These are three views from the terrace of the château at Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher. The first one is what you see when you are standing basically with your back to the Renaissance-era château (16th century), which I posted photos of yesterday. What you see here is a group of buildings from, I believe, the 19th century — including stables and a pretty big house (detail below). Behind them and on the right are ruins of the old fortifications from the 10th century.
Looking north from the terrace you see the rooftops of houses that line the banks of the Cher River, the island that splits the river into two branches at this point, and a spillway that helps regulate the depth of the river upstream as well as under the bridge downstream.
Looking south or southeast, you have a good view of the rooftops on the other side of town, which sits in a valley delimited by higher ground on two sides, including the promontory with the château on top of it.
We won't be going south out of Saint-Aignan this weekend because today is a holiday in France, and there will no doubt be many people coming to enjoy a day at the zoo, and a lot of car traffic. A Thursday holiday means a lot of people will take Friday off and stretch their weekend to four days. The weather right now is gorgeous and is predicted to stay gorgeous until at least Monday.
Now, on the last photo, I can see the landing of the stairs from the church. I had no idea where that flight of stairs led to.
ReplyDeleteI have other photos of that staircase that I will post in the next few days.
DeleteThe first photo in this post was a "stitch" and it wasn't perfect. I just used a feature in Photoshop to redo it, and it's better now. Take a look.
DeleteThe first photo looked good to me, but this one is excellent.
DeleteI am really enjoying the photos of your surrounds. Magnificent buildings. Love the bridge with the restaurant in the middle.
ReplyDeleteSounds like France and Greece have a few similarities. A holiday on Tuesday or Thursday always turns into a four day weekend!
May 1 and May 8 are holidays in France, and this year both fell on Mondays, depriving people of their 4 or 5 day weekends. Ascension Day always falls on a Thursday, today this year.
DeleteI, too , am enjoying these photos so much ! and of course the daydreaming that results, "if only I could live there too " :)
ReplyDeleteI don't usually see (or notice?) the 10th century ruins -- can't wait to see this in person!
ReplyDeleteThe first photo puts the history in place.
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