Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe: gorgeous frescoes

It's hard to do things all day — pick and de-stem and pit cherries, cook, shop, tour around, and visit with friends — and to blog about it all at the same time. Not to mention take and process pictures. I'm just barely keeping up.

Yesterday CHM and I drove down to Preuilly-sur-Claise to visit with Susan and Simon of Days on the Claise. We had a beautiful day for it. It takes an hour or a little more to drive down there, and we arrived in time to go have a look around in S & S's new garden and fruit orchard for an hour or so before heading to the Restaurant de l'Image for lunch.

After lunch, we visited three churches. The first was the one in Preuilly itself. The second, and by far the most impressive and interesting, was the church in the town of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, 30 minutes of so south of Preuilly. The third was the abbey church at Fontgombault. All are worth a visit.

CHM and Susan outside the church
at Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe

I'm posting pictures from Saint-Savin here. The church dates back to the early 12th century and is decorated all inside with polychrome frescoes that date from that same period. It's hard to take pictures because they ask you not to use a flash and the light, while bright for the interior of a church, is not quite sufficient. A tripod would help but I didn't have one with me yesterday.

Susan and Simon posted some nice pictures on Days on the Claise this morning. Have a look.

This morning we're headed over to the market in Noyers-sur-Cher, and probably to the supermarket, to get some things we need for our lunch with Martine (here's a link to her blog) tomorrow. We're still hoping for nice weather for our barbecue, but it's looking kind of iffy.