Guédelon Castle - incredible

Saturday 14 September 2024

Nido's parked up on a grass area by the river Loire, with six other vans.  We're in the village of Jargeau, not far from Orléans, in the Loire Valley.  The brown river is wide, flowing at quite a pace and, with the trees dripping in moss and mistletoe along the river, it has the feel of the Mississippi. It's dark, it's quiet and it's a nice place to drop anchor for the night.

I don't have a bucket list; I don't believe in it.  But one of the places I've wanted to visit for over 25 years, since we watched it on TV with our children, is the building of a castle in the old quarry in Guédelon, near Treigny.  The castle is the focus of an  experimental archaeology project aimed at recreating a 13th-century castle and its environment using period building techniques, dress, and materials.

Materials, including wood and stone, are all obtained locally. Jacques Moulin, chief architect for the project, designed the castle according to the architectural model developed during the 12th and 13th centuries by Phillip II of France.  

Construction started in 1997 under Michel Guyot, owner of Chateau de Saint-Fargeau, a castle in Saint-Fargeau, 13km away. The site was chosen according to the availability of construction materials: an abandoned stone quarry in a large forest, with a nearby pond.  Building work continues and it will carry on for many years to come.

There's ample parking for motorhomes if you arrive early and it currently costs €16 per person, which I think is a very reasonable fee.

Once paid and in, the area opened up in front of us.  We could see the main construction of the castle, but decided to leave that until we'd visited everything else. All around the castle, as it would have been in the 13th Century, there were the artisans who were involved in building the castle, plus all the additional trades associated with a medieval castle build.

The first stop was the Quarrymen, who took the huge blocks of stone and used various methods to break these down into smaller, workable stones.  It was fascinating to watch them as they felt and observed the rock, gradually making holes with hammer and chisel in order to insert wedges in order to break the rock at its weakest point.  We all cheered as he finally broke the huge sandstone boulder, the mason taking a bow!

But this was just the start of the process as the highly-skilled stone masons then took this rough stone and started to hammer and chisel them into the various stones needed to build walls, arches, windows, doors and so on.  As we watched them, it was clear it took a lot of expertise, skill and time just to create one of many bespoke stone building blocks.

The other thing we very quickly realised was that everything - and I mean everything - had to be made by hand on site for whatever job.  Every tool, prop and machine had to be manufactured on site out of stone, metal or wood.  The skill and effort required was mind-blowing.

We moved on to other areas, including carpenters, who worked with huge oak tree trunks for the main hall, down to small wooden pegs and wooden roof shales.  Nothing was wasted; the bark and shavings were utilised in other areas.  

There were potters creating roof and floor tiles, pots, jugs and bowls in local clay.  Even seeing two men spending hours removing leaves, twigs and stones from the clay to prepare it was a revelation.  We watched ladies weaving baskets and containers from rushes and willow grown on site.  We watched others winding hemp into long ropes.

There were painters and dyers using the natural resources around them - stone, sand, trees and flowers.  In the gardens, plants were grown for food and medicines.

The blacksmiths were hard at work, creating, sharpening and fixing tools, as well as creating all the iron products needed. We watched one blacksmith spend about 15 minutes creating one large iron nail and rivet; there are tens of thousands of these being used.

Finally walking into the castle, it really was like stepping back 800 years.  Everyone who works there is in authentic period costume and they're working away as if we visitors don't exist - it's surreal.  We walked in and around the castle, up spiral staircases, into the various rooms and halls, all decorated by hand with handmade tiles.  

The Privy or long drop!

Bread oven

It was incredible to think that every stone, every piece of roof or wood, every piece of furniture, had been built on site using the raw materials at hand.  It's only then did I realise the effort that went in to building all the castles and medieval houses in the UK; it truly is mind blowing.

We had lunch on site then walked back to the van.  A truly amazing place and if you have the opportunity to visit, do so.

We drove from there to our night stop alongside the canal at Rogny Les Sept Écluses.  We parked up and walked along the canal and over a couple of bridges to take a look at the seven locks.  Now by-passed and therefore dry and redundant, it was still interesting to walk up the length of the old seven locks. After dinner and a busy day, we were in bed early.

It was very foggy this morning when I took Salty out but after showers and breakfast, it cleared into a calm and reasonably sunny day.  After a stop off at Super U for food and diesel, we arrived at this park up by the Loire.  A post-lunch walk took us on a path running alongside the river, before returning for a cup of tea sat in the sunshine, then a tasty chicken roast dinner sat in the van.  It's quiet now and we start to head west tomorrow towards the coast of the Cotentin peninsula of Normandy, an area we know well.

Lakes, canals and rain

Thursday 12 September 2024

Nido's parked by the Nivernais canal in the tiny hamlet of Chevroches.  Apart from the two moored boats, there's just us and a UK registered Mazda MX5.  The towpath is part of the Voie Verte national cycle path and occasional cyclists pass us in both directions.  There's no facilities here, but the van is serviced so we're fine being off grid.  Reading the information board, Chevroches was a loading port for stone that was used to build roads and bridges, as well as finishing off the Louvre, plus is still in place paving the streets of London.

