Chateau du Verger, Vou

There is a substantial bell at the gate.

 

The Chateau du Verger near Vou is what in French is known as a gentilhommière, a gentleman's residence, in this case really a fortified manor house, composed of a large rectangular main building with several towers. 

The polygonal tower appears to be having some work done.

 

On the north facade, the courtyard side, a distinctive polygonal tower rises, housing a vast spiral staircase giving access to all floors. The Renaissance entrance door is framed by flat pilasters and surmounted by a double moulded lintel with four medallions. A small circular turret, set in a watchtower at the angle between the staircase tower and main block, serves as a staircase to the uppermost floor. At the southwest corner of the house is a round tower whose upper part was dismantled: it was cut diagonally and its parapet walk was removed, while the corbelling of the machicolations was cut flush with the wall.

The truncated tower, with the main block behind.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

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Sheep

 

Sheep weathervane on the barn.

 

I photographed these sheep because they were attractive and it looked like they lived in lovely well maintained surroundings. I don't know what breed they are.

Ewes and a lamb.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Memorial to American First World War Services of Supply in Tours

There is a rather unusual war memorial in Tours. It's appearance is striking for a start, as it is topped by a gilded statue of a Native American holding a Bald Eagle. It is a memorial to members of the Services of Supply in the American Expeditionary Forces who aided French troops during the First World War.

The American supply troops were mostly based at Tours and their job was to ensure supplies got through to French troops on the frontline. During their time here they built 1500 locomotives for the war effort.

 

The memorial is ten and a half metres high, in two elements. The lower part is a limestone basin, the upper part the aforementioned gilt bronze Indian. The four women on the column that joins the basin to the bronze represent the four branches of the service -- procurement, construction, administration and distribution. It was commissioned in 1925 by the American Battle Monuments Commission and designed by a Franco-American team of architects and sculptors. To the relief of the cash strapped municipal administration of Tours the American Battle Monuments Comminssion took charge of the cost of the monument. With all the delicate negotiations about who paid for what, where the monument would be sited and what it would look like, it wasn't until 1937 that it was inaugurated.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Chateau de la Roche-Berthault

A glimpse of a medieval building in the grounds of the chateau.

Abandoned for more than fifty years, the Chateau de la Roche-Berthault was restored from 2000 by retired Belgian diplomats Raphaëlle and Benoît de Viron Cardon de Lichtbuer, who have turned it into holiday accommodation. The outbuildings have been turned into self-catering holiday lets.

A tourist posing in front of the chateau. Nice car!

There has been a feudal castle here since the 14th century, but the current one dates from a century later, and was enlarged in the 18th century, then seized and sold as national property during the Revolution. The estate was divided and neglected and the buildings deteriorated until they were restored in the 19th century. Currently the chateau consists of a main block oriented north-south, with a polygonal tower on the eastern facade. It was extended to the north-west with a large round tower and a smaller one, and another tower added at the southern end. There is also a chapel and medieval troglodyte caves.

The northern end of the chateau.

In September and October the grounds are an ever extending carpet of cyclamens, lovingly encouraged by the owners.

Cyclamens sprinkled about and colonising the understorey.

The chateau dominates the valley and is surrounded by a park of hundred year old trees.

Viewed across the fodder sorghum.

Viewed across the valley.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Valencay Cheese

Valençay cheese is a goats milk cheese that comes from the Berry, in the area around the town of Valençay. Like the other goats cheeses of the Loire Valley it is a raw milk cheese, coated in ash and salt and eaten at about three weeks old. 

A Valençay cheese, bought from the cheese truck at Loches market.

Legend has it that Valençay was originally a classic pyramid-shaped cheese. In order not to remind Napoleon of his defeat in Egypt, Talleyrand, who was then living in the Château de Valençay, had them "beheaded" before offering them to him!

Of course, it's not true, but it's a great story. 

Pure white inside.

 

Only 26 farms produce the green labelled artisanal farmhouse cheese. Red labelled Valencay is also available, produced by half a dozen factories in the area. The two products differ because the farmhouse cheese must only contain the milk from a single 24 hour period, from a single herd (the one on the farm) , where as the factory cheese can contain milk from a 48 hour period from a number of farms. As well as producers there are specialist refiners too, who carefully mature and age the cheese under controlled conditions of temperature, humidity and air movement.

