Château de Canisy hosts residential seminars, team retreats and private events in several meeting rooms and salons, with 18 suites for overnight stays and a 300-hectare estate around the house. This listed château-hotel stands in Canisy, in the Manche, near Saint-Lô in Normandy, about three hours from Paris by road.
Seminars and company events
The château markets itself for company seminars, strategy sessions and team retreats. Several salons and meeting rooms are set aside for seminars, conferences and professional events, and guests can stay on site, so a program can run over several days. Free high-speed Wi-Fi covers the building, and private, secure parking is free. The team works in French and English.
Activities for groups include cooking classes with a chef, fishing in the estate's ponds, bike rides through the park and reading evenings in the historic salons. The estate also runs murder parties and can stage fireworks. The concierge can arrange car hire, outings to Mont-Saint-Michel or the D-Day beaches, and transfers.
Weddings and receptions
The château states that many couples have held their wedding here, with the English-style park as a backdrop, and it receives private events. The site does not publish a wedding package or a reception capacity, so ask the team about numbers, dates and what is included.
Rooms and capacities
The château has about 70 rooms. They include a monumental granite staircase designed by the architect François Gabriel, large salons including a music room, two dining rooms, a theater, a bar, a nightclub, French and American billiard rooms, two libraries, cellars and attics. Meals can be served in the large dining room, hung with paintings by a 17th-century Flemish animal painter, or in a private salon such as the Music Room, set in one of the towers, or the library. Capacities are not published.
Accommodation
There are 18 suites, each furnished in the spirit of a period or of a figure linked to the family. They include the Empire Suite, the Polignac Suite, the Alexis de Tocqueville Suite, the Louis XVI Suite, the Faudoas Suite, with a copper slipper bath made in Villedieu-les-Poêles, and an Art Deco Suite.
Catering
Meals are cooked on site from the château's vegetable garden, nearby farms and the Normandy coast, including Granville oysters and organic vegetables from Isigny. Dinner comes as a Gourmet menu, a Normandy menu or a Gala dinner menu, and menus change with the seasons. Breakfast uses produce from the estate farm, such as eggs, yogurts, homemade jams and local cider or apple juice.
History and setting
The château has belonged to the same family, the Kergorlay family, for almost 1,000 years. Its two main wings date from the 13th and 16th centuries, and it is listed as a historic monument and counted among the Seven Wonders of the Manche. In July 1944 General Omar Bradley, commander of the US First Army, set up his headquarters at the château, and Operation Cobra was launched from here on July 25, 1944. The estate includes two ponds, woods, farmland, and formal French and English-style gardens. The house and park also open for guided visits.
Getting there
By train, the nearest station is Lison, on the line from Paris Saint-Lazare, about two and a half hours from Paris; Villedieu-les-Poêles, on the line from Paris Montparnasse, is the other option. Transfers can be arranged from either station. Caen-Carpiquet airport is 45 minutes away, with flights from London and Geneva and private aviation. Helicopters can land at Canisy. Bayeux is about 30 minutes by road, Mont-Saint-Michel about one hour and the D-Day beaches about 45 minutes.
