Le Château de Meillant

The château at Meillant is not a Loire Valley castle. It's located in the old Berry province, not the Loire Valley. Meillant in the Cher River Valley about 150 km/90 miles upstream from Saint-Aignan.

The château was built in the early 1300s and in 1453 was acquired by Pierre of Amboise, a nobleman who was the lord of Chaumont-sur-Loire, near Blois. The original building was fortified, as medieval castles tended to be. Pierre's son Charles 1er d'Amboise, who was at one time the governor of the Paris region, Champagne, and Burgundy, set out to renovate and "modernize" the Meillant château, but he died at the age of 51, before the work could be done. It was his son, Charles II d'Amboise, who finished the job in the late 1400s and early 1500s.

The southwest façade at Meillant is medieval

Meillant shows two faces to the visitor. The southwest front is medieval, with massive towers facing a moat. The northeast façade is highly ornate, showing its architectural kinship with the Renaissance châteaux of the Loire Valley.

Figures on a balcony

The style is late gothic, called "flowery" gothic. Charles II spent time in Italy, where he was the governor of Milan. So it has been said that "Milan made Meillant," in the sense that Charles II brought back from Italy the ideas for the renovations he ordered at the old castle.

The château de Meillant was also completely restored much later, in 1842.

The Tower of the Lion at Meillant

The main tower, highly ornamented, is called the Tower of the Lion, because there is a big lion made of gilded lead at its very top. The lion is the work of the Italian Giocondo, who worked with Michelangelo.

Giocondo's lion at the top of the tower at Meillant
(thanks to CHM for the photo)

CHM and I spent about an hour walking around the château and taking pictures Thursday morning. I just counted my pictures, and it turns out that I took 87 of them. I can't post them all, at least not today! But here's a selection, mostly of details of the decorations on the walls of the château.

Architectural ornament at Meillant

It's either feast or famine with photos and blog topics. Some days I think I need to get out more and do more photography. Or at least take pictures of more varied subjects. And then, at times like the present, I'm overwhelmed with subjects and pictures.

A day trip through the Berry

Yesterday CHM and I took a long road trip, traveling a big circle to the southeast of Saint-Aignan in the Berry region. The weather was gorgeous. We took the autoroute all the way down to the town of Saint-Amand-Montrond, which is just south of the city of Bourges and 150 km — 90 miles — from Saint-Aignan.

The château at Meillant, near Saint-Amand-Montrond

It took us nearly two hours to get there, even by autoroute, and toll was 9.10 euros. First we had to get to the autoroute entrance north and east of Saint-Aignan, and that took 30 minutes or so. Then there were several long stretches of autoroute where road work had one of the two lanes blocked off. There were plenty of big trucks on the road, so the going was slow. It always takes longer than you think it will to get to your destination in France.

We left the house at 9:00 a.m. and returned at 8:00 p.m. Below is a list of the villages and towns we spent at least a few minutes in along the way.

Saint-Amand-Montrond -> Meillant -> Noirlac -> Bruère-Allichamps -> Ainay-le-Vieil -> Culan -> Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre ->
Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre -> Châteauroux -> Levroux -> Valençay ->
Couffy -> Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher

Meillant was our first real destination. There's a beautiful château there. We then had lunch in Saint-Amand, where the autoroute spit us out initially and which we had to drive through to get to Meillant.

A shop on the main street in a little town in the Berry

Noirlac, near Meillant, has a very old Cistercian abbey complex that has been particularly well restored. Bruères-Allichamps, just a couple of miles north in the Cher River valley, is a picturesque village that is known as the geographical center of France. Ainay-le-Vieil and Culan both are the sites of fortified medieval castles. At Neuvy, there's an 11th century church modeled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. And so on.

Typical small-town scene

I'll be posting pictures of all these towns, villages, and monuments over the next few days and weeks. I took more than 300 pictures.

One of the things that struck me about our visits to all these monuments was how nice and helpful the people working in the shops and selling tickets at the various sights were. At Culan, for example, a young woman took the time to explain how we could drive down a steep, narrow lane and make several left turns to get to a Roman bridge over a little river down below the château.

