Seven days, seven pictures...

Is this France? Really? Looks a lot like Angkor Wat or something...

Laon with its amazing cathedral with its amazing tower with its amazing animals!

Jesus on one of the many cemetries we visited... By the way, look at that divine blue!

Pierrefonds... one hell of a castle, Walt would've enjoyed himself here.

Soissons where just the front facade of this old abbey survived the ages. One would almost be afraid to enter.

And then there was the sleeping village of Septmonts, luckily it had this wonderful fairytale like donjon.

And here's an Escher like inside of a church, this one's located in Compiègne

I went to Brétigny and I saw...

... the ceiling in our livingroom
... light on the floor of a cathedral
... medieval floors
... light on the floor of a castle
... part of the headboard of our bed
... beautiful walls in a church

Brétigny!

today we're off ...

I went to France and I brought back...

A large tablecloth with matching napkins!


Two leafy dishes to be used as ...euhm...euhm... (I will find a purpose!). By the way, I found them at a marché aux puces for scratch!


When we arrived in Mâcon we finally found a cd-shop!


Two turtles, one I bought, one i got from Noa, my godchild who went with us to France!


Prayerflags bought at Le Temple des Mille Bouddhas .


Aaaah! Mireille l'Abeille et Léon le Bourdon!


Two books bought at the local Auchan.


Mustard and preserved lemons.

Vendenesse-Sur-Arroux

Finally! The watermill is ours for a fortnight in the summer...
Here is a satellite picture of the surroundings and the fields, and the villages, and more fields, and more surroundings... woehahaahaaha!

Sermizelles 2005

As I was cleaning up some old picture-cds I came across one with a folder 'Sermizelles 2005'. I had this old, not very good camera, and I think its limitations are visible in some of the pictures below, but I still think there are some pretty good snapshots among them. A small selection...
First a map of France and Sermizelles located on it.

This was in the backyard of the mansion where we stayed the fortnight. It was this huge old townhallkind of a mansion, with acres and acres of garden... One of our friends was wheelchairbound, and she spent a lot of time in the garden.

A bit of our frontview and two of them cowboys waiting to jump into the car and drive somewhere frenchy...

Sunlight made the scenery an everchanging painting...

In some church we visited, although I can't remember where... a deer sniffing my lovely toes...

Is this France? Along the Loire on a daytrip, we visited the Pont Canal de Briare. This is a view of the Loire, seen from the pont.

We also visited the abbey of Fontenay. This picture of these two lovely ladies was taken in the cloister.

Another picture taken in the Abbey of Fontenay. I love this picture, everything about it ;-).

This one was taken on another roadtrip. In some small village we saw this pond, this pool, which was covered in the most verdant green.

A picture taken at the back of the Vézelay Abbey.

Aaah, sweet parting and all that jazz... the day we left and headed home.

Next Year's Easter Holiday

Yesterday I got a textmessage from my mother which went as follows: "Holiday booked in France, house was still free". Though it slipped my mind, it happened to be she was supposed to call the agency the first of september, to book our family-holiday in 2009. This time it was actually quite exciting, because everyone in the family wanted to return to this mansion we went to in 2007. Below are some random pictures of that holiday.

So this is the mansion: Le Manoir Du Buvey. One hell of a mansion, where Hector Malot (the famous writer of 'Sans Famille') once lived.


Not so far from where we stayed, there is the village of Allouville-Bellefosse. Only famous for this old tree, where a hermit once lived in... This tree now needs to be supported by many iron bars and wooden poles.


Et voilà, Bosc-Bénard Commin flaunts the fact that Mr. Malot once lived in their petite commune.


Ofcourse we went on excursions. Probably one of the main reasons we all wanted to go back. We usually take the yearly holiday in the Belgian Ardennes, and well, even though there are lots of places to visit, we usually don't. Where as in France, we went to see as much as possible. Below is the church in Rouan, build on the very spot where Jeanne d' Arc was burned.


And ofcourse the ever so lovely town of Honfleur.

Holiday

So... We stayed two weeks in Fretay, Savigny-Sur-Braye, France. A wonderful house, large garden with a lot of trees, and the most amazing wallpaper in a lot of rooms...


The wallpaper and highly religious mirror in our room


The kitchen and a table full of vegetables


The hallway at the backdoor


And always something to read on the toilet

Even tickets look grand!

Nice entrance tickets to castles we visited last month in France. In Belgium you usually get a ticket torn from one big roll, which gives you the impression you're going to a country fair dance and drinking party...

Rows and flows of angel hair...

Clouds recently shot in Fretay, Savigny-Sur-Braye.

At the beginning of the fortnight they were very white, woollike, transparent...

... but two weeks later, they became fire in the sky.

And this picture... well I thought it was a really good picture.