Interludes ~ Paris, Italy & New Zealand

Our stay at the chateau was interrupted in late October when David and I left to spend time apart on different sides of the globe. I returned to New Zealand to await the birth of our second grandson and David took the opportunity of spending some time at our favourite place in Italy with our very good friends Rob and Jane.

Here are a few of the highlights of our time away.

I think Paris has probably become our favourite city. Each time we return we love it more, Paris was our favoured point of departure from France. 
We only had a short time there but managed to see some new places as well as returning to some of our favourite places from previous visits. As our knowledge of French improves and increases so does our appreciation of things français. 
The architecture, the boulevards, the little streets, the cobbled roads, the corner cafés, the sound of traffic that says ' you're in Paris'.  So on went our walking shoes as we discovered new places. After petit déjeuner we were on the metro and off to Bastille to see the largest open air market in Paris.

La Bastille

 

From there we moved onto visit a cemetery - but not just any cemetery. La Père Lachaise Cimietiere is the largest in Paris. It is HUGE. It was a lovely autumn afternoon and being a Sunday there were lots of people there enjoying a Sunday walk in the autumn sunshine as well as 'looking' people up! The graves of many famous (and perhaps some infamous) are there. The place is so big that you need a map to get around if you are wanting to visit particular graves.


We pinpointed those we wanted to see and David in his methodical and logical manner lead the way. It was a lot of walking and we saw just a very small section. It was not gloomy or sad or scary , in fact it was very peaceful despite being in the heart of a very busy city. It made me think of all the lives that were represented by the hundreds, no thousands, of graves that were there. Some headstones were very plain and simple; some were forgotten and overgrown with moss and lichen and ivy; some were almost pretentious ; some were obviously 'loved' and well kept; others were 'revered' with floral tributes. 

The ones we chose to see included Jim Morrison from Doors, Edith Piaf, Mozart, Chopin and Marcel Marceau.

Moss covered resting places

Family mausoleums

The forgotten...

The famous ~ Edith Piaff

Memorial to World War 2 victims

No one visits here ...

but Chopin's resting place has many visitors

The next day we spent at Le Louvre. In all our visits this is one place we had not been to. 
Of course we had seen and photographed it from the outside many times. We planned to spend the whole day there and what an experience it was.
It is very hard to put in words the feeling and awe that we experienced, not just relating the works of art displayed, but to the building itself.

It is also difficult to choose photos to illustrate what an experience we had. We visited only a fraction of what is available to see. Enjoy the following....

Finally a word of advice - if you visit be prepared to have your 'socks blown off' and be 
prepared to spend a least a day as a minimum. Le Louvre est magnifique!

Then it was time to say au revoir to Paris and goodbye to each other as we went in different directions. David flew to Bologna and then by train down to Umbria to stay with Rob and Jane at their place 'Tersalle'.
Tersalle is a very special place for us and we have had the pleasure of staying there many times. As you know David cannot sit around for very long so one of the reasons for visitng Tersalle was to help with DIY projects/jobs that Rob and Jane had on The List!

But it was not all work....

In Portofino

   After a couple of weeks at Tersalle, David made his way by train up the coast to stay with another friend Sergio whom we have come to know through Rotary and the International Yachting Fellowship. Sergio is the consummate host and David was wined and dined at Rotary meetings and at Sergio and Laura's summer house and their apartment in Rapallo.
However the return to the chateau was not as straightforward and because of delays in Italy, the trip by train, which was all planned and booked, took 23 hours!!



Meantime, my trip from Paris to Auckland took 25 hours! Here are photos to explain the reason for my trip.

Julien William was born on 30 October

Gran's little boy

We had a few days at the beach

Lucas reading to his brother

Chilling out together (Julien was just 2 weeks old!)

Gran's big boy

Gran's gorgeous boys 

But after a lovely time with family it was time to make that long trip back to the chateau.

And we are now 'nous deux' again and getting ready for le Noel....and the arrival of all our family.


