Vitteaux, Burgundy — played in English
The Heritage
An escape adventure that runs for seventeen hours. You arrive at six in the evening, you have dinner, you play, you sleep in the manor, and you leave after breakfast the next morning. The house is yours for the night.
Book an English sessionAt step two of the booking form, answer the language question with English.
- 17 hours
- 6pm to 11am, with 5 to 7 hours of actual play
- 6–12
- players, at their best around eight
- 300 m²
- the manor, its garden and its outbuildings
- English
- or French, chosen when you book
Seventeen hours, not sixty minutes
Most escape rooms give you an hour and a locked door. The Heritage gives you an evening, a dinner, a night and an entire house.
There is no countdown on the wall and no voice in a speaker telling you that you are halfway through. The story runs from the moment you arrive until the moment you leave. Dinner is part of it. So is the walk through the garden, and so is the hour before you go to bed.
This changes what the game asks of you. Over five to seven hours of play you have to pace yourselves, split the work, decide what to chase and what to let go. It rewards teams who organise themselves — and it exposes the ones who do not.
Gamotel opened the first venue of this kind in France in 2020, in Côte-d'Or. The Heritage has since won three Escape Game Awards for the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region: best set design, best room, and best venue.
You are not playing an escape room. You are staying inside one.
The story
José Zampini died last week, at home. He was a well-known member of the Gamotel Club, and the club is asking you to settle what he left behind: a will nobody can find, a house nobody has been able to open, and a set of questions his family would rather not answer.
The Zampini manor has been keeping a secret for more than four centuries.
A historical document surfaced recently in the regional press: a letter written in 1580 by Guillaume du Prat, Baron de Vitteaux, to his valet Antonio Zampini. In it he hands over a house — and the task of protecting his fortune, and his secrets, for as long as it takes.
The Baron was a real man, and so was his feud with the Alègre family, a rivalry between two houses that ran for generations. The remains of the fortified castle still stand in Vitteaux, a few minutes from the bed you will be sleeping in. We have built the game on that history rather than around it.
We are in the business of entertaining people. We would also rather they left knowing something they did not know when they arrived.
You will not all know the same things
When you book, each player picks which of the three protagonists they will be answering to. That choice decides what you are told, what you are asked to do, and why you are in that house at all. Some of those private objectives sit comfortably alongside the others. Some do not.
Which leaves you a decision to make, over and over, for seventeen hours: put everything on the table and steer the story together, or keep what you know to yourself and quietly work against the people sitting next to you at dinner. Nobody is told who is doing which.
As far as we know, no other venue in France runs an escape experience on asymmetric information at this scale. It is the part players talk about for weeks afterwards.
And it starts before you get here. Three emails reach you in the run-up to your session:
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20DAYS BEFORE
The briefing
Practical instructions, safety information and the rules of play. Everyone receives the same email.
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10DAYS BEFORE
Your contact writes
Someone inside the story gets in touch with you personally. You learn who you are, why you are coming, and what you are expected to do.
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5DAYS BEFORE
They write again
A second message from your contact, closer to the date. By the time you ring the doorbell, you have been in this story for three weeks.
Choose who you answer to
James Zampini
José's only heir. He stands to lose everything if the will is never found, and he has already tried the doors himself.
Eloïse Alègre
A descendant of the Alègre family, sworn enemies of the Baron for centuries. She wants back a jewel her grandmother pawned to José and never recovered.
Helena Rouan
A friend of José's for decades — through his wife's death, through everything. They still spoke every week, and told each other things they told nobody else. She has come for an object he meant to give her.
Playing in English
The Heritage is fully playable in English. Choose English when you book and the whole experience runs in English: your actor, every document and prop you handle, the three emails that reach you before you arrive, and dinner service.
English sessions run year round, at the same price as French sessions, and will remain available for as long as the experience is open.
Travelling from outside France and want to check specific dates? Write to contact@gamotel.com — we answer in English.
