Tag Nouvelle-Aquitaine

Château de La Roche Courbon

Steve and Carole 1 Comment

Last week the sun was shining and it felt like spring was in the air, so my ‘blog buddy’ Carolyn suggested visiting Château de La Roche Courbon, at Saint – Porchaire. Only an hour and twenty minutes drive away and as we pulled up in the carpark, the grandeur, charm and size of the château was a real ‘wow’!

The château dates back in the 15th century and was built by Jehan de Latour. After living there for more than two centuries, the Courbon family started to refurbish the château in the 17th century, making it a more elegant and comfortable residence which was eventually sold in 1817. The château was then mainly abandoned until Pierre Loti discovered and bought the château and then using his fame as a novelist, he launched a public appeal to save the château and forest by taking out a page in La Figaro in 1908. Paul Chénereau purchased in 1920 and set about fully restoring the château and its gardens to its former glory. It is still privately owned by the family.

The French gardens have the expected formality, topiary, fountains and statues and even on a February day, still looked stunning surrounding the ‘mirror pond’. Will need to revisit when the gardens are in full bloom!

The river Bruant flows through the grounds and there are ornamental steps leading to higher ground and giving you the best view of the château.

At this time of the year, only one of the walking routes was open and it took us through pretty woodlands to the sandstone cliffs and caves dating to prehistoric times. Neanderthal man lived in these caves approximately 50,000 years ago. The first prehistoric art works were probably made by Neanderthal. And here is the geology bit – the caves have been carved out by running rainwater through the limestone layer and the backwash of the river’s flow which follows the whole length of the caves.

The maintenance of the château and the grounds is on going, of course. Sadly, during a terrible storm in December 1999, 60% of the forest was destroyed. The project of replanting rows of oaks, lindons and field maples alongside the natural regeneration of the forest continues to this day.

So, a beautiful morning with the added plus of notching up 8000 plus steps! Oh! and in case you are wondering, there are about 45,000 châteaux in France.

One year on at our French home

Steve and Carole 4 Comments

We celebrated one year in our house at the end of November. Life in France is good and we have made some lovely friends. Charlie has also made some doggy friends!

Since the summer, we have been working hard on the house, well I say ‘we’, I mean Steve! I can only assist with the odd bit of painting where I can be trusted and keep the cups of tea coming. Our first priority was to be warm this winter, so we had a ‘pompe à chaleur’ (heat pump) installed and some insulation on the walls and floor. We discovered that our exterior walls are one metre thick after one of the mega drills got stuck!

So, I am typing this in the warm! Our second priority being to have our lounge cosy and finally order some sofas. Our wood flooring is a lot warmer than the tiles. Here are a few ‘before’ and ‘nearly there’ photos!

Almost finished …..

We’ve moved upstairs to one of the bedrooms and added an en-suite shower room.

So, still some finishing bits, window to be painted white and these lovely tiles for the en-suite.

Next project will be the guest room as we have now bought the bed. Can’t wait to have friends and family over to visit. However, we bought the paint for the kitchen so maybe there will be two projects on the go!

We bought some garden furniture including sunbeds which took a while (days!) to put together and a well deserved beer was needed afterwards.

Finally, it’s been interesting to see what has flowered in our garden during our first full year and there are some fantastic plants that we can add to.

But next year will be about pots, pots and more pots!

I hope to be back motivated with a lot of blogging on our French adventures in 2024.

We say ‘goodbye’ to a very tough and sad 2023 with mum unexpectedly leaving us in May and life just isn’t the same, we all miss her so much. Especially at this time of year as mum loved Christmas!

Take care and I wish you a peaceful, healthy and happy 2024.