St-Germain-de-Confolens

Earlier this week, we took advantage of a clear, sunny, calm but very cold day to visit St-Germain-de-Confolens; a very small medieval village, now accommodating only 98 souls, situated at the confluence of the Vienne  and Issoire rivers, not far from the Charente boundary; the village grew up below its chateau walls and the inhabitants occupied themselves in the industries of milling, tanning and granite extraction, all of which have now virtually ceased. Milling and tanning declined in the 19th century and granite extraction took place until the 1970's. Once again, I took too many photos, but I have tried to pick out the best for you.

The sort of view which an early attacker might have had of the imposing chateau, built on a promontory overlooking the river confluence. The castle was first mentioned in documents prepared in the year 1073 and was much rebuilt over the next 500 years. It has not fared so well in the last 500! It's a very steep walk up the narrow road to the top - cars not allowed!

Once up there, the panoramic views of the Vienne river are spectacular. A month ago, all was white with snow, and blocks of ice were floating in the water!

                     Again the Vienne river, upstream of the last shot

A view of the ancillary buildings, built within the chateau walls (as they were) and including the 12th century chapel of Saint Vincent on the left and what might be a house for the priest on the right.

Another aspect, showing part of the old cemetery, perched on a ledge overhanging the steep drop down to the wooded Issoire river valley, which runs on the rear side of the chateau.

Next, some more photos of the crumbling, but still very substantial structure. What an effort to have built all this, on top of a hill, 950 years ago, although the granite was close by!

Probably an embrasure from which the defenders could have fired down on those laying siege to the chateau.

One of the village streets; barely a small car width!

The Vienne bridge was originally built in the Middle Ages, but road widening works in 1901 regrettably destroyed much of this character. The bridge would have also had, at one time, a town gate or toll, to control access to the village as part of its defences.

Across the Vienne bridge and on the way out of the village, a faded example of a  tin advertising sign, once so common all over France fifty or more years ago. It's always good to see such reminders of past times!

Once again my thanks goes to Nigel for all his research.

P.S.

I am a verification free blog. The new system introduced by Google of two words, quite often almost impossible to read, I find infuriating and time consuming.  Your comments will be sent to me for approval only, no verification needed. I am hoping that more people will follow this lead.  I get very few spam comments but when I do I can remove them at will .

Go to Dashboard, then ‘settings’, ‘comments’ go down to ‘Show word verification for comments’ click on No and save settings. If you are using the new blogger you will need to revert back to the old interface and take the same route.

Apple Cobbler

Having been housebound for the last couple of weeks due to the ice-covered roads, the normal exploring and photo-taking activities have been on hold. We have also not tried any recipes worthy of passing onto our faithful followers, so this is a recipe from the archives which I hope you will enjoy.

APPLE COBBLER QUICK AND EASY

Ingredients

8 medium apples, peeled, core removed and sliced ( My apples were all fallers, so they were not perfect. Good apples; probably 6 would be enough)

1 cup sugar

1 cup orange juice

1 tablespoon lemon juice

3 tablespoons butter

3/4 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup milk

Method 

Combine apples, sugar, orange juice and 1 tablespoon butter in a saucepan, bring to a boil. Cook until apple is soft.

Meanwhile combine flour, salt and baking powder, stir in milk slowly mixing all the time, then add remaining butter melted separately.

Combine the batter and the apple mixture mixing well and pour all into greased baking dish.

Bake at 190C (375F) for about 30 minutes or until batter browns and rises.

There is no crust on this cobbler, but we enjoyed it. It would taste great with ice cream, cream or custard.

Cherves-Châtelars - A Walk with a Surprise at the End

We have joined a local French leisure club, to try to improve our French. It seems to operate year-round except for summer, and they play scrabble and belote, the latter being a 32 card whist-type game, the precise rules of which are currently a mystery!  Scrabble in French is also an acquired skill and we are presently limited to 2-4 letter words, although the other players are keen to assist us!

Other activities are short visits and short tours; one of the former had been arranged recently, and although rain threatened and Nigel was starting a dose of flu, we decided to go along, as the property to be visited was on private land - a  rare  opportunity for a look around.

We drove to Cherves-Châtelars where we  met everyone at the communal hall. The destination was not, at first, at all clear, as we all roared off in cars in pursuit of a leader, coming before long to a halt on a roadside verge near a dilapidated farmstead. We then abandoned the vehicles and ambled along a  lane, across the delightful, undulating and unspoilt countryside, towards our goal - as yet out of view.

I'm sorry that there are more photos than I normally put on a post, but it was difficult to pick the best!

No this is not what it looks like! One of the knowledgeable locals (most of them have lived in the area  all their lives) has pointed out a natural spring bubbling away at the side of the road.

We then came across this lovely stone house, which had some gorgeous windows; we were told this was the original residence for the monks who operated the priory next door

Note the tall figure at the front of the group; who says I can never find Nigel in a crowd :-)

We then saw the 'surprise' just around the corner, the remains of this stunning old priory

It is on private property, but we had the kind permission of the landowner to take a look around. As we walked, one of our companions explained that the priory was thought to have been built around the time of William the Conqueror, nearly 1000 years ago! – it was founded by Benedictine monks, in this now very Catholic country. We were told that a number of protestant churches still exist in France, chiefly in the south and towards the west coast.

 The following photos of the nave are taken from the now demolished transept

How did it get ruined like this? Well, there is a heady sense of history involved with this place over the last 1000 years. Some 400 years after it was built, the priory was ruined in the fighting during what the French call the “ wars of religion”, a period of Protestant/Catholic wars, which started in 1562 and were ended by the Treaty of Nantes in 1598. But that isn't the end of the history witnessed by these walls............ see later

Walking around the side to other buildings

 and from the back, what remains of the apse

 beautifully carved capitols (thought to be 12th century), above and below, on each side of the nave

ancient floor slabs

 Would this be an old altar ?

and more recent history, just up the road.....

This small sign tells us that some 3 kilometres down this little track (too muddy to walk this day)  was a concealed hut, where many of the local WW2 French Resistance fighters  (Maquis) used to operate from. (see my blog 55 for more details). 

Maquis bush  covers large areas of France 

We then came across this sign which says the tree behind it was planted in 1978 by the children of Cherves-Châtelars, in memory of the local Maquis group (named Bir Hacheim), who operated in this area in 1943-44, sabotaging German military activities. As part of this work, we were told they built an observation platform high up in the priory walls, to carry out surveillance of troop movements in the valley below.

Luckily we managed to see all this in dry conditions, but the walk back to the cars was a in very damp  cold drizzle, which did not help Nigel's ailment! 

I hope that you enjoyed this surprise tour as much as we did.  I was completely dumbfounded to see all this; I cycle all these roads regularly, but this was one very interesting little road I had missed!

My thanks to Nigel for all the research he did for this post.