Until the next blog.

Wishing you all Joyeux Noel

Autumn Days

One of the things that we enjoyed during our last stay here was witnessing the change of seasons. Here, the annual changes seem more pronounced than at home where winter is sometimes viewed as a small hiatus between summers. 

When we arrived back in mid August the bloom of summer was nearing its end and the fields of baked dry earth was evidence of how hot summer can be. The sunflowers had mostly finished their glorious show of yellow and had their heads bowed as if in prayer ; the wheat had been harvested and only the dry stalks and stubble were left but the vines were a show of verdant green with masses of bunches of white or purple grapes.

The chateau itself was also cloaked in vibrant green of the ivy and virginia creeper that adorns some of its walls while the lawns were dry and brown in many places and the flowers in the garden were past their best showing. 

Now, over two months on, the colours around the chateau and in the fields beyond its walls are the colours of autumn. It is not an autumn palette as one finds in some places such as in the South Island or in the states of Connecticut and New England, rather it is a palette of more muted colour.

About 15 minutes from the chateau 

Along with the change of colour come other signs that point to the change of season.

The temperatures are slowly getting cooler although there are still days of Indian summer weather which are getting fewer and fewer;  Monsieur Gaspard - our chateau squirrel has been seen again and the moles are on the move with little mole hills reappearing in the lawn. These will continue to appear right through the winter as moles seem to be notorious at evading any human attempt to thwart their progress. For such little creatures they certainly can make their presence known.

Near by woods seen from the chateau tower

Another sign and often a noise that indicates a change of weather is La Chasse. Frenchmen are hunters and autumn is the beginning of the hunting season. It starts on Sundays at first, but soon it will be every day. The sound of gunshots resound over the village as hunters out in the woods shoot at ????. There are rabbits, deer and apparently wild pigs around. To start with it is a bit unnerving to see camouflaged men with shotguns seemingly wandering around and through the fields. If they have dogs you can hear them as the dogs wear bells on their collars. 

Across the road from the chateau

The view from the tower

Fields from the gates of the chateau

In the fields around the chateau and beyond, farmers are busy preparing for crops to be planted before the winter comes. The last of the sunflowers have been harvested. The earth has been tilled and ploughed and rich dark brown fields replace the sandy coloured stubble of wheat and the dry stalks of the sunflowers. Nothing remains of the summer crops.

Most of the vines are now stripped of their grapes and the leaves are beginning to change colour and starting to fall. Before too long the vineyards will be rows of bare vines awaiting pruning that will happen in the depth of winter.









Knowing very little about farming of any kind, I do not know what crops will be sown this season. Except in one field, in fact the first field as you leave the village, onions have been planted. Whole onions, rows and rows, lie uncovered. I presume they will be covered in due course - but as I said I am not a farmer! However I do know that these onions are female and the rows still empty will have male onions planted in them. Once they have grown they will be left to seed but only the seeds from the female plants will be harvested to produce seed stock. I know this because one of our good friends here in Raissac is in the farming and seed producing business. And here I thought an onion was an onion was an onion!

As well as the countryside the chateau too is becoming part of the autumn palette.

The ivy and creeper are turning from the vibrant summer green to a glorious array of red, yellow and orange. In a few weeks the 'rainfall of leaves' should start - it is quite a sight to see hundreds, if not thousands, of leaves falling off the vines. 

Another autumn sight are the chestnut trees. There are no edible chestnuts in the chateau grounds but the horse chestnuts are a beautiful colour ....of chestnut. Winter is the time for roasted chestnuts - such a yummy smell in the Christmas markets... and yummy to eat too.

Photos do not do justice to the colors of the countryside. It is so hard to capture all the shades that are there. The vastness of the countryside is also hard to capture.
But I do hope that this post will give you a little idea of all this autumn beauty we are so fortunate to be able to experience.

                       So from a very autumnal Raissac sur Lampy until the next time

Au revoir.