Our rental cottage is fantastic. It's built of stone in a quaint traditional style, but is probably modern. It's small but has two stories, with a living room and kitchen on the ground floor and steep wooden stairs leading to a bathroom and bedroom on the second floor.
The bed isn't quite as small as we've feared, the fridge and shower are larger than we expected, and the internet works really well. Everything is very clean and the wood furnishings are new and slick.
Really nice extras include a washing machine, air conditioning, and a charcoal BBQ in our own little backyard! There is no tumble dryer (they aren't very common in Europe), but have already dried two small loads of laundry out in the fresh air. Fantastic.
Our place is out in the country among farmland and it is astonishingly quiet. The landlord lives next door and another family is on our other side, but we almost never see or hear them. The only sounds outside are the chirping of birds, crickets in the evening, and the occasional moo. What a change from the screeching mopeds of Italy!
Our landlord, Jean-Rene, is very down-to-earth and friendly. He speaks no English and seems incapable of slowing down his French, but I managed to understand about half of his guided tour and spiel he gave us upon our arrival. I hope after a couple months in France I will understand more!
We've made lots of new friends here, all of them are four-legged. Our backyard joins with a field of white cows, who occasionally come up to the fence to look at us curiously. They seem to be the Charolais cattle that Burgundy is known for, said to be one of the best-tasting varieties of beef. (We have already grilled some burgers in our backyard and felt a little bad to do it so close to the cows!)
Down the road are two very friendly and sweet donkeys, and a flock of sheep and lambs that come running and baa-ing if we visit at feeding time.
But best of all are the two little cats that hang around the property. We're not sure if they're farm cats or belong to one of our neighbors. They are pretty skinny, but seem healthy and happy. They were skittish at first but thanks to a gift of a little cat food they are now very friendly! They seem to be sister and brother and pretty young, as they hold regular wrestling matches outside our door. One of them looks exactly like the cartoon cat on the food packet.
Unfortunately it has been mostly cloudy since our arrival and we've had several major downpours. But there are occasional sunbreaks and we've made a couple small photography trips anyway.
Avallon
Yesterday we drove 30 minutes west to Avallon, primarily to check out the carved portal of its church. The drive was beautiful and there were hardly any other cars on the road, which was what we were hoping it would be like here! The countryside and villages we've seen so far look a lot like England. In fact, as we drove through one village, which had old stone houses on either side and a roundabout in the middle, David said he felt the instinct to drive on the left for the first time in months!
One of the best parts of the drive was seeing the TGV (super-fast train) zoom through the countryside! We are only 10 miles from a station here, and it's thrilling to think how fast it could zip us to Paris or the south. David plans to park next to the tracks sometime with his camera and watch it go by.
The town of Avallon was larger than we expected and we had some trouble finding a place to park, mainly because it was market day. It's a pretty town, with a nice shopping street that leads under a 15th-century clock tower, past the 12th-century church, and out onto a tree-lined platform that overlooks a wooded valley.
The church (Eglise St-Lazare) was mostly built in the 1100s and is large and attractive. Both its name and its funding came from its claim to have a piece of the skull of St. Lazarus (the man Jesus raised from the dead).
The interior has nice architecture and an unusual raised porch, but otherwise isn't terribly interesting.
The church's main attraction is the west portal, which has multiple concentric arches (called archivolts) filled with sculptures of flowers, angels, zodiac signs, and the Labors of the Months. Some are quite badly weathered, but still fantastic!
Leo the Lion, Cancer the Crab, and Gemini the Twins as you've probably not seen them before! The Gemini Twins are often shown embracing in medieval art; I don't know why.
This probably represents the element of Air, but possibly the wind, or maybe a bad morning after a night in the alehouse!
Labors of the Months and zodiac signs for December: collecting wood, warming by the fire, and Capricorn the Sea Goat.
Crazy, curvy stone column that looks like iron rings.
For lunch we had delicious "Al Capone" burgers at a sandwich place near the clock tower. They were grilled in white bread with sauteed onions and had an orangey-herby secret sauce.
More Avallon photos here.
Semur-en-Auxois
And this morning the sun came out for awhile so we drove to the nearest town, Semur-en-Auxois. It's a pretty medieval town overlooking a river, with ruins of a big castle and a nice 13th-century Gothic church.
More Semur photos here.
This afternoon David watched the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix on TV. It's pretty exciting to have two big events going on in the south of France right now - that and the Cannes Film Festival. We get extra coverage of both on French television, but of course we can't understand much of it. It's tempting to visit either one of them, which we could do thanks to the TGV, but unfortunately that's just a little too expensive and the crowds don't sound very fun.
We'll be here for another full week, leaving Sunday June 1. Fortunately we only have a few must-see churches to visit while we're here, so it should be a relaxing week. We need it! I certainly don't expect anyone to sympathize, but after Italy we were so worn out and tired of traveling. Going home sounded pretty good (it still does), but we just can't miss France. So it's good to have a little home of our own for a week where we can rest up.
3 comments:
What a great little cottage. Must be a little like the farm outside of oxford. Are you cooking your food there. or eating out each meal?
Ron
Hi Ron - we have been cooking at home for everything. After all the hotel time and expensive meals this is a real bonus. So far I have used the barbecue each day too.
David
This looks so much like the set up we had in Frome after we saw you guys. Linda got the biggest kick over how the cows would come over every time we came "home" and she'd tell them about our day. Must make for a nice respite from life on the road.
Steve
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