Yesterday it started raining in the early hours and the forecast was for rain most of the day, which is how it turned out.  Given this we drove a little further into the Parque Natural Regional de Morvan, to a Camping Car Park site in La Faye, on the shores of Lac des Settons.  Surrounded by fir and larch woods, at an altitude of 600m, this man made reservoir covers 360 hectares and has developed to meet the needs of holidaymakers during the summer months.  The CCP site used to be a municipal campsite and the 41 pitches are set out over three raised terraces. 

When we arrived there were only another three vans parked up, so I was able to pick a pitch on gravel, then hook us up to the electric and settle down for the day.  We caught up with YouTube and I took Salty out for a walk when the rain abated, although it was only around the site as the paths down to the lake were flooded.  It was a shame we hit a poor weather window, as it would have been a nice place to stay for a couple of nights.  But we'd already decided to move on and find better weather and somewhere we could walk.

So this brought us to Chevroches this morning.  Once parked up, raincoats were packed in a rucksack and we set off along the Voie Verte path.  It was a peaceful, quiet walk along the canal, past locks and old, rundown lock keepers' cottages; they would make wonderful homes.  A couple of miles on we arrived in the town of Clamecy, with its medieval centre, ancient houses and narrow cobbled streets.  The town is located on a rocky outcrop at the confluence of the Yonne and the Beuvron rivers, bordering the Nivernais canal.  It was once the capital of wood-floating, where tree trunks were floated along the rivers as far as Paris.

By now it was lunch time so of course all the shops were closed and very few people were about, so we had it almost all to ourselves.  I found a boulangerie still open so bought a baguette and a couple of meat bakes (nothing like Greggs - these had real meat in them, properly seasoned and delicious pastry).  We ate the pastries on a marble seat overlooking the old town.

As we started to walk back it started to rain quite heavily as we walked along the opposite canal bank, but once the sun returned we soon dried out.  Back at the van Salty and his harness needed a scrub as he'd rolled in something unsavoury - it's possible it might even have been human!  Once that was done (and hands were thoroughly scrubbed clean) we enjoyed our cup of tea and shared some patisserie.  The rest of the day was sat watching the cyclists and boats in this very quiet corner of Burgundy, again with a mix of heavy rain showers and warm sunny spells.

Dinner tonight was lazy - a Thai noodle soup, from a packet, with ready noodles, bolstered by garlic, ginger, mushrooms and green beans, mopped up with the baguette we bought in Clamecy, which had to be broken in two and stowed in the rucksack as we walked back to stop it getting soggy!

It's settled down here now, the wind has dropped, the sky has cleared and I think it will be a chilly evening.  For the first time this trip we'll be sleeping under a quilt, rather than a sheet and blanket.

Tomorrow we have an exciting day planned, a place I've wanted to visit for over 25 years.....

Perfection in Charolais

Tuesday 10 September 2024

Nido's parked up deep in the Burgundy countryside, in the tiny hamlet of Rémilly. There aren't many houses here, but several seemed to be owned by the Dutch, going by the cars and the language of those we passed when out walking.  There's a tiny café/shop/restaurant and a really nice, peaceful, comforting feel about the place. On Friday night the café is offering a €20 three course menu; no doubt the community will come together to support them.  If we had been able to live in France before the Brexit abomination, it would have been in a place like this. We're parked up on the aire, which is a grassy area next to a flowing river, with kingfishers flying past. It's idyllic.  We sat outside to eat dinner, watching the sun set, with the only sound being the river flowing past, birds and the Charolais cattle in all the surrounding fields.

Leaving Matour yesterday morning we drove to the small village of Gibles, just 13km away.  This was another small village which offered not only a free aire, but a free services, including electricity.  All they asked was for a donation to the village school, which I was more than happy to drop into the honesty box, along with a note of thanks to the local commune.  There was plenty of room and the pitches were flat, overlooking a children's playground.  

Gibles aire

It rained most of the day so we chilled in the van, catching up on the YouTubers we follow.  After dinner the rain stopped, so we took Salty for a walk around the village and up the lanes towards a forest block.  The fields around us reminded us of Devon, with small enclosures separated by hedgerows.  This being prime Charolais country, the cattle were in pretty much every field. The meat is known to be delicious but the animal is also known to be grumpy towards humans so we kept our distance on the safe side of the electric fences!

Like us, he was bored of the rain

This morning I popped into the village boulangerie, which is also a café and a small epicerie (grocery shop).  I entered and offered a 'Bonjour' to the elderly ladies in the queue.  I learnt a long while ago to say Bonjour on entering a small village shop, to say it again to anyone who enters behind me and again when I reach the head of the queue. So my fifth Bonjour was to the lady behind the counter as I asked for a baguette.  She laughed as I pondered over the patisserie and said there was too much choice, but eventually chose two which were placed carefully in a small white cardboard box.  

On the road again, we stopped at the Le Clerc supermarket in Digoin, as victuals were running low, before driving on through this lovely, rich, rolling countryside to Rémilly.  As it was quite late in the afternoon we took Salty out for a walk, past the church and village square with the tiny café/shop and up onto a farm track that took us up with views over the countryside.

Rémilly aire

Village café, shop, restaurant

As it's Charolais beef country, I bought two steaks in the supermarket, which were outstanding.  Cooked on the Cadac BBQ and accompanied by boiled new potatoes, green beans sautéd in butter, garlic, lemon juice and Halen Môn (Anglesey sea salt), we sat outside with a bottle of local Burgundy red and watched the sun set as we ate.  I can't think of a better place to be right now. 

Dish washing pre-wash cycle!