Each cheese weighs around 220 grams, and 340 tonnes of Valencay cheese are produced annually.

The proper way to cut it is from top to bottom, in wedges radiating out from the centre. Our friend Jean-Louis does it expertly, with the cheese in one hand and his pen knife in the other.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Coastal Billabong

 

This coastal billabong is near Iluka in northern New South Wales. Tumbling over the bank is Saltwater Paperbark Melaleuca cuticularis and in the water the non-native Cape Blue Waterlily Nymphaea caerulea.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Carrelets

Wooden fishing huts perched on piles above the sea along the Charente-Maritime coast are emblematic of this area, many dating from the late 19th century, but the oldest were constructed three centuries ago. They grew in numbers after the First World War, when most people got paid holidays. Some, the older style, are only accessible at low tide, but others have high jetties. If you want to acquire one for your own leisure, it could cost up to €35 000, depending on condition (and they are a lot of work to maintain, with some very strict rules that apply). Owners also pay a monthly fee to the Department of Maritime Affairs of about €400 (pro rata, based on the size of the cabin). There is a waiting list for concessions too, and prospective owners will need to wait for the previous generation to give them up.

The name carrelet refers to the square nets used to catch eels, prawns and mullet, which have been used by hand here since the 14th century. So strictly speaking we should talk of 'emplacements de pontons de pêche au carrelet' (square net fishing pontoon places). There are over 500 of these little cabins, sometimes brightly painted and providing a picturesque element in the landscape. They are now officially listed as cultural heritage.

The carrelets themselves are a 4 metre by 4 metre frame with a 12 millimetre mesh net. It allows fishermen to return unharmed any fish that are too small. The platforms have been equipped with pulleys and winches since the 19th century to assist with raising the nets.

The platforms must not exceed 20 square metres and the cabin must not be bigger than 10 square metres. Although fishing at night is allowed, you cannot sleep overnight in the cabin.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Chateau des Repenellieres

 

Chateau des Repénellières.

The 19th century Chateau des Repénellières was the home of the Mayor of Ligueil during Napoleon III's Second Empire (1852 - 1870).

Vine hut (Fr. cabane de vigne).

The vines are long gone from the estate, but this very posh vine workers hut remains. It is right on the roadside at the intersection of the D212 and the D59.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Demarcation Line Memorial

Demarcation line memorial.

On the intersection of the D59 and the D212 at a spot known as Bel-Air, near Ligeuil, there is a memorial to the Demarcation Line. The road here was once cut by the border established in the early days of World War Two between Vichy France and Occupied France.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Modern Day Muleteers

On 10 October I heard clip-clopping down our street and looked up to see a pair of mules and a pair of what I assumed were pilgrims passing our front window. I rushed out and snapped a photo of them disappearing down the street.

The next day, returning to Le Grand Pressigny at the end of a 10 kilometre walk with the hiking club, I was thrilled to discover the 'pilgrims' and their mules at the café on the market place. The mules were snacking idly on linden tree leaves and the 'pilgrims' were drinking coffee.

 

They are clearly well used to people coming up to them and wanting to know who they are and what they are doing. It turns out that they had started in the Pyrenees and were walking to Brittany. They aren't really pilgrims, at least not in the religious sense. I didn't manage to get to the bottom of why they were doing it, nor did I catch their names. 

The mules, on the other hand, are called Amulette and Flora. Amulette is smaller than Flora because Flora's mother was a big Breton draught horse breed. The mules will require reshoeing four times over the course of the journey. I wish now I had asked all sorts of other questions about how they managed to find places to stop, how they found food for the mules and how many kilometres they did per day. The mules were charming creatures, very well behaved and placid.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Chateau de la Motte-Usseau

 

The 15th century Chateau de la Motte-Usseau stands on the border of Poitou and the Touraine as a testiment to the architecture of the late Middle Ages. It is built around the motte of an even older chateau, as its raised central private courtyard reveals.

 

It seems to have been occupied by monks in the 19th and 20th centuries, who undertook extensive renovations, alterations (new openings) and additions (outbuildings). At one point in the 20th century it looks like the main dwelling was used as a granary.

The chateau is now privately owned and offers accommodation [link]. As you can see from our photograph is easy to get to, just off the A10 (L'Aquitaine).

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Braised Red Cabbage

There really is only one way to cook red cabbage, and it's completely different to the green variety.

