Updated: 27 July 2008

Vendôme

Although I knew what a château was before my year in France, I had never visited one on my own.  Going with a school party, escorted round by your teacher and a French guide, was to my mind a very boring and tiring experience.  I was soon to find that it was quite different going by yourself with plenty of time to see what you wanted to see.  Previous visits had always involved a complete overload of information.  It was like having to read all the footnotes of a text book before you had even seen the title or looked at the contents page.  So I was very happy to have a gentle introduction to my own real education by visiting the small ruined château in Vendôme.  This was in my first week in that town, a week in which I had no classes and had to fill my time as best I could.  On a bright day in October I sallied forth from my bedsit to climb up to this venerable ruin.

A ruined building on a sunny day is an uplifting sight, full of wonderful shadows on the stone, with colourful flowers and weeds growing through the gaps.  One of the things that would make me yawn round those guided tours was the endless eulogy over the furniture.  I could see that the table, chair or cupboard was well-made and impressively decorated, but that was enough.  I didn’t need to know who made it, who bought it, who lived with it, or even what style it was in.  I either liked or disliked it because of what I could see, and that was that.  Anything else was overload.  It was therefore a special pleasure to visit this ruin, which of course had no furniture of any kind.  What it did have was a wonderful view over the whole town, especially good as the leaves were gradually disappearing from the trees.  I spent a long time up there on this first visit, really seeing what was there and enjoying it for what it was, rather than having to make a historical mountain out of it.  If there is a suitable metaphor for the whole year, this was it.  Take your time wherever you are and really experience it for what it is.

I made several more visits to it before I left, enjoying how the colour of the stone changed according to the seasonal light, and also enjoying it with different people, as diverse as Margaret Bates and my parents for example.  The walk up to it was always a pleasure and the view also varied with the light.  Generally speaking, as a tourist you only get to see a monument on one day and at a time that is not your choice.  This castle I could visit on any day of the year and it became quite an old friend.

Yes, I’m off to France at the end of  September, for at least two weeks if I can afford it.  I shall travel through the tunnel, really cheaply thanks to my Tesco vouchers and their special deals.  I shall also be driving my new car, a VW Golf, which has air-conditioning so I shall be comfortable at all times.  I want to re-write my memories of this year in France, in the third person, adding as much local colour as I can  notice.