We had lunch here in Saint-Amand-Montrond.

She came outside with us and pointed out all the twists and turns. "At the Roman bridge, there is a good spot where you can stop and take some pictures of the château," she said. "Then you cross the bridge and take another left turn to get back to the highway. There's a big sign that says the road is one way in the wrong direction for you, but you can ignore that. I do. I drive it every day, and I've never had any trouble."

The Roman bridge at Culan

I thanked her and told that, if a policeman stopped me, I would mumble and mutter in English and pretend I didn't speak French. As it turned out, I didn't have to bother, and we got to see views we wouldn't otherwise have discovered.

The castle at Culan seen from
the Roman bridge over the Arnon river

Of course, CHM charms everybody with his happy smile, quick sense of humor, and melodious French.

Le château de Meillant

Today I'm going south about 120 miles from Fontainebleau to the Château de Meillant, in France's old Berry Province. CHM and I stopped at Meillant to see the place in June 2009, on one of our day trips. It's just about 90 minutes from Saint-Aignan by car. The Château de Meillant was built as a medieval fortress and then transformed into a Renaissance residence. The family that lives there now has owned the château for 200 years and they give guided tours of the building (Covid19 permitting).

Meillant : la Tour du Lion, etc.

The large photo just below is a long-zoom shot that CHM took when we were at Meillant in June 2009. He and I were both using Panasonic Lumix TZ3 cameras. The two smaller photos, #1 and #2, are ones I took. You can sort of see the lion at the top of the tower in both of them. La Tour du Lion at the Château de Meillant was built in the early years of the 16th century by Charles II d'Amboise, in the Louis XII style.

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Photo #3 above shows the part of the château that was built earlier, when there was a moat all around the complex. Photo #4 is a gargoyle. I've rotated it 90º to the left so that the winged dog is looking to the right rather than down at the ground. And finally, the last photo is a drawing of what the château supposedly looked like in 1510 (thanks to Wikipedia — the photo is in the public domain).

Le Château de Meillant: carvings and statues

Here's a short slideshow made up of photos I took at the Château de Meillant near Bourges in central France. The stone carvings and statues on the exterior walls of the château are elaborate and varied. See my previous post for photos of the château itself.

A castle, a cat, and some cars

   
Less than 10 miles south of places like Bruère-Allichamps, the Abbaye de Noirlac, and the
Château de Meillant, you come to the town of Ainay-le-Vieil and the Château d'Ainay-le-Vieil.
The Michelin guidebook says the château has been owned by the same family since the year 1467.
Jacques Cœur, born in Bourges in 1400 or so, used to live here, the guidebook says.
As for the cat, I think I took the photo in Bruère (le centre de la France).

   
This car, a vintage Citroën 2CV, was parked in front of the Château d'Ainay-le-Vieil
the day CHM and I were there. I drive a Citroën now, but it's not a 2CV.
The sentence on the red and black 2CV's rear window says:
"This is more than a car, it's a thirst for adventure."
I hope the adventures don't involve
too many tow trucks.

   
These classic cars (and others) were on display at the Château de Meillant,
which I blogged about a few weeks ago. The blue convertible is a Citroën.

       
Finally, here are a vintage Renault 4L (the gray car) and two shots of my Peugeot 206. I used to own a Renault 4L, back in 1981-'82 when Walt and I both lived in Paris. It was a great car, though far from luxurious. The light blue car in the other two photos is one I bought used in 2003, when we first came to live in Saint-Aignan. So I've been driving it for more than 18 years now, and the car itself will be 21 years old at Christmastime. The 206 deserves some recognition for riding me all around the Loire Valley, as well as on numerous trips to Paris, Normandy, Burgundy, the southwest of France, and even all the way to Madrid in Spain, for all these years. I hope to keep driving it for at least another five years. It runs great, but at its age and with 125K miles on its odometer, it doesn't go on long trips any more.

