Château de Pierrefonds

Over the last few months we thought we wouldn’t be going on holiday at all because of Covid-19 and the lockdown. We had thought about going away in the UK, we looked at York but it was proving expensive and things we wanted to do weren’t open. At the end of July we checked a few sites and found that we could book a Eurocamp holiday relatively cheaply, especially compared to the UK holidays we had been looking at. We did wonder about the impact of Covid-19, but the story in France appeared to be less risky than in the UK! So we booked the holiday and five days we were driving down to Folkestone to catch the Eurotunnel.

Whilst we were staying at the La Croix Du Vieux Pont campsite we drove over to visit Château de Pierrefonds. It was a short drive and there was a free car park close by where we parked.

The Château de Pierrefonds is a castle situated in the commune of Pierrefonds in the Oise département (Picardy) of France.

It is on the southeast edge of the Forest of Compiègne, northeast of Paris, between Villers-Cotterêts and Compiègne.

This was a fantastic looking and in some ways fantastical looking castle. We hadn’t booked in advance, so we couldn’t go into the castle, but we did walk around the castle and admired it.

Due to Covid-19 restrictions if we wanted to go in, we had to buy pre-booked timed tickets on the internet. Oh for the days when we could just walk up to a castle or an attraction and walk in.

The Château de Pierrefonds includes most of the characteristics of defensive military architecture from the Middle Ages, though it underwent a major restoration in the 19th century.

In the 12th century, a castle was built on this site. Two centuries later, in 1392, King Charles VI turned the County of Valois (of which Pierrefonds was part) into a Duchy and gave it to his brother Louis, Duke of Orléans. From 1393 to his death in 1407, the latter had the castle rebuilt by the court architect, Jean le Noir.

In March 1617, during the early troubled days of Louis XIII’s reign, the castle, then the property of François-Annibal d’Estrées, who joined the “parti des mécontents” (party of discontent) led by Henri II, Prince of Condé, was besieged and taken by troops sent by Richelieu, the secretary of state for war. Its demolition was started, but not carried through to the end because of the enormity of the task. The exterior works were razed, the roofs destroyed and holes made in the towers and curtain walls.

The castle remained a ruin for more than two centuries. Napoleon I bought it in 1810 for less than 3,000 francs. During the 19th century, with the rediscovery of the architectural heritage of the Middle Ages, it became a “romantic ruin”. 

Napoleon III decided to commission architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc to rebuild it. He applied his architectural designs to create the ideal château, such as would have existed in the Middle Ages.

The Château de Pierrefonds has been classified as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1848.

The castle was used as the setting for Camelot in the BBC series Merlin.

As well as the castle we walked around the village.

Certainly well worth a visit.

Some more holiday pics from Normandy.

Honfleur

I’ve already published some blog posts about a trip I took to Normandy in the 1990s. In the first I talked about Honfleur and the second was on Caen. Here are the remaining pictures. Back then of course I was using film in my 35mm SLR, which I was quite conservative about the number of photographs I would take and in some cases there would also be prints with the little stickers that the developers would place on those underexposed, blurred images that I would occasionally take.

There was something quite special (as well as quite annoying) in taking photographs with film and then once you had handed it into Boots (or similar place) and then a few days later, collected your prints in the wallet, leafing through them as you walked through the town to see how they turned out. We seemed to have less coffee shops back then too, otherwise I am sure I would have sat down in one of those, ordered a coffee and looked over the photographs. These images, looking at the “box” they came in, were sent off for developing and the postman would have delivered them to the house. In today’s digital world, I now take substantially more images (as I did on a recent visit to London) and there is more instant gratification, as you see them on the small screen on the back of the camera (or phone); or as you load them onto the computer or laptop.

The first stop of the trip was arriving into Ouistreham, it serves as the port of the city of Caen. We had undertaken an overnight trip to France and this was the early morning arival at the port.

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As well as serving large ferries, many sailboats also are moored in Ouistreham, used for cruising up and down the Normandy coast.

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Of course with no GPS, I have no idea where the following images were taken. I remember stopping at a cafe for coffee and a croissant for breakfast. Knowing the journey we took from Ouistreham to Honfleur, before driving back to Caen, I would guess this was Cabourg, but could be Houlgate, or somewhere different. I did take a quick look at Google Maps and Streetview, but to be honest there was so much to look through I didn’t think it was worth the effort.

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I do think that this final shot is Honfleur, but I could be wrong…

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Looking back over these old photographs, makes me realise how much I enjoyed visiting Normandy back then, so I think I might start planning a return visit soon.

Legoland Miniland

One of the fascinating aspects of any visit to Legoland are the models in Miniland. It always impressed me how detailed and authentic the models look as well as they are made with lego bricks.

The models cover most of Europe including Belgium.

Legoland Belgium

The models are very clever and must have taken hours to build and also required a fair bit of planning.

After our visit last year I write a post about how tired the models in Miniland looked, it was nice to see that Legoland has listened 😉 and there was evidence that many of the models were been refreshed or renewed. There was for example a whole new section on France including the Eiffel Tower.

Paris in Lego, including the Eiffel Tower

See more photographs of Legoland.