Barbecue and sightseeing: Badecon le Pin, Le Château de La Prune, Ceaulmont

On Friday we spent an hour 'picnicing' during lunch time with two of Aurore's colleagues - Alexandre and Loïc - and as the weather was fine, we had a pleasant 'repos' in the grass.

Aurore had decided that everything we ate and drank should have the colour red and Alexandre and Aurore had done the shopping and they succeeded in presenting a 'red lunch' - no wine though.

Unfortunately these are the only photos I could find from the picnic/pique nique:

After work Alexandre came and picked us up in his car, as he had invited us to a barbecue at his home in a small town called Badecon le Pin.

The name is a bit bizarre as 'con' can mean both 'idiot', 'scumbag' or 'dim' and if you think away the 'e' we have a mixture between the English 'bad' and the French 'con'.
Alexandre calls himself a 'bad(e)connard'.
When we arrived one of his friends - Nico - had arrived, taking a swim in the swimmingpool.
We started to prepare the food and peu à peu the rest of the invited guests came along.
Among them another colleague to Aurore - Manu - with girlfriend and his youngest brother.
We were later on joined by Alexandre's brother and a female friend.
The evening was spent eating, drinking, talking, laughing, swimming (not for us as we hadn't brought our bathing suites and didn't feel like swimming naked) and to some extent playing music.
Alexandre has played in different rock bands throughout the years and he plays the guitarr, sometimes bass and Manu's younger brother plays the bass too and in the house they had a piano wherefore I tried - after about fifteen years - to play a little or only making some sounds.
Manu had - among other things - brought a Camembert that he wanted to put on the glow of the fire but unfortunately we didn't succeed lifting it up from the fire whereby it died.
The hours went by and at about 2 o'clock in the night/morning we went for a walk in the small town and this was good after all the eating.
Aurore and I went to bed at 3 o'clock.
Alexandre and Maxim continued to play music in the cellar until around five or six o'clock in the morning.

The next day - or rather the same day - we went up at nine o'clock and together with Manu and his girlfriend we started to arrange with the breakfast (petit déjeuner) but it wasn't easy to awake Maxim but even worse awakening Alexandre.
At lunch we had finished our breakfast and after a swim in the pool, Alexandre was ready to take us on a guided tour around the county (département) and below we can see some pictures from this guided tour.
First of all we see our grillwork (left below) before the Camembert 'dropped dead'. After the burning heat there, some of the guests used the swimmingpool as you can see in the other picture: Alexandre is diving.

Our first stay was at 'Le Château de La Prune-au Pot', named after a family (Pot) who once live there.
Today it's a ruin but a very beautiful one and it's inscribed in 'The Inventory of Historic Monuments' ('l'inventaire des Monuments Historiques').
Alexandre told us that it earlier was closed for the public and that one only could visit the exterior, walking around the castle but today it was open and only for us, as there were no other people there.
This was also the first time for Alex being able to enter the ruin.
Alex and I climed the tower to the right but strangely enought there were no fences or barrages at the top.

This is the same tower as above to the right but from underneath.

The view from the left tower:

Below we see the church in Ceaulmont
from where one have a splendid view over the countryside.

Below the scenery from the church high above.

The 'river' floating beneath is Creuse which also the name of the county/département:

The below pictures display the church in Crozant.

I entered the church and later on we sat down taking some photos of another castle ruin,
displayed in the next photo.

After this Alex toke us to a forest not far from this site and there we wandered around and lost our way.
We actually came to a crossing in the forest and Alex and I wanted to take the road to the left but Aurore said we had to go to the right.
Of course she was right! Something she commented on: "I was right - as usual!".
At the start we saw this sculpture, looking like a combination of a goblin and a fertility God.
He is the latter and as you can see, his erected penis is at the bottom of the sculpture and many women or pairs come here to be blessed when deciding to have children.
These kinds of fertility sculptures or - like in La Châtre - -wells , you can find almost everywhere in France.

