Patrimoine day 2012...

As well as the brocante at La Roche Posay, this weekend offered the annual opportunity to visit places that here in France would normally be closed to visitors. This goes under the heading of  'Journées du Patrimoine'. Unfortunately,or perhaps I should say fortunately, we had a 'changeover' on Saturday at 'Le Bourg' (as well as Friday at 'Les Balcons') so it meant we were only free on the Sunday.
With friends Mike and Liz we headed 'over the border' into 'La Vienne' our neighbouring départment as a private chateau that had intrigued us was to open its doors.

We had driven past 'Chateau de la Vervollére' many times and I had stopped and photographed it a few times but the idea of getting a look inside was quite exciting - 'see how the other half live' so to speak.

It was not to be as interesting as we'd hoped as although we got up close and were able to circle the castle we had limited access. This perhaps should not have surprised us as it is, after all, a private 'house' and what we were allowed to see were the parts of the castle that most probably had had the support of 'Historic Monument' umbrella with regards to preservation and restoration.

After the charming owner had us under a hot sun for half an hour giving a potted history of the area and chateau (it was once home to members of  Cardinal Richelieu's family) we were lead into the small main courtyard.


  From here we were allowed to explore the tower and the chapel.

The lower part of the tower housed some interesting artefacts... 

...but it was climbing the stairs to the top that made the tower even more interesting.

The roof structure was a joy and the views from the openings made the climb worthwhile.

The chapel was small but boasted a 15th century fresco of which Monsieur was mightily proud of..

We left wishing we had seen more but were glad we took the time to visit - even though we didn't get to see their pool!