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Loire Experience
CASTLES · VINEYARDS · RENAISSANCE · RIVERS · GOLDEN LIGHT · ROMANCE · DREAMING · BEAUTY · SOVEREIGNTY
You cannot think your way into sovereignty but you can arrive there slowly, beautifully, among the vines.
This retreat does not teach sovereignty as a concept. It creates the conditions under which you remember it. Over five days, we will meet the beauty of the Loire Valley, renowned for its fairytale-like medieval castles, exceptional wineries, gastronomy, and lush landscapes.
The Loire Valley has been the home for sovereign people for five hundred years. Catherine de Medici transformed Chenonceau into one of the most extraordinary castles in the world through sheer sovereign vision. Leonardo da Vinci spent his final years there creating machines and reaching for impossible ideas. These are the people whose footsteps you walk in here.
In the Loire Valley, you will be able to hear yourself clearly again and create from a sovereign space.
When?
DATES SOON
Where?
Loire, France
Organized by
Maison de la Présence
The Experience
This experience is an invitation to:
- Cycle through vineyards, picnic in a field, taste wine in a cave carved into a cliff
- Walk the old streets of Tours
- Receive a fairytale and discover on the last morning what it knows about you
- Connect with others in ways that feel rare: honest, playful, and seen
- Return energized and inspired
- Dine in a Michelin starred restaurant on a summer night in the Loire Valley
Included:
- Accommodation — 1 night hotel in Paris + 3 nights manor in the Loire Valley, breakfast included each morning
- Private shuttle transfer Beauvais airport to Paris hotel
- Train Paris to Loire and return
- Full day guided e-bike tour with professional cycling guide
- Picnic lunch in a vineyard
- Wine tasting at a prominent Loire winery
- Michelin star dinner - Chateau de Pray
- Entrance fees to castles
- Facilitated practices designed to awaken the dreamer within you
- Small gifts to awaken the dreamer within you
Not included:
- Flights to and from Beauvais
- Lunches and dinners (apart from Michelin star menu)
- Personal expenses and tips
- Travel insurance (please arrange before departure)
Wednesday, July 15 — Arriving
18:00 Aperitivo & arrival
Opening 6 Degrees of Separation
We open not with introductions but with a discovery. Any two people in the world are connected through six or fewer links. In pairs, participants have 10 minutes to find their chain of connection — not through phones, but through conversation. Where have you lived? Who have you worked with? What worlds do you move through?
The pairs who find their connection stay together. Those who don’t switch partners and try again with someone new. Two rounds.
Dinner Improvisation game — The Character Meal
Each participant receives a small slip of paper with the name of a character — known to all, including the facilitators. Examples include Donald Trump, Putin, and Mariah Carey. Each person must describe the dish in front of them as their character. Others guess. Breaks the ice, creates laughter, reveals personality immediately. The first mirror of the retreat.
Thursday, July 16 — The Body & The Role
Morning Yoga & Meditation
Grounding. Breath. Arriving fully into the body before the day begins.
Breakfast
Mid-morning Opening circle —
Facilitators open the discussion with a framing: What is masculine? What is feminine? What pressures are there on the feminine and masculine?
Participants begin with journaling — a few minutes alone with the questions. Then they share in pairs. Then the group opens up for a collective discussion.
The facilitators frame the conversation: What do we believe is masculine? What is feminine? How do we embody these characteristics in practice? Do men allow themselves to be feminine? Do women embrace masculinity to be seen as worthy? What feelings arise when we step outside of what society expects us to be?
Mid-morning Gender swap improv
The group splits into mixed pairs. Each pair is given a stereotypical situation — a man proposes, a woman criticizes a man for leaving his socks on the floor, a man cries at work, a woman fixes the car. They swap genders and act it out in 3 minutes. Laughter opens what reasoning closes.
Intention setting: One masculine and one feminine trait I will allow myself to embody during this retreat.
Afternoon 3-hour hike together
Walking in nature. No agenda. The body integrates what the mind has just encountered. Conversations happen naturally on the trail.
Lunch & afternoon Free time
Evening Meditation & yoga
Dinner Dinner together
Unstructured. Let the day settle.
Friday, July 17 — The Mind
Morning HIIT workout
Meet yourself in physical effort. Working with goal-setting and discipline. Masculinity.
Cold plunge — river
The edge. Stripped bare. Resilience and surrender in the same breath. After this, people are more honest, more present, more open.
Breakfast
Late morning Practices with two Mirrors facing each other:
Perspective
Two practices running simultaneously — one pair at a time at the mirrors.
The Witness Position: One person stands between the two mirrors — multiplied infinitely. Their partner stands to the side, outside the reflection, singular. They look at each other. Then switch. Discussion: what does it feel like to be multiplied? To be the one who is singular?
The Release
The Release: Each person writes one true thing they have never said to someone of the opposite gender. In pairs, they read it. The other receives it in silence — no response, no fixing, just presence. Then the group comes together: not to share the unsaid thing, but to share what it felt like to say it. What it felt like to receive it.
Afternoon Free time
Swimming, rest, wandering.
Evening Meditation & yoga
Working with softness, acceptance and release. Femininity.
Night BBQ dinner + The Letter — mirror installation
Long table under the stars. Cinematic lights over the tables. BBQ. Wine and laughter.
Two mirrors face each other, framed in white cloth and candles.
Installation with two Mirrors facing each other:
During dinner, each participant is invited in their own time to step away to the mirrors with one of the facilitators, who holds the space. They stand before the infinite reflection for three minutes, wearing noise-cancelling headphones with natural music. Then they write a letter to the version of themselves barely visible in the furthest reflection — the self almost out of sight.
Anonymous. Fold it. Place it in the box — or keep it. Your choice.
Malena reads the letters aloud under the stars. Slowly. Silence between each one.
Saturday, July 18 — The Energy
Morning HIIT + river plunge
Meet yourself in physical effort. Working with goal-setting and discipline. Masculinity.
Breakfast
Late morning Building together — the feminine and the masculine energy building the new world
We build something together, showing that we need both to create the new world. (Content to be determined by Malena & Vasil.)
Lunch Free time
Evening Closing celebration — peak moment
Content to be determined by Malena & Vasil.
Night Dinner + Party — DJ Milen
You have been seen. Now celebrate.
Sunday, July 19 — Integration
Morning Integration practice
(Content to be determined by Malena & Vasil.)
The Yarn — closing circle
We opened by discovering how we are already connected. We close by making that connection visible.
The group sits in a circle. Facilitator holds a ball of yarn. The first person says something nobody knows about them, then chooses someone and says: I felt connected to you — and names the connection (a shared moment, a feeling, something someone said). That person holds the yarn and passes the ball on. At the end, everyone is connected by overlapping yarn lines. Then they must work together to untangle themselves.
What we built in four days, we now hold in our hands.
Lunch Slow lunch ·
Departures
No agenda. Long goodbyes.
What kind of people come to a Maison de la Présence experience?
People who built a life that looks good from the outside and started wondering if it’s actually theirs. They’re 28 to 45, they work hard, they’ve done well, and somewhere along the way they realized the old scripts: climb the ladder, accumulate, repeat aren’t delivering what they were promised.
Founders sit next to consultants next to graphic designers next to community builders next to yoga teachers. They travel well. They value ambition in their growth, but they can feel the traditional paradigms shifting beneath them.
The scripts aren’t holding and they’re asking new questions:
What does the next chapter look like if the old path doesn’t fit anymore?
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Pricing
€1,490
€2,682
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Or reach out directly: mariaelena.kisyova@gmail.com • WhatsApp / Viber: +359 888 180 050