On Cimetière Père-Lachaise you can find a tomb depicting the journalist Victor Noir and he is used in the same way, but that is another story.

During our walk in the park we also found other small sculptures, like the frog to the left:

I don't know if you can see the green lizard?















To the left I think we can
see blue-weed and to the
right the specific red
lamp posts in Crozant.

Some views looking out over the verdant hills:

(Picture map of Badecon le Pin copied from: http://www.vacances-location.net/locations-vacances/small-map-town/indre/badecon-le-pin.png)

Alfons Mucha 150

Today the very personal and interesting painter and decorative artist Alfons Mucha would have become 150 years old but as this is very rare, we celebrate his memory.
We had the pleasure visiting the museum displaying his art when being in Prague in 2008.
He didn't only paint and make decorative œuvres, he also sculptured and worked with other materials.

Rencontres Internationales de Luthiers et Maître Sonneurs, Château d'Ars

Welcome to one of the biggest or maybe even THE biggest folk music festival in the world:

Rencontres Internationales de Luthiers et Maître Sonneurs, earlier years held in Saint-Chartier, 8 km from La Châtre where we live (photos below).
Last year this festival moved to Château d'Ars only 3 km from La Châtre and most people earlier visiting Saint-Chartier, seem to have thought this was an even better arrangement.
This was my first visit but Aurore has visited this festival at three occasions when held in Saint-Chartier.
The festival is a possibility for folk musicians all over the world to 'jam' together, listen to artists performing, exchanging experiences and also buying instruments like the vielle, the bagpipe (cornemuse), the accordion (accordéon).
All over the castle park, we could see and listen to musicians, see people dancing different kinds of folk dances but of course there were also food, drink and desserts sold in different booths.
Concerning the food and beverages one applied an ecological and 'nearby cultivated' ideology.

Now to the festival and some pictures.

Below you see some musicians playing together and if they belong to the same group, they come from the same country or not, is unknown to me but music has no barriers, neither geographical nor lingustical.

In these photos (below right and left) we see the group Toad, made up by

Pierre-Vincent Fortunier, 'cornemuse' ('bag pipe'),
Yann Gourdon, 'vielle à roue' ('hurdy gurdy'),

Guilhem Lacroux, guitare.
A lof of people danced along with the music and some knew the specific danses, some didn't.

Below we see a group of dancers performing traditional dances in traditional clothings.

They danced in connection to the performance of Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien.
This could be a group of local dancers from La Châtre but I'm not sure.

Below (left) acccordéons for sale and to the right we see so called 'nyckelharpor' ('nyckelharpa')
The latter is an Scandinavian instrument but in this case the spelling ('nyckelharps') indicates that those displaying these instruments are not from the Scandinavian countries.

A close-up of a 'nyckelharpa'.

Another concert at the same stage as above but unfortunately I don't remember the name of the group.

The tents with food and drink.

This is one of the last groups we listened to, namely Zaragraf:
Mira Mrak (song, accordion), Emmanuel Waffler (song, guitars),
Bruno Manjares (song, guitar, trumpet), Pépé Martinez (song, accordion, cajon, tuba)
They played slavic folk music and among the different pieces of music
we heard the theme song to Emir Kusturica's film 'Time of the Gypsies'.

Below people are dancing a traditional dance called 'bourrée', in french also meaning 'drunk'.

People were dancing everywhere and this is one of the smaller stages, were musicians,
not scheduled for an 'official' concert, could go on stage and perform and then the dance began.
People were not at all shy, even if they couldn't dance properly - whatever that would be.

A group of beautiful harps
(the instrument)

Outside the castle park, on a field, campers from different parts of Europe had gathered.

The photo to the left below is not portraying a musician(?) but a special Berry donkey (I don't use the word 'ass' as you can see):
'The Big Black Donkey' - Âne Grand Noir du Berry'.
In the other photo we see the special 'ear-/hand markings' used even for humans in order to controle us and facilitate at the entrances. We had bought a two day pass for Saturday and Sunday.

