Saturday 14 September 2013

A Visit to Château La Guerche

We visited Château La Guerche today as part of the Journees du Patrimonie. We have driven past many many times and decided it was time we took a look inside.

This cultural-year highlight is an opportunity to spend this weekend visiting an endless variety of well-known (but usually off-bounds) and outright unusual historical monuments.

Whilst Château La Guerche is open throughout the year, today there were special guided visits arranged and at a reduced rate to encourage participation.

We arrived in pouring rain and walked up through the grounds to the Château's entrance, where fortunately a visit was just departing. Luckily our party was small - four people including us - so at least we could ask questions or ask for clarification if we didn't understand the fast speaking French guide.

After a hurried account of the architecture we went into the vaulted chambers of the château's cellar.

For a more detailed account of the Château please look here

We were limited to taking photos of only the cellar and outside the building but there are more photos on the linked site (above)
Some of the sculpted dogs at the entrance to the lower floor

 Les casemates d’artillerie

 Beautifully landscaped gardens...
......Hard to appreciate fully in the rain!

Unfamiliar views of the Chateau..

Tomorrow we hope to take the opportunity to see one of the places not normally open to the public.  

4 comments:

GaynorB said...

We've always fancied a trip here. Maybe next year... ;0)) x

Tim said...

Wet innit!!
Our visual rain gauge has gone beyond the 40mm Max mark...
in fact when I last looked through the telescope at it....
you could see...
in the torchlight...
the waves...
lapping around the top!!
AND IT IS STILL RAINING!!

Jean said...

Wish we could have stayed chez nous for just a few more days so we could enjoy the Patrimoine weekend, but alas, it was not to be !!
Next year, perhaps..........

Colin and Elizabeth said...

Gaynor - it is an interesting place. The most puzzling thing about it was why the guide only translated the words we already understood, such as "prison" "Henry IV" and "papier mache" (yes, he struggled with that one!)

Tim - the rain did rather take over yesterday!

Jean - Don't worry; we'll bore you to tears about it next time we see you!