Owned by the Department of Haute-Garonne since 1984, the Château de Laréole usually ends its season of guided tours, shows and contemporary art exhibitions at the end of summer. For the first time this year, the Renaissance building and its 20-hectare French-style garden are extending the season to host an “inside game”, a game of investigation and riddles with up to 110 participants. Imagined by Haute-Garonne Tourisme in partnership with the tourist services agency Paysdoc.com, this theatrical game accessible from 9 years old takes place in teams of seven people maximum. Four dates are scheduled between Saturday 23 October and Saturday 11 December.

At each session, the goal is to find Michel de Cheverry worthy heir to a rich pastel merchant who has mysteriously disappeared. To build the scenario, the organizers naturally went to draw on the history of the place and its inhabitants. The castle of Laréole owes its construction to the capitoul Pierre de Cheverry. This pastelier merchant, treasurer general of France, called in 1579 to the most prominent architect of the Toulouse Renaissance, Nicolas Bachelier, to design his holiday resort near Cadours, a true showcase of his social success.

The originality of Laréole lies in its polychromy of stones and bricks and in its architecture which borrows from the Middle Ages its defensive aspect with its ditches, its guardhouses and its towers and from the Renaissance, its luxurious side with its openings, its coursière and its main building.

From the large room on the first floor to the interior courtyard, passing through the former apartments of Pierre de Cheverry, the galleries and the towers to the immense grassy terraces of the park laid out in the 18th century by the Colomès family, the participants of the inside game are the masters of the place during the game. Five actors in costume, including the wife of the wealthy owner, the associates to find their way around and progress in their investigation in this setting that is larger than life.