We had all been looking forward to today to go to a flower show in one of the nearby villages. We had seen the poster all week and had misread the verbage many times. At first we thought it was in St Antonin. Then we saw the name Livron and thinking it was one of the neighbouring villages, Wendy and I did a sortie through the week trying to find where it would be to no avail. We went to St Paul de Livron but there was nothing there that would indicate a flower show was imminent. In fact about it that was there was a convent and a grotto with a madonna in a cave. I plugged in Giles (GPS) and found that Livron was about 200km away. We returned home and read the poster again and it turned out to be in a village called Lacapelle Livron. This was discovered last night in time to take off this morning for the show. Lyn had some bad news about her cat just before we were to leave so she and Angela remained at home to try to contact their vet. Wendy, Claire and I arrived in the village and drove to the centre village as directed by several sign posts. The lanes were about 4 houses long on each entry and we could see no sign of a flower show nor anywhere where it might be held. We parked the car and walked a little way (about 50 metres from one end of the village to the other) and saw the church which was built in the 12 century just as the bells were tolled for noon.
We also saw the village Halle which was the tiniest I have seen but commensurate with the size of the village.
Walking on, we bumped into a small group of people who were speaking English. They were pounced upon and asked about the flower show. They said, no flower show - but asked did we mean the open garden? Yes we all nodded vigourousy. They directed us back to the main road and about 300 metres further along was an art gallery which we entered and from the end of that walked into a walled garden. We spoke with the owners who have lived there for 10 years and who are English. They had bought the ruin of a house and there was nothing inside the wall. No one had lived there for 60 years they told us. They rebuilt the house and started the garden from scratch. It was a lovely cottage garden with little secret bits and lots of colourful flowers interspersed with vegetables. The wife is an artist and her paintings, which were very good, hung on the walls of the gallery. The husband now retired was an academic who specialised in permaculture and had been to Australia to lecture, but not to Perth. We chatted for some time after we had viewed their beautiful garden and they made us a cup of tea. He then told us about how the barn was converted into the gallery and also their now living quarters and that they are using the house as a summer let. He also told us of another open garden near Espinas, a little village we had been to before. That was in the Chateau de Cas. Here are some of the photos I took of the cottage garden.
So we headed off towards Espinas and followed the signs to Chateau de Cas up and up and around and around for ages and we finally found it. Amazing. Very isolated, very beautiful, very old and completely different to the last garden. This was a very formal garden. It opened at 2 pm and we arrived about 3 minutes after that time. We were met by a woman who told us in French that we could not photograph inside the Chateau or a wedding that was to take place there this afternoon. At least that is what we thought she was saying. I dont know how long she thought we would be there, but there was no sign of a wedding party and some people were just starting to put chairs out in one of the buildings. We walked around the formal gardens and took some photos of that and the pigionier, which I think is a bit like an English dovecote (for Joan and Judy) and we were a bit anxious because we weren't entirely sure what we could and could not photograph. She then came and found us again and asked if we wanted to see the chapel. We agreed and followed her and walked passed a middle aged couple sitting at a garden setting enjoying a glass of wine. The wife spoke to me as I was in the lead and I apologised and said I didn't speak French. She appeared somewhat shocked and spoke to me in perfect English. I was forgiven when she realised we were Australian. It turned out that they were the Lord and Lady of the manor and invited us again to look at the chapel which was built in the 12th century. She said that the chapel belonged to the village but that she cleaned it. Claire remained talking with them while Wendy and I looked through this tiny little chapel that held about 12 seats and reminded me of the one Joan and Judy visited with me in Dorset. Later, Claire was shocked to learn to whom she had been speaking, saying she thought the woman who approached us on getting out of the car was the owner.
They also run a gite (self catering holiday accommodation) in the grounds of the chateau and gave us brochures about it. We later checked on the web as to the price and it was pretty pricy - much the same as our house in St Antonin for a 2 person apartment. It would be a lovely setting to live in the chateau but extremely isolated from anywhere. One would need to drive at least 10 km to get to the tiniest village and that would not have a shop.
Sadly, when we arrived home, Lyn had had news that her cat had been put down.
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