I’ve taken my 10-year-old daughter to Paris twice now. The first time we bunked down dorm-style with friends at The People Hostel and pinged between first-timer sights on a bateau mouche (a sightseeing cruise boat). We saw the Eiffel Tower by night, the Louvre, Chanel’s sartorial home at 31 Rue Cambon. In between, we stopped off for macarons, crepes and bubble teas. One of my daughter’s favourite books growing up was Laurent De Brunhoff’s Babar’s Guide To Paris, and it was a trip where everything described so delightfully in that book – from the cafes being the theatre of Paris to the thriving print stalls along the Seine – was brilliantly brought to life.

For this second trip, we circumnavigated Paris’s centre and went to see what the suburbs had to offer. We headed east to Disneyland Paris (take the RER line A to the Marne-la Vallée/Chessy stop) and then west for the jaw-droppingly ornate palace of Versailles, before dropping down to the Rambouillet Forest, an oak and pine tree scattered region where Parisians escape to bike, hike and ride horses. And it’s here, a 12-minute taxi ride from Dourdan station in a place called Bonnelle, that you’ll find a wonderfully informal family retreat called Le Barn.   

Even if your French is terrible, I expect I don’t need to tell you that Le Barn is housed in a barn. Or rather, a few barns. There’s the main barn – formerly an old sheepfold that you access through a thick Barbour jacket-like curtain – which houses the bar and restaurant as well as a giant wood-burning stove and an array of squashy sofas. 

Then there are barns No 5 and No 7, two two-storey conversions housing most of the 73 bedrooms, finished on the outside in a rustic red. And then there are the barns that are still barns, because the beauty of Le Barn is that it shares a 500-acre estate with holistic horsemanship school La Cense. That means that there are horses everywhere the minute you swing through the gates, whether they’re grazing in the fields (watch the electric fences) or being ridden around the many lanes that wind around the property. 

The horses are a major pull if you have kids who are into riding (my daughter had a lovely introductory lesson with a pony, which included grooming and trying her hand at trotting), but even if you don’t, the equine setting adds a sense of calm and peace to the place. You can even try horse whispering here – a two-and-a-half-hour masterclass of building rapport with horses, which is strictly for over 14s only. Robert Redford, move over. 

Moving between the barns as you travel to and from meals (food is a big event here) is idyllic. En route, you pass a small fishing lake that contains the three things any decent lake needs: ducks, a picture-perfect rowing boat and a ladder into the deep for wild swimming wannabees. Next to the lake is a makeshift swing, wrapped around a towering tree branch, and beyond that sits a converted white mill housing a hammam and a sauna that sadly wasn’t open during our stay (but is usually open between 9am and 8pm and free to use).   

We arrived on a Thursday afternoon when a large work group was there for an away day (axe-throwing, anyone?), which set more of a holiday camp vibe, but it was on the Friday that Le Barn really came into its own. Eclectic Parisians started arriving mid-afternoon with their families, and the number of children multiplied – as did the staff. Immediately there was buzz and laughter and rounds of drinks being ferried past on trays.

Aside from the unique setting, weekends at Le Barn are family-friendly thanks to a complimentary schedule of activities for everyone to enjoy. From pétanque and pilates (I took my first French yoga class while there – not as easy as you think when you’re hanging upside down) to badminton, e-bike tours and night walks in the forest, you can opt in or out of anything that’s laid on. This includes organised fun for the kids too (when they’re not all whizzing around on the hotel’s bikes), which allowed me to sneak away for a soak in the two outdoor Nordic baths tucked at the back of the mill. 

It really is all about the outdoors here. While the rooms are lovely (families can book adjoining rooms and there are three dorm-style rooms that sleep 6–8 people) with caramel tones and natural materials, including cork board walls, they’re simple and a little brisk in autumn, so the best place to relax is either out in nature or eating and drinking in the main barn. We took bikes out several times to explore the adjacent paddocks and meadows (there are several sets of electric gates to negotiate if you’re properly exploring the estate, the buttons for which are at horserider height) before coming back to flop by the wood burner and raid the very bountiful games cupboard.  

Aside from nature, degustation is the other big draw here, and it’s by no means half-baked. Lunch and dinner – all from Le Barn’s vegetable garden or sourced from local producers – are proper three-course affairs should you want it, with menus stacked with traditional terrines and apple and pear crumbles served across three large rooms. Even at lunches, when you might prefer a lighter bite, are of a pork belly and grilled poussin nature, and I also have to give a shout-out to the garlic sautéed mushrooms at breakfast. Expect a three-course dinner to set you back around €50 (£42) per head and there’s a kids menu for a very reasonable €12 (£10), although it would have been nice for there to be more than one choice. 

My favourite thing about Le Barn for a family stay was the ease of the place. My daughter and I arrived after some busy sightseeing and immediately took it down a notch, enjoying three days of flitting between sunken green sofas and bike seats and horsebacks, stopping in between for some rustic French fare and plates of cheese (on Saturday night we ate fondue). Checking out on Sunday is an exceptionally lazy affair, too: there’s no check-out time, so you can stay as long as you want and act like some relative who never takes the hint.   

If you don’t have your own car and are arriving on public transport from Paris (it took us about 1 hour 45 mins in total from Orly airport), I’d say two nights and three days here across the weekend is the perfect amount of time to let the surroundings and horses do their magic. But it’d also make a pretty great stop-off en route to the Alps or elsewhere. Either way, it’s all very wholesome, full of simple childhood summer vibes, and it allows you to reconnect with the people you love the most.   

Le Barn is £200 per night for two people in a classic room, including breakfast, access to bikes, use of outdoor games and hotel activities such as yoga, pilates, e-bikes, guided nighttime forest walks, photography lab classes, and The Whisperer’s Experience – available on Sundays – and is for groups of up to six people, from 14 years old.