Rachel and John's Travel Blog: Angles-sur-l'Anglin

Tuesday 6/23/15

Tuesday was a lovely, leisurely day. We all had a nice slow wake up, lingering over coffee and yogurt, running some laundry in the pokey energy-efficient washer, walkies around the farm and surrounding areas, fawning over the local animals and enjoying a late afternoon coffee with neighbor Luc. The wildlife here is pretty awesome: tons of birds yipping and flitting about, a little nest of tiny baby birds who peep constantly from inside an old, neat water pump, some sneaky little geckos that we can never seem to catch on camera, a whole village of farm cats that we spy when driving by a farm close by, Pomme and Couscous (the two donkeys), the cutest little hedgehogs that live on the property that we have been chasing around with cameras as they lumber along in the grass, as well as an absolutely friendly and adorable neighbor dog, Zigaille (Zig-aye), who was so cute yesterday when she raided Luc's lunch plate and came sneaking around on tip-toe with the entire bagette in her mouth!

In late afternoon, we headed out to Angles-sur-l'Anglin, which is an enormous fortress of a chateau. This chateau was so imposing and creepy, I think it might need to be called something other than "chateau" because while it is impressive, it is so unlike the other chateaux in appearance and history that I think it is in a class of its own. John and Dylan called to me from a little nook called The Witch's Cave, which looked all cool and a place you might catch The Wyrd Sister's setting up their cauldron, but come to find out that people used to be tossed over the cliff from that little hard-to-reach spot. It has been hard to catch all the history because Francine, our walking encyclopedia, is usually just out of earshot for me to catch everything, so I rely on John's account of things afterwards for any major, historical tidbits.

We hiked around the fortress and got some great photos, then explored a little bit of the charming village that surrounds it. The houses here are so old world, it makes me want to build our own mini-version of some of these cute abodes! I had the idea to buy a plot of land, build a tiny home in the shape of a tiny chateau and then dig out a tiny moat with a tiny rowboat and guarded by baby ducklings. How adorably funky would that be to have our own tiny Chateau Halvorson? Their stairways were are all lined with gorgeous container gardens, and the streets all have giant hollyhocks growing everywhere. It is like their "street weeds" are roses, lavender and hollyhocks, it's incredible!

We found this cool stairway that led up to an overlook above the village, but me and Dad opted out of the hike up the tiny stone stairs that are less "stairs" than nubs smoothed into the rockface because we both had inappropriate footwear on, so we went down and sipped a refreshing bevvy and chatted until those guys came and showed us all the cool pictures. Back to the farm for an interesting take on dinner: sausages, boiled potatoes, ham and this weird little machine that is kind of like a twist on fondue where you stick a slice of cheese in a tray amd when it gets bubbly, you pour it over the potato with the ham on top. It was scrumtious, but Francince had a rotating cheese-melting regimen that was quite ambitious. Each meal here is enjoyed outdoors, the weather has been just perfect for picnics. Then it was off to bed so we could leave for La Rochelle early on Wednesday!