Chateau de la Motte

We’ve spent the last couple of days in a chateau near Chatellerault. Chateau de la Motte was built in the early 12^th century, Prior to this, it was believed there was a wooden fort on this site.  A lot of the stone used to build today’s structure was gathered from a nearby quarry. These stones tell stories through their shape and scratched surfaces. During the Reformation and there is evidence of holes in the castle walls where muskets were fired. Unfortunately the interior was seriously damaged in a kitchen fire but in the early 18^th Century a massive rebuild took place. The original walls remain however the structure was converted from a flat roofed building to the pointed roof building of today. It became then a chateau, rather than a castle.

Sometime in 2002, a local farmer’s tractor some hundred meters away, slid partly into a hole. On further investigation, a series of rooms were found underground, dating back to Roman times. It’s highly probable that during the reformation these caves were used as a hiding place as there’s evidence of this. Once higher authorities found that people had discovered the caves and were excavating them, a ban was put in place. There is a law in France that anyone found excavating ruins without official permission, will be sent to prison. There isn’t enough money to employ the thousands of archaeologists needed to excavate the many ruins around France, so this site was closed up in 2005 and filled in.   The castle does hold some interesting artefacts, however, including jewellery, coins, animal skeletons from feasts, and many pieces from broken pottery all meticulously labelled.

After a breakfast at the banquet table with all the other guests, our host took us for an extensive tour of the chateau and regaled us with these stories and more. We all climbed the tower and took in the view and I was reminded of the many paintings and photographs I have seen of this area. One of the children was allowed to help raise the handmade flag which can be seen very clearly when you look back at the castle.

We had heard that the small nearby town of Vaux de Vienne was holding a medieval festival this weekend. From the castle, our host pointed out the direction we needed to travel to get to see it. It wasn’t far, and the picturesque windy road and colourful fields were great to drive through. Again, we sat in the back seat with the roof down and the wind doing its best to try and blow our hats off. We soon came to Vaux to Ville and were struck by how quiet it was. Our first view was the abandoned Abbey and it seemed perhaps we had the wrong day, but as we rounded a corner there, at the top of a hill in front of us, we saw people gathered in costume. We parked the car and walked up to join them. A man was playing a tradition set of medieval bagpipes and woman was striking a Lyre. A group all in costume were dancing around them all holding hands and swinging their legs slowly from side to side. Later the music became more lively and they split into pairs. we wandered down the hill and through the almost deserted streets looking at the stalls. Not many had customers so we stopped and tasted the breads, admired the tapestries, and watched a man blow glass. Later on, the townfolk descended in our direction and town to a marquee set up for a full lunch. We didn’t join them but opted for freshly baked pita bread (a portable pizza oven was used) stuffed with goats cheese (for Kate and me) and pork (for S and Mick). I’d bought a punnet of organic cherry tomatoes  for a euro which accompanied this very nicely.

The afternoon was spent back at the chateau where we dipped ourselves in and out of the pool and baked our skins in the sun.