Ingredients
1 kg red cabbage (about half a large cabbage, or a whole small one), outer leaves and core removed, shredded
500 g onions, finely chopped
500 g apples, peeled, cored and finely chopped
A clove of garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp ras al hanout (North African spice mix)
1/4 tsp ground coriander seed
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp five spice
3 tbsp soft brown sugar
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp apple juice
3 tbsp water
1 tbsp butter
Salt and pepper

Method

1. Heat the oven to 150C*.
2. Combine the apples, garlic, spices and sugar. 
3. Combine the vinegar, apple juice and water.
4. Put one third of the cabbage in a large casserole or boiler, season with salt and pepper.
5. Top with half the apple and onion mixture.
6. Repeat with a layer of cabbage, a layer of apple and onion and a final layer of cabbage.
7. Pour the liquid mixture over.
8. Put dabs of butter all over the top.
9. Cover and cook for 2 hours.
10. *Can be cooked on very low heat on top of the stove (I often do it on our wood burning stove).
11. Serves 8, freezes and reheats well.

Yum

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Yamba Ocean Pool

Access to the beach near Yamba.

Yamba Ocean Pool is the most northerly of New South Wales' glorious ocean pools. For those of you unfamiliar with them, they are swimming pools cut into the natural rocks in the littoral zone, so that they fill and empty with the tide. They are rarely signposted and hardly anyone but locals use them.  For a thousand kilometres south along the east coast of Australia from Yamba to Eden there are around 60 ocean pools. Yamba's ocean pool was built in 1969, but many of them date from between the Wars.

The coast near Yamba.

The pool was recently refurbished after years of lack of maintenance. The pool is 33 metres long and located on the southern end of the beach. It is associated with a Surf Lifesaving Club, who use it for practising rescue techniques and training, so it is a very safe pool to use and the public have free access. There are public toilets and outdoor showers on the path back up to the clubhouse.

Yamba Ocean Pool.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Porcelain Flowers in Moeze Cemetery

There are quite a few graves in Moëze cemetery, in the Charente-Maritime, that are decorated with these colourful porcelain wreaths.

 

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Back in Lockdown

From midnight last night we are back in full lockdown. That means that non-essential shops are closed, tourist attractions are closed, people are only allowed out of their homes for necessary shopping, medical appointments, to help a vulnerable relative or for a maximum of an hour's outdoor exercise no more than one kilometre from home. If you do go out you need to be carrying an document which states why you are out and when you left home.

For us, it's the restrictions on going out into the countryside for leisure that will make the big difference. No more meeting up with friends to go walking through all the forest trails and hamlets in the Sud Touraine. No more Sunday drives to discover chateaux we didn't previously know existed. 

The lockdown is fairly similar to the previous one in the spring, but this time with some tweaks that will be important for many families. It will be possible to visit relatives in aged care facilities, and family graves in cemeteries. The florist in our town has a derogation allowing her to stay open until midday Sunday, because it is Toussaints (All Saints). Yesterday we encountered several people bearing chrysanthemums on their way to the cemetery. Over the weekend there will be many more.

Bars and restaurants have to close. That's really hard on them. They've struggled all summer with the new regulations and tried their best to earn at least something. Some of them will do takeaways, but at least one small establishment we know is closing until February. The government will offer income support to businesses forced to close, but it is still tough.

We haven't worked since mid-March and have been living off government support. We are eligible until the end of the year, then we don't know what will happen. 

According to the map which shows numbers of cases in each municipality, there must be one or two people with Covid19 in Preuilly, but we don't know who they are. We know for sure there are cases in Le Grand Pressigny, and it's got into the aged care facility in La Celle Guenand. Loches isn't looking too good a colour on the map either. But mostly around us there are very few cases. The pandemic in Indre et Loire is concentrated in metropolitan Tours, as you would expect with a bigger centre of population.

Chateau de la Tour de Marmande

The Chateau de la Tour de Marmande is one of the most striking yet little known monuments in our area. It is in Poitou, right on the northern border with the Touraine and Anjou, with a tall thin tower that overlooks the landscape. The lords of Chatellerault, l'Ile Bouchard and Sainte Maure de Touraine faced one another off for centuries, near the strategic confluence of the Creuse and the Vienne. The name Marmande has a similar meaning to the English term 'marcher', meaning border lands. The history of the chateau's ownership is like reading a history of France -- the successive lords here were at all the battles that mattered and closely linked to the great events of French history. One died at Crécy, another at Agincourt. One fought pirates in the Mediterranean, another was right hand man to a sad mad king.

