Last week Elsa's job took her away from us for a few months and it was a bit sad. John knew there was an exhibition of Daniel Merriam's work down in Belcastel and so he booked us a flight to Bergerac and off we went.
Two things went mildly wonky. The Château he thought he'd booked wasn't the Château we were going to be staying in. It was, from looking at the pictures as we did realise this hiccup just after clicking send, probably the better of the two but instead of being halfway between the airport and the exhibition (south wards) it was quite a way in the opposite direction (north). Again though, not bad as we were not far from the main road links south and what's a 600km round trip when your on hols!
The other slight problem was the mid range Peugeot we'd booked wasn't there for us and they'd given us a Fiat Punto. ! John has no problem with driving manual cars, he is a car nut and is rather good at driving. He has no problems driving on the wrong side of the road he had property in France for many years and he switches like a natural. He does have rather long legs though (34 inside) and fitting his legs, big knees and a gear lever in the same small area was a bit of a challenge however.
But manage he did and this is the Château we stayed in. Beautifully renovated last year and the service and food was wonderful.
I just had to include a photo of the stair case. It's not your imagination, it really is sloping quite alarmingly to the right. The stripes in the fabric on the walls are vertical.
Belcastel village rising from the valley of the Aveyron River
There were lots to see in this lovely, privately owned castle, much of which we couldn’t take photos of, of course. The main gallery with the Daniel Merriam paintings was as good as we had hoped but there were three other gallery’s. One with a range of paintings and models by Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr Seuss and The Cat in the Hat), another by Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are), and down in the prison original hand drawn storyboards by Tim Burton (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Alice in Wonderland).
Belcastel Village down below with fish scale type roof tiles.
A beautiful and still working fireplace used for the banquets they hold there.
And quite a few suits of armour including a couple of full size horse ones.
The following day we travelled down to Sarlat-la-Caneda which was absolutely beautiful.
We even found a closed quilting shop!
Now housework and coursework call!