- 6 to 12 players
- Smaller groups can join a shared session with other players
- 17 hours on site
- 6pm to 11am, 5 to 7 hours of play depending on your team
- Meals included
- Dinner, breakfast, tea, coffee and snacks throughout
- Over 300 m²
- The manor, its garden and its outbuildings
- Age 12 and up
- Recommended minimum age
- Beds made up
- Bed linen and towels provided
What the night includes
- The full seventeen-hour experience
- An actor with you from start to finish, present but discreet
- Dinner — starter, main, cheese and dessert, cooked here from local produce
- Breakfast: pastries, brioche, bread
- Unlimited tea, coffee and snacks through the night
- Your bed, made up, with bed linen and towels
- A group photograph
Wine and soft drinks are charged separately. Tell us about allergies and dietary requirements when you book and we will cook around them. Please do not bring your own alcohol.
The food is not an interlude
Dinner is cooked on site from Burgundy produce, down to the things you nibble before you sit down. It is a real meal at a real table, and it is also the hour when everyone at that table is deciding how much to tell everyone else.
The same care goes into the rest: proper beds, an actor who stays with you all the way through without ever getting in the way, and a house detailed closely enough that people forget, for stretches at a time, that any of it was built.
Price: between €129 and €269 per person, everything included. The rate falls as the group grows, and weekday nights cost less than Friday and Saturday. English and French sessions are priced the same.
Getting to Vitteaux
Vitteaux is a village in the Auxois, in northern Burgundy, halfway between Paris and Lyon — roughly two hours from each. There is a car park directly opposite the house, and two EV charging points in the village.
By train, via Montbard
Montbard is on the Paris–Dijon high-speed line, about an hour from Paris Gare de Lyon. Then a bus to Vitteaux, 30 to 60 minutes.
By train, via Les Laumes
Alésia–Venarey–Les Laumes is the closest station to the village. Bus onward to Vitteaux, 30 to 60 minutes.
By train, via Dijon
Dijon is the largest hub and the easiest to reach from most of Europe. Bus onward to Vitteaux.
By car
Motorway A6 or A38. Around 45 minutes from Dijon, two hours from Paris, two hours from Lyon. Free parking opposite the house.
We do not run a shuttle from the station. Bus lines 73, 119 and 122 serve the village — check timetables before you travel, as services are limited in the evening. If you are arriving without a car, tell us your train and we will help you work out the last leg.
Before you book
Do we need escape room experience?
No. The Heritage is built to be played by people who have never done one, and it still holds up for players who have done hundreds. The actor is with you throughout and adjusts to your team.
Do we really sleep in the house?
Yes. Beds are made up for you, linen and towels included, and the night on site is part of the experience rather than an extra. Play usually ends in the late evening or during the night, depending on your team.
Is there someone with us the whole time?
Yes — an actor in character, from your arrival at 6pm until you leave. They stay close without getting in the way, and they adjust to how your team is doing. This is not a game run remotely through cameras and a speaker.
Can we play as a group of two or three?
The Heritage is designed for 6 to 12 players, but you do not need to fill it yourselves. Book a shared session and you will play alongside one to three other groups. There is also a shorter daytime session, 2pm to 7pm on weekdays, without the meal or the overnight stay.
How fit do we need to be?
Not at all. The game is about moving through a house and solving things, with no physical challenges. There are a couple of tight passages where players of a larger build may find it awkward.
Is it frightening?
No. The Heritage is not horror and it is not built on scares. It is a story about an inheritance and the people who want it — the tension comes from what your teammates are hiding, not from anything jumping out at you.
Are there enclosed spaces?
You move through a 300 m² house, its outbuildings and its garden, so there is far more room than in a conventional escape room. A few windowless rooms and narrow passages may still be uncomfortable if you are claustrophobic, and you can step aside at any point.
What should we wear?
Something comfortable you do not mind getting dusty — there is crawling. Bring warm layers in the colder months, as parts of the game take you outside.
What is the minimum age?
Twelve is our recommended minimum.
Book an English session Ask us a question
At step two of the booking form, answer the language question with English. Same price as a French session.
Our second house, in English from 2027
Gamotel runs a second venue at Pont-sur-Yonne, an hour south of Paris: Multiple, opened in July 2025, with over 600 m² of playable space — the largest overnight escape venue currently operating in France. Its story follows Dr Rentrock, a neurologist preoccupied with the layers of human memory, and his former amnesiac patients.
It currently runs in French only. We are preparing the English version for 2027, and we would rather do it properly than quickly. Write to us at contact@gamotel.com and we will let you know when it opens.