Sight-seeing again

Tomorrow I'm going on an excursion with an American friend who lives just a few miles down the road from us and her sister, who is visiting from California. If we can squeeze everthing into the day trip we've planned, we'll be going to a an excursion to Brinay, Mehun-sur-Yèvre, Noirlac, and Meillant. This will be the first such excursion I've on since June 2001. I've been to two of these places before — the old abbey complex at Noirlac and the château at Meillant — but I've never been to the porcelain factory and outlet store at Mehun or the village of Brinay and its church. Maybe I'll come back with some new photos to post. Stay turned. Meanwhile, here are some more April photos (one from 2010 and four from 2015).

It's only slightly unusual to see red cowslip flowers around the vineyard. I saw some yesterday in the neighbors' yard. Cowslips, among other wildflowers, are called coucous in French. The flowers are usually yellow. I just read on Wikipédia that the cowslip flowers and leaves are edible, either raw in salads or cooked.

It's more widely known that dandelion leaves are edible, either raw or cooked, and that wine can be made with dandelion flowers. On this French web site I just read that young dandelion leaves can be eaten raw in salads or cooked like spinach and are delicious. The flowers can be made into wine, and the roots can be dried and ground to make a coffee substitute.

Plum, cherry, peach trees grow all arouund the Renaudière vineyard where we live.

This is the seed head of the European wild carrot plant (carotte sauvage or Daucus carrot, called Queen Anne's lace in North America. It grows abundantly in and around the vineyard. The whole plant is edible, at least in its first season — Wikipedia calls it "a somewhat variable biennial" — but the root quickly becomes woody.

I believe these are plum blossoms. I grew and planted a plum tree in our yard a decade or more ago. It hasn't produced any plums in about three years, but one year I got a good crop and made plum jelly with them. It was delicious. I'm hoping for plums this year.

Meillant, un château dans le Berry

The Château de Meillant is just half an hour's drive south of the city of Bourges. I've blogged about it before. I just want to remind you that there's a lot to see in Bourges and around Bourges. CHM and I saw this château in June of 2009, when I took these pictures.

We had an earthquake yesterday just before 7:00 p.m. It was quite a shock — not so much in terms of magnitude, but psychologically. I never really thought I'd feel an earthquake in this part of France, even though I know there have been some in past centuries. Walt and I were sitting on the sofa up in the loft watching television. We both felt the shaking (it was more like jiggling). I wondered if I had fallen asleep and had dreamed I was in California. There was no damage around here, but there was damage down south, near Bordeaux and La Rochelle.

Earlier in the day, I drove up to Blois to do some shopping for foods we don't find easily out here in the countryside. I came home with a pound of fresh kale leaves, nearly 5 lbs. of frozen shrimp, a bunch of green asparagus spears, a pound of beautiful green beans, and more. I drove up to Blois by myself. It takes about 45 minutes, even though it's less than 30 miles north of Saint-Aignan. Some streets in Blois were closed off to car traffic but I didn't get lost. My driving and directional instincts served me well.

L'abbaye de Noirlac

Drive 25 miles (40 km) south out of Bourges toward the town of Saint-Amand-Montrond and you arrive not only at the Château de Meillant, but also at the Abbaye de Noirlac, a 12th-century Cistercian monastery. The Michelin Guide Vert calls Noirlac « l'un des ensembles monastiques les mieux conservés et les plus complets de France. » Noirlac abbey is nowadays used as a cultural and performing arts center.

CHM took this photo of the cloister at Noirlac when we went there 12 years ago.

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A group of monks or friars (frères in French) arrived at the place now called Noirlac in 1130, 70 years before the construction of the cathedral in Bourges got fully under way. The Cistercians were builders and manual laborers who cleared and drained land to make it valuable for agriculture. The Noirlac monks lived through 20 or 30 very lean years of near starvation before people in the area came to their aid, according to the Michelin guide. The church and monastery the friars built between 1150 and 1200 are, typically, very plain, almost austere, in the Cistercian style. La simplicité des lignes and la blancheur de la pierre enhance the beauty of the architecture and give the place a serene feeling. The cloister is at the center of the complex.

