The small towns of le Grand Pressigny and Chauvigny are only about 50km apart, but one is in the Touraine and one in Poitou-Charentes.
Both have picturesque ruins of a 12th century
château at the highest point in town. Stylistically the two
châteaux are very similar.
Le Grand Pressigny
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Chauvigny
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Most of the houses in town are roofed with terracotta tiles in both places, but in le Grand Pressigny, all the tiles are flat (
tuiles plates), and in Chauvigny, all the tiles are curved (
tuiles canal).
Le Grand Pressigny
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Chauvigny
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Susan
PS Simon wrote a
piece on the different styles of roof tile some time ago which you may like to refer to for further details.
4 comments:
I love the rooftops of Le Grand-Pressigny. I think this is the view down Rue du Donjon. Did you take it from the grounds of the chateau?
The ruined spiral staircase makes a great photo!
The wonders of French: it should be tuiles plates (with the E) and tuiles canal (without the S). Plat/plats/plate/plates is an adjective and agrees with the noun it modifies. Canal here is (I think) not an adjective but a noun forming a compound noun with tuiles. Again, the wonders of French.
Ken: Thanks, corrected now. I think you must be right about canal because often it appears on its own rather than as the compound as the name for these roof tiles. I knew plat needed an 's' to agree with the noun, but forgot it should be feminine too.
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