So here we are in France and as it happens, our trip coincides with our 25th anniversary. Perhaps I should have told my wife we were going to France for our anniversary - a much more romantic concept! To try and salvage this situation a little, I planned a little trip to Normandy, including a visit to Alençon to visit the lace museum, which she had been wanting to visit for years.
Our home for the three nights we were in Normandy was to be a castle no less - and on instructions from the management it had to be a medieval castle: thick stone walls, towers, secret passages, low doorways and so forth. Actually, it's amazing how many place that would fit this description still exist in France (and in Europe generally). We stayed at La Ducrie, which our daughter had stayed at a few years ago and which fit the bill perfectly.
Our hosts were Joe and Vivienne, a retired and some might say slightly eccentric English couple, together with their two dogs and three cats. They were living the dream that so many have but so few realise - pack everything up, buy a run-down castle in France, do it up and live in (medieval) style.
La Ducrie was the home of a future King of France and goes back to 1437. Coming from Australia, which was only discovered by the English in 1770 it always impresses me how old things are in Europe. You see that bridge? It was built in the year that the first settlers arrived in Australia. You see that house? It was built two hundred years before Australia was even on the map!
I helped Joe get his computer and WiFi systems set up and to thank us he invited us to join them and a couple of their friends for a BBQ dinner. I think the "prick with a fork" apron he donned for the occasion nicely summed up his joie de vivre. Although I promised him I wouldn't post the picture on Facebook, I'm sure he wouldn't mind it appearing here; it perfectly captures his lifestyle of medieval castle living in Normandy.
Although we'd been to Normandy before and had visited many of the D-Day landing beaches, we made a little trip to Utah beach which was nearby and which we had not visited yet. It's amazing what an effect this area can have on you when you are faced with the realities of the actual beaches where all those people were sacrificed in order to free Europe and trigger the end of WW2.
So what else to do in Normandy? Have the world's most delicious ice cream in the home of seriously wonderful dairy products, Isigny-sur-Mer of course! Arriving at the dairy we were greeted by the sight of dozens of people milling around all holding ice cream cones; an odd sight, but soon we had joined them and had appreciated why they were there! Next on the agenda was a visit to the ancestral home of cheese: Camembert. For what must be the world's most recognisable cheese type, this is just an unassuming little village - similar to many such places that are familiar from their products, but unassuming in real life.
Last on the agenda was a place that I'd had on my to-do list for quite some time: the Musée Schlumberger, which is located at the Château de Crèvecoeur. I did not realise before visiting that the chateau is in fact much more than just the museum, which is actually only a relatively minor part of what the chateau has to offer.
Our home for the three nights we were in Normandy was to be a castle no less - and on instructions from the management it had to be a medieval castle: thick stone walls, towers, secret passages, low doorways and so forth. Actually, it's amazing how many place that would fit this description still exist in France (and in Europe generally). We stayed at La Ducrie, which our daughter had stayed at a few years ago and which fit the bill perfectly.
Our hosts were Joe and Vivienne, a retired and some might say slightly eccentric English couple, together with their two dogs and three cats. They were living the dream that so many have but so few realise - pack everything up, buy a run-down castle in France, do it up and live in (medieval) style.
I helped Joe get his computer and WiFi systems set up and to thank us he invited us to join them and a couple of their friends for a BBQ dinner. I think the "prick with a fork" apron he donned for the occasion nicely summed up his joie de vivre. Although I promised him I wouldn't post the picture on Facebook, I'm sure he wouldn't mind it appearing here; it perfectly captures his lifestyle of medieval castle living in Normandy.
Although we'd been to Normandy before and had visited many of the D-Day landing beaches, we made a little trip to Utah beach which was nearby and which we had not visited yet. It's amazing what an effect this area can have on you when you are faced with the realities of the actual beaches where all those people were sacrificed in order to free Europe and trigger the end of WW2.
Last on the agenda was a place that I'd had on my to-do list for quite some time: the Musée Schlumberger, which is located at the Château de Crèvecoeur. I did not realise before visiting that the chateau is in fact much more than just the museum, which is actually only a relatively minor part of what the chateau has to offer.
[Schlumberger is the company I used to work for, and is an oilfield services company started by two brothers in France, back in the 1920's; the Chateau is owned by the Schlumberger Foundation and contains, amongst other things, a small museum that tells the "Schlumberger Story"]
If you're thinking of going just for the museum - as we were - be aware that the exhibit is relatively small and will not take you long to visit although it is quite informative. It does however contain some interesting and rare pieces of early equipment (as well as some wireline logging equipment which my dear wife Ann was astounded to learn was of the same type that I had actually used when I worked for the company: "but that looks antique" was her comment, making me feel suitably old).
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| Interior of an early Schlumberger wireline logging unit |
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