful days we spent with you in your beautiful home.  We had so much fun and so many interesting things to see that you were able to help us with.  How lucky we were to find you.  As visitors from another country, the hospitality you showed us was unequalled.  If we visit Louisiana again and I hope we shall, you will definitely be our first call.  You deserve all the success which must surely be coming your way.  A big thanks also to Lisa.  Our best wishes go to you and all of your friends.

Margaret and Anthony Holyoake, Leicester, England.

	Gurumoorthy Ramakrishnan, a design engineer from India, shares his experience of his stay at "A Chateau on the Bayou Bed & Breakfast" for two and a half months. Click here to access the video.
	Lia and Damin spend their Thanksgiving and 2009 New Year's Holidays at "A Chateau on the Bayou B&B". Click here to access the video.
	Film crew from California sets up in the kitchen of "A Chateau on the Bayou B&B" to make a film about the life of a local Cajun girl's experiences. Click here to access the video.

Claudette, I would first like to thank you for showing me such great hospitality.  Staying with you for 26 days has been so nice, because you made it feel like it was right back at home.  I also enjoyed going to New Orleans, and thanks for showing me around.  Your blue house on the bayou is such a beautiful place on the inside and out, and you do a great job taking care of it.  I was glad I got to meet some of your family.  I can say that I learned a lot while I was there, like when you ask someone where they’re from all they say is either they’re from up or down the bayou.  Once again thanks for making my stay so enjoyable.

Hunter Holland, Charleston, South Carolina

By Perry Pitre - Article published at HoumaToday.com

RACELAND — When Claudette Pitre opened her bed and breakfast in Raceland, she figured she’d be meeting people from all over the world. Some of them might even be famous. Pitre got a taste of fame when she played host to Alexandra Cousteau, granddaughter of famed explorer and ecologist Jacques Cousteau and Cousteau’s film crew when they were in the area recently.

“I got a call about three days before their arrival from Washington, D.C.,” Pitre said. “They asked me if I could accommodate seven people for one night. I said yes. Then they said it was Alexandra Cousteau. I felt very honored.”
Cousteau was in Louisiana as part of her Blue Legacy project, a five-continent, 100-day journey to “tell the story of our water planet to the world, to inspire people to take action on critical water issues in meaningful ways and to help shape society’s dialogue to include water as one of the defining issues of our century,” according to the group’s Web site.
Cousteau’s interest in the Mississippi River focuses on the low-oxygen dead zones in the Gulf at the mouth of the river.
The group had been busy filming a blessing of the fleet during the day, and when they got to Pitre’s, they just kept right on working.
“They arrived around 10:30 p.m. Saturday night, and it was like they were in a great rush,” Pitre said. “They had two cars full of equipment. And they all kind of tumbled out of the car into my kitchen, followed by 20 bags of luggage. You couldn’t even walk in the kitchen; the floor was completely covered.
“And immediately they had their cameras out, their computers, battery packs, to look at the footage of the blessing of the fleet. They were editing and getting on the Internet, planning for the next day.”
There was one notable exception to the hustle and bustle, however.
“They sent Alexandra straight to bed,” Pitre said. “I wouldn’t say they treated her like a queen, but she was definitely the princess.”
And as quickly as they arrived, they were gone.
“It all happened so fast,” Pitre said. “I’ve got all these people, and they’re running around doing all this stuff, and the next thing you know, boom, they’re up early in the morning and gone.”
Pitre said the group appreciated all the Cajun hospitality.

By Emilie Bahr - excerpt from local paper "Daily Comet"

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Counting their recently concluded trip, Anthony and Margaret Holyoake of Leicester, England, have visited 40 of the lower 48 states. Their eighteenth trip to the United States, a three-week journey that ended Tuesday and included stops in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, brought them for the first time to Louisiana.

“We just fell in love with it,” Anthony Holyoake said by phone as he and his wife prepared to leave the Raceland bed and breakfast where they had spent five nights for the airport in Kenner. “We have been to various interesting places and had some very interesting food which we’re not used to in England, he said, naming some curiosities such as boiled crawfish and seafood gumbo among the fare sampled during the visit.

Anthony Holyoake, 68, is passionate about jazz. But he and his wife were initially reluctant to travel to New Orleans, he said, out of concern over its post-storm status. “The impression we had from back home was that things were still pretty bad,” he said.

He said he discovered Raceland in a traveler’s guide and was drawn to the town in part for its proximity to other interesting-looking cities and the name of a local bed and breakfast: A Chateau on the Bayou.
From Raceland, the Holyoakes traveled to Baton Rouge, St. Francisville, Houma and Thibodaux, stopping off at various local eateries and landmarks and participating in Lafourche Parish’s bicentennial celebration last weekend. By chance, Anthony Holyoake was captured by a photographer at the festival as he peered into a steaming pot of gumbo Saturday. His photo appeared on the front page of the Daily Comet Monday.

Then, in an unplanned trip made Monday night at bed and breakfast proprietor Claudette Pitre’s insistence, the couple finally made it into New Orleans where they spent the evening in the French Quarter. “They had to have coffee and beignets in New Orleans,” Pitre said. Despite the couple’s initial hesitation, she said, “That was the highlight” of their trip. “It was wonderful,” Anthony Holyoake agreed.

Pitre said she was glad to help counteract an unfortunate image she said was continuing to ward off tourism from South Louisiana almost two years after Hurricane Katrina. “We all know that the negative news doesn’t help the area,” she said.

Claudette,

We enjoyed your beautiful and well maintained home.  If you are ever in Houston I hope you will look us up and stay at our home.  I’ll leave the back door open for you.  Thanks for making my family feel so welcome; it was the home away from home place I was looking for.  We will most likely see you again some time in the future.

Jeff Bransome, Houston, Texas

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A Chateau on the Bayou is conveniently located near both New Orleans
and the Cajun bayous, swamps, and marshes. Visit us for your Southern Louisiana vacation!