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| I won't say I'm paranoid, but, whenever I pass a green field, I feel as if I'm being watched . . . |
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| In Balesmes, the Marne . . . |
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| . . . is hardly a river at all. |
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| But I'm happy to report that the Salon in Grenant is a true river. For what use is a river without water? |
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| 'Rotten' driving school? I will not be going for driving lessons in Chalindrey . . . |
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| . . . nor will I be ordering a beer here. Like many French village bars and cafés, this one had closed down. There's something ironic and sad in that name — the 'Brasserie de la Renaissance' . . . |
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| The gîte in Champlitte . . . |
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| . . . belongs to the winegrower, Pascal Henriot. All his wines are completely organic — produced without the use of weed killers, insecticides or chemical fertilisers. He invited me to a tasting in his cellar and poured me a glass of last year's Chardonnay. It was quite lovely — unoaked and mineral dry, with a surprisingly strong, flowery bouquet. Also staying in the gîte was Sylvie, who was visiting her elderly mother in a nearby nursing home. She was a big traveller and a Himalayan trekker. When I went down to the kitchen the next morning, she had sweetly prepared my breakfast from her own food store: bread, jam, eggs, fruit, orange juice and coffee. |
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| Pascal Henriot (picture taken from his website). |
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| Fountain and Rue du Bourg, Champlitte. |
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| Religious detail on a wall in Champlitte. |
8 comments:
I like to imagine these old places without the vehicles - as they were for hundreds of years.
Of all that you are seeing, I am especially taken by the sculptures. Thanks for the link to "The Realm of the Mothers":
"Thus, dwelling in eternal obscurity and loneliness, these Mothers are creative beings ; they are the creating and sustaining principle from which everything proceeds that has life and form on the surface of the earth."
Now I want to read Symbols of Transformation after I finish reading Memories, Dreams, Reflections again.
Wonderful images and it sounds as though the organic wine was similarly palatable. Yes, even the Rotten driving school! Makes me long to be in France....
Yes, sometimes it's difficult to keep the cars out of the photo, Pat. Though sometimes, of course, one wants them in. It all depends.
I remember so well reading Goethe's Faust at university, and being bowled over. One of the truly great literary works. Though how you stage it is anyone's guess. . . It covers just about everything: Good, Evil, Religion, Philosophy, Love, Learning, Science, Magic, Myth Murder, Suicide, Redemption — and the 'Mothers'. of course!
Thanks for your comment, Dritanje — and the other two you left on earlier posts. Yes, lovely France...
That wine sounds very nice, and breakfast fixed for you!
I laughed about the cows and the river. Love that pilgrim sign. And I'm hearing another line for a poem ... The gîte in Champlitte . . .
I stayed in a gîte in Camplitte
With Sylvie who gave me a treat
Of eggs, jam and bread
From her fridge, but instead
I wish she'd have massaged my feet
LOve the limerick - made me laugh!
I'm glad, Dritanje — and many thanks for all your recent comments on earlier parts of my journey. (Re. camping in the graveyard, I can't remember what dreams I had, but I think they would have been pleasant ones, as it was a peaceful, non-threatening place...)
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