Summer is here, rain or not

All our routines are going to be shaken up over the next few weeks. That's a good thing. It's too easy to get settled into a daily pattern and not break out of it often enough. Get up at 6:30, walk the dog at 8:00, spend a couple of hours in the garden or in the kitchen, eat lunch, watch a movie, take another walk at 6:00 p.m., and so on and so forth.

Tomorrow I'll drive up to a town about two hours north of Saint-Aignan to meet up with CHM. He's visiting other friends there, and he and I will drive back to Saint-Aignan tomorrow afternoon and evening. We'll probably stop and see a lot of châteaux, churches, and villages along the way. We'll definitely have lunch in a restaurant somewhere — that right there is a big change in my routine.

Vineyard view back toward the house yesterday morning.
Yes, this is a color picture.

For tomorrow, there's no hurry, and the weather is supposed to be pretty. It stays light until 10:00 p.m., so we'll have plenty of time for a good look-round. I'll take pictures (as will CHM). Stay tuned.

The weather has been wet again for a few days. It's supposed to rain this afternoon before turning nice for a while. While I'm on the road tomorrow, Walt will be cleaning up the house, walking the dog, and getting ready to mow the lawn again as soon as the sun dries everything out.

On this aerial photo I've marked the walks we talk with the dog.
We live at the edge of a vineyard that extends about 2 miles SW.
Click on the photo to see a red checkered blob marking our house.

Friends from Belgium are coming over on Monday for lunch. That would be new blogger Ladybird Martine and her friend C. They are bringing the essentials for a barbecue, and we'll supply all the sides, the barbecue grill, some wine, and our back yard. We bought a new outdoor table yesterday, so we'll have room for everybody and a lot of food. We are counting on warm, sunny weather.

The grapevines are really growing now...

CHM and I (and maybe Walt too, but he's kind of a homebody) will do a lot of driving around, ranging out over a 100-mile radius from Saint-Aignan, to sightsee. We have trips planned that will take us over to the Bourges area in the old Berry province to see a Cistercian abbey (Noirlac) and a château (Meillant). And we will go down to Preuilly-sur-Claise to see blogger friends Susan and Simon, probably next week. With them, we want to go to a nature preserve in an area near Preuilly called La Brenne to see birds and other wildlife.

...and the linden tree is in full flower and full of bees.

We also want to have Susan and Simon up here to spend a day around Saint-Aignan have a meal with us. We're planning to make a big couscous, with lamb, chicken, and merguez sausages, and vegetables including carrots, tomatoes, turnips, green beans, chickpeas, and zucchini.

CHM has sent me a map of all the churches and castles in the Haut Poitou region, which is on the far side of Preuilly, a couple of hours from here. I imagine we will find ourselves touring around down there too. One town we want to see again is Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, where there is an amazing church. And, closer to home, we want to go to Blois this time. I've never been inside the château there.

Roses after a rain

Meanwhile, a good friend in California has put us in touch with friends of hers who ae going to be in Paris in late June and early July. I'll probably drive CHM back to Paris toward the end of June, and then our friend's friends (one of whom we've met before) will likely come down to Saint-Aignan for a visit.

And that just gets us into the first week of July. Other visitors from America are on the schedule. This summer, our neighbors across the street have invited us to one of their famous Bastille Day parties — that's July 14, as you know. Dinner, a late-night fireworks display over in Noyers on the other side of the Cher river, and then lunch the next day is the schedule for that one. They are inviting about 30 guests.

A dahlia about to bloom

I imagine that we'll settle back into our routine toward the end of July and on through August. With any luck, by then we'll be harvesting a lot of good produce from the vegetable garden. We'll be busy getting it all processed for freezing and maybe doing some canning — making tomato sauce, roasting squash and eggplants in the oven, cleaning and cooking greens and beans. A short trip at the beginning of September will cap off the summer, and then we will slide into our seventh winter in Saint-Aignan.