The party is over and we got our souvenirs (one cup each),

enabling us to enjoy our drinks in a musical fashion.

Rencontres internationales de luthiers et maîtres sonneurs 2010

On Saturday and Sunday we are going to visit Château d'Ars and listen to folk music from all over the world within the framework of 'Rencontres internationales de luthiers et maîtres sonneurs 2010'.

It's the second time it's held at Château d'Ars, a charming castle not far from La Châtre where we live (and 302 km south of Paris).

Last time we visited this castle was in connection with an exhibition on George Sand and Frédéric Chopin, as a part of the bicentennial celebrations commemorating the birth of Chopin.

Earlier years 'Rencontres Internationales...' was held in another castle by the name of Saint-Chartier and this name is perhaps still more known to folk musicians around the world but Château d'Ars will hopefully be as popular as Saint-Chartier.

When living in Stockholm, we sometimes visited the medieval restaurant 'Sjätte tunnan' ('The Sixth Barrel') and there they sometimes had live music and one of two musicians was Johannes Hellman, who played the vielle (à roue), hurdy gurdy or (vev-)lira.
There are small differences between the signification of these words.

He was only seventeen years old and his teacher sometimes played at the very same restaurant.
He had long dreamt of visiting this festival. His teacher had been there and also performed.
The festival started today the 15th of July and ends the 18th.

As we don't have any pictures from this festival until the 17th or 18th we have gathered some examples from the festival in 2009 below.
The poster (at the top of the page) is made by a friend of ours, Florent Choffel, who is a graphic artist but also one of the responsible for the short film festival in La Châtre, Berry Movies.

Saint Chartier 2009
envoyé par kozher. - Regardez plus de clips, en HD !


RE-FÛT DE CHÊNE
envoyé par La-Violette. - Regardez plus de clips, en HD !

(Picture poster copied from: http://leguidedesfestivals.com/upload/fiche/6812-2.jpg)

14 juillet Fête nationale à La Châtre

The 14th of July is of course celebrated all over France and therefore also in La Châtre.
As a Swede I can see the difference between the celebration of the National Day in France and many other countries all over the world compared to the Swedish celebration.

For a long time the Swedish National Day was celebrated as the Day of the Swedish Flag and it wasn't until 1983 that it became a National Day and from 2005 it's also a Holiday.
In France and in other countries all over the world - with some exceptions perhaps - the celebration of the National Day is important as it commemorates a specific and important event in the history of the country.
As Sweden has enjoyed peace since 1809 and haven't had any civil wars or any other major or critical events to commemorate, the National Day (in commemoration of the day king Gustav Vasa or Gustav 1 became king in Sweden, the adaptation of the Instrument of Government in 1809 - one of the fundamental laws making up the constitution - among other events) has in the minds of the Swedes been fairly unimportant.

In France the historical development has been totally different and this is why it's more important in this country than in Sweden.

Parenthetical, the celebration of the National Day in Norway (May 17 'Syttende Mai') and the other Nordic countries is almost equally important as in France and many other countries but on the other hand these countries has experienced war and occupation.

In La Châtre and many other smaller towns in France it' s a custom that the inhabitants march through the streets the night before 14th of July, wearing candles and different kinds of lamps, traditions that obviously goes back to the time when one thought that one could chase evil spiritis away.
Perhaps also reminding of the uprisal of the citizens during the French Revolution.

Be as it is but below you can see some of the citizens marching wearing the lamps and candles and there were both children, youngsters and elderly people in the parade.

The quality of the pictures are not to good but we blame it on the iPhone!

Ending with fireworks of course.

It's interesting to see that small towns like La Châtre and Montgivray
(a town we also visited for the celebration as I wrote yesterday)
can afford these rather impressing fire works: