France June 1-5

NORMANDY. FRANCE.

Thursday 1 June.

After lunch we spent the afternoon on a self guided walking trail around Vernon.

 

 

 

  

Saturday 3 June. BRITTANY.

After a good buffet breakfast we drove a full day to our house exchange in Mohon in Brittany... A long drive of about 4 hours. Our hosts Philippa and Alan were there it let us in and show us the house and explain it's peculiarities. The house is very old with exposed timber beams and as Libby and Eric walk around upstairs everything creaks.

 

After settling in we went into town for a delicious lunch of buckwheat pancakes with savoury filling.

That night we were invited to have a bar-b-q dinner with Philippa and Alan, who are English. They bought a farmhouse, which we are in and which sleeps 9 people. Then they renovated the adjoining barn into a comfortable home.

We had an interesting time with a lot of people all living or visiting here in Brittany. One couple were working through a scheme called 'work away', which allows them to offer their services to work in exchange for bed and board, while others were living here because it was a cheap option. Many old farmhouses have fallen into disrepair and can be bought cheaply and renovated.

There is a lot of concern about how Brexit will effect their status because if Britian leaves the Euro Zone, they will lose their right to reside and move freely there. One couple who had a Scottish grandparent, have bought a property in Scotland (which they referred to as a 'Bolt Hole') which In the event of Scotland leaving the UK and staying in the ECM, will secure their residency in France. Complicated!

Saturday 3 June.

We all had a sleep in after our big night out at the neighbour's bar-b-q and after  breakfast followed Alan and Philippa into Josselin to the weekly market. The stalls were arranged down the beautiful, medieval Main Street and into the main square and had the usual market clothing stalls. The food stalls were a different matter with homemade sausages, pates, pressed meats, bread and many sweet treats as well as fruit and vegetables locally produced.

 

 

 

 

We bought a small hot chicken, with potatoes and onions and a couple of long baguettes and walked down to the river, past the moored canal boats to a pontoon where we sat and ate our small feast in the shadow of the Chateaux. Life is not too bad!

Before leaving Josselin we went food shopping and stocked up with enough to last us through the next two days which are public holidays.

Back home got some washing done and then Libby, Glenn and I went for a wander in our small village which is obviously well loved and picturesque and were surprised to find it boasts a large church and a town hall.

 

 

It was my turn to cook dinner but when we returned from our walk, Eric was in the kitchen chopping vegetables and listening to music with our spaghetti bolognaise well on the way. Easiest dinner I ever cooked!

Sunday June 4.

Philippa told us that the grounds of the Josselin castle were open to the public and suggested we take the opportunity to see them. It is a remarkable blend of medieval and Renaissance architecture and has been the home of the Rohan family for over a thousand years.

Three majestic towers dominate the Oust valley and the facade of the building overlooks a magnificent garden in the French style, with ornamental box and yew and a garden boasting 40 varieties of roses. There is also an English garden with rare species of azaleas, camellias, hydrangeas and rhododendrons, set around a babbling brook.

 

  

 

Normandy again. MONT-SAN-MICHEL.

Monday June 5.

The four of us piled into the car to drive north for about two hours, to see Mont-San-Michel Abbey, thought to date back to 708 .

It was built as a sanctuary to honour Saint Michael the Archangel and soon became a place of pilgrimage. The Benedictines settled there in the 10th century and a village grew below its walls. It became an impregnable stronghold and a symbol of national identity.

In 1979 it was listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

 

 We parked the car and walked the 2.5 kms out along the new boardwalk (completed in 2014), to the Abbey. It's raised above the water of the River Couesnon which has been damned to control the flow and manage silt build-up. It leads to the village year-round, except for several hours a year when tide is high enough for the Mont to become an island, set in the middle of its original backdrop. The sea surges into the Mont-Saint -Michel Bay twice a day and flows out as far as 15 kms from the coast during spring tides. 

 

The 15th. century ramparts, built to protect the mount and abbey from the English during the Hundred Years War, wound their way upwards providing panoramic views of the surrounding countryside and the shops and streets of the village within. We ate our baguettes there being buffetted by the strong winds and watching a sparrow waiting for our crumbs.

 

 

 

Built in the early decades of the year 1000, the abbey church was constructed on the top of the rock, 80 metres above sea level, on a platform eighty metres long. The nave has an elevation on three levels: arches, galleries and tall Windows and is covered with a wood-panelled barrel vault. Glenn standing in one of the four fireplaces in the Guest's Hall which was designed for receiving royalty and nobility.

Unfortunately the cloister was under renovation so we couldn't enter but from a viewing boardwalk could appreciate the double row of small columns, slightly out of line, which created ever-changing views of the lake. We could imagine what a beautiful green place of prayer and meditation it would be on completion.

 

The picture above shows the Saint Martin crypt from which a small passage leads to an enormous wheel. It was installed around 1820 in order to hoist provisions to the prisoners held in the abbey when it was turned into a prison and is a replica of the pulleys used for hoisting building materials in the Middle Ages.

 

 

  

It has been a particularly interesting day for Glenn and I, who could not help but compare our visit today, with our first when we parked our Kombi on the riverside and walked across the rough causeway to the Mount. That was 43 years ago!!