Villentrois : sa forteresse médiévale

Just 6 or 7 miles southeast of Saint-Aignan stand the ruins of the medieval château-fort and village called Villentrois (pop. 600). The fortress was built by Fulk III (Foulques Nerra in French), a powerful count of Anjou (b. 970–d. 1040) who spent his life fortifying his territory. Villetrois was the easternmost fortification he built, but he built many others, including at nearby Saint-Aignan (on the far right in my blog banner photo above), Montrichard, and Loches. I'd like to know the origin of the name Villetrois, but so far I have found that information. The old town itself is made up not of three but two bourgs (neighborhoods, in this case. One grew up around the old church, and the other at the base of the château-fort.

This is a view from the road as I drove through Villentrois. We usually go through the town on our way to Valençay, which is just 3 or 4 miles farther east.

I took these photos of an old pump and a millstone down at the base of the fortress when I stopped there one day.

Ce n'est pas un château...

...mais c'est chez nous depuis plus de 18 ans. The time had come to get a new sofa. The old one, which we bought in 2010, was looking slightly dingy (miteux, vétuste, fatigué). The dogs have never spent time on it, but the cat certainly has. So a few weeks ago, we took the covers off the seat and back cushions and washed them. That was a bad idea. The zippers on the back of both of the seat cushions broke. So we knew we were in trouble. Here's what the old sofa looked like in November 2010.

If you've ever visited (BettyAnn, CHM, Evelyn, Judy...), then you've seen the old beige sofa already. After much on-line shopping, we found the new blue sofa you see below. It's longer, with three true seats, and it's higher off the floor. It was delivered on Thursday, before we had taken the old sofa out, so we had the delivery guys put the new one in the garage downstairs. I think they were happy not to have to carry it up the stairs to the living room. Here's what the living room looks like now.

The old sofa was heavy, and getting it down the stairs wasn't easy. Thursday was a hot and fairly humid day. We both broke a sweat, for sure. Getting the new sofa up the stairs wasn't quite as hard. While there was no sofa in the room, we moved the other furniture out as well and did some spring cleaning (several months late). Walt ran the aspirateur over both sides of the rug and then mopped the floor while I went to the supermarket. Then we put (or are putting) it all back together. I think I like the new look.

More Palluau-sur-Indre photos

I took these photos in Palluau-sur-Indre in 2006 using a Canon Pro90 IS digital camera. By the way, I just noticed that the house in the center of photo #5 is for sale right now. Here's a link to the advertisement.

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Painted walls inside the St-Laurent priory in Palluau-sur-Indre

The priory (a chapel that was part of a small convent or monastery) dedicated to Saint-Laurent (St. Lawrence) in Palluau-sur-Indre was built in the 11th century and its walls are covered in wall paintings dating back as far as the 12th century. I saw it and took these pictures there in July 2006. In the 19th century a fire destroyed all the archives that might have detailed the priory's history, so not much is known about it.

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