Amy Welborn at Commarque

And now for the real thing

…taking a break from Puy du Fou.

Which was a week ago…and I am already so behind on posting….!

I’m going to try to do a couple of quick posts tonight. Tomorrow we leave our lovely gite outside of Montignac and head to Lourdes for a couple of days.

So, the “real thing” in the post title being a real castle, as opposed to the theme park versions. There is no scarcity of them, but this one was particularly evocative.

To get to it, you drive through the countryside – passing the foie gras farms

Just a small part of the flock on this farm.

and other sites (including tobacco fields – I had no idea they grew tobacco here. )

(The foie gras farms proudly advertise that you can come observe the force -feeding. I can’t even imagine….)

So anyway, you drive, and get make a wrong turn here and there, even with GPS, and finally you get to the car park, where there’s a WC, a sign and an arrow.

You follow the arrow and walk about a kilometer. The woods are lovely.

You round a bend – and here you are.

Commarque Castle

It’s Commarque Chateau – constructed from the 12th-14th centuries, abandoned by the 17th, purchased by a descendant of one of the original families in 1968, and under study and excavation ever since.

It was quite remarkable and haunting.

Chapel wall at Commarque

The boys loved it, of course. They enjoy tromping about the ruins, climbing to the heights and surveying the lands and imagining.

The chateau across the way is owned by another, and not open to the public.

The layers of human habitation are evident in the remnants of caves across the small valley, as well as those in the hill below the castle as well.

There’s a cave – not open to the public – with some prehistoric cave paintings under the castle as well.

This detail (click on the photo to enlarge it) - of being able to see the markings made by the stone masons so the blocks can be properly matched – is so evocative to me. Real hands, real minds, real toil, real people.