Marmande has all essential shops and facilities including several cafes and restaurants, banks and a market on Monday mornings, where you can find fresh local fruit and vegetables, goat's cheese and honey made on nearby farms, flowers and Marmandaise and Buzet wines.

There is a good choice of restaurants within a reasonable distance from here, in particular, the l'Escale restaurant in Pont-des-Sables about 10 minutes from away and the Ferme Auberge in Tonneins. Worth a stop in the village of Puymician just outside Marmande is a pottery, which specialises in wonderfully baroque terracotta garden urns.

St Emilion wines have been famous for centuries and the town itself is full of interest. It lies perched on a hilltop about thirty minutes from the château and although the medieval walls are now partly concealed by houses, a walk or drive around the outside gives a good idea of what it must have been like in medieval times. It is still a pleasure to walk around the narrow cobbled streets and peer into the craft shops, stop at the wine museum or to see the vast underground wine cellars. Visits to some of the vineyards can be arranged from there.