Looks like a truffle orchard beyond the buildings in the middle distance.

Finally, after its life as a defensive stronghold was finished, it was sold as a farm in 1830. The current owner, Véronique Kleiner, inherited it in 2014 and is descended from the man who purchased it 190 years ago. Everyone told her to get rid of it, but she decided to live in it. It is thanks to her that it is now listed as an Historic Monument but initial surveys revealed a building in a very parlous state.

 

She and her partner are science and history documentary makers, so they had good contacts to help research the chateau's history and archaeology. They also began to stabilise the structure and open every now and then to the public. They found that people were very eager to help, both physically with clearing the site of vegetation, and financially. Many people feel like it is 'their' chateau.

 

The oldest walls in the chateau complex date from 1000, when the feudal wars of the local barons meant that this area was regularly a battleground. Also dating from this period is a network of tunnels, with about 300 metres of underground galeries still extant. By the time these conflicts were resolved the Barons of Marmande were amongst the most powerful in France, holding high offices at court. Around 1300 the walls of the chateau were reinforced and in 1330, according to the dendrochronology, a 30 metre high watchtower was constructed. It is this tower which is still visible for many kilometres.

 

During the medieval period women inherited the chateau several times, and so by marriage the ownership was transferred to the lords of Sancerre, when Marguerite, Lady of Marmande, married Jean, Count of Sancerre, Chamberlain to King Charles VI, in 1357. This couple only had girls and in 1370 their oldest daughter Marguerite, Countess of Sancerre and Lady of Marmande, married Gérard V of Retz, companion in arms of the great Constable of France, du Guesclin. Gérard was almost immediately killed in battle and his widow, still only 16 years old, then married Béraud II, Dauphin d'Auvergne. Their daughter Marguerite brought the Chateau of Marmande with her as dowry when she married Jehan IV of Bueil. This marriage united l'Ile Bouchard and Marmande, and Jehan was Lord of Bueil, Montrésor and Courcelles, governor of Loches and Grand Master of the Crossbowmen of France. He fought alongside du Guesclin at Preuilly and La Roche Posay, and was killed in 1415 at Agincourt.

The parking has clearly been a tennis court in a past life.

 

Their son, Jehan V of Bueil, was a companion of Joan of Arc and fought with her at Orléans, Beaugency and Meung, earning himself the nickname of 'the scourge of the English'. He was one of the companions of Charles VII when he went to be crowned at Reims, and reinforced the defenses of Marmande with large scale works. He died in his bed in 1477, at the age of eighty.

Repairs being undertaken on the watchtower.

 

Eventually the family died out completely and the chateau was sold in 1730. It became nothing more than an easy source of building stone. The dwellings were dismantled, although the medieval defensive features like the watchtower, the curtain walls and the main keep were spared. Then it became a farm, and little by little its extraordinary past was forgotten.

The driveway.

 

Today it is hardly known outside its local area, but those of us familiar with the chateau recognise the historical value of the architectural remains and how they reflect the development of the fortress from the 11th century to the 16th. The very tall watchtower is one of only a few remaining examples of its kind, and the main keep has some fascinating grafitti depicting knights jousting on horseback.

What the chateau looked like in 2012.

 

Until four years ago there had never been any research or archaeology done on the site and much was shrouded in mystery. But now, with a team at work its history is revealing itself little by little. The chateau is built on a spur of friable stone, made even more structurally unsound by the extensive quarrying of underground galleries. Estimates of the cost of the work required come to 2 million euros, well beyond the means of the owner, even with a 40% grant from the Department of Arts and Culture. So they have approached D'Artagnans [link], a heritage charity which has organised a fundraising campaign for them. Their target was a modest €6000 (enough to do one metre of curtain wall), and they received more than twice that much in donations. They now have a 'Friends of la Tour de Marmande' type association which can help with fundraising and support. A programme of natural history and heritage events will take place when the building works and Covid19 allows.

Finally, they have been accepted as a project with the Mission Stéphane Bern [link], which means that work seems to be progressing apace, and the site is closed to the public for quite some time while the builders are in. You can keep up to date with their progress on their Facebook page [link].

We look forward to making a proper visit some time in the future.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos.