Day Forty-Two: Castles in the Air
(Romanesque carved capital bloat? I'm also pretty much full to the gills with bastides. These are medieval "new cities" -- built as planned communities in squares, enclosed by walls, with one gate in and out, as a defense strategy. I can testify that it is an effective stance to repel invaders.)
The countryside north of Agen has the feeling of an early Robert Heinlein novel about off-planet explorations -- against the usual rolling green, startlingly red soil and startlingly orange stone. Reached Castle Bonaguil during lunchtime and tramped around the perimeter. It's a dark, thick Tonka truck of a castle, and since the Cadogans say the interior isn't anything to write home about, I decided against hanging around till it opened again at two, instead heading off to Castle Biron. (Yep, ancestral to our good buddy George Gordon, Lord Byron.)
Since this involved (surprise, surprise) getting lost, I just pulled up in time to insinuate myself onto the tail of the first tour after lunch -- and with the steady rain and the empty roads, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the only tour after lunch. The guide was very informative without being didactic, and gave one plenty of time to appreciate everything. Most of the folks on the tour were extremely elderly, and more concerned with the state of their umbrellas and their knees than anything else.
Well, if there is anything more satisfying to the aesthetic sense than a good solid medieval castle tastefully renovated by a seigneur who'd been to Italy in the 16th century, and touched up gently here and there in succeeding epochs, I haven't come across it yet. The municipality is still engaged on restoring it -- there is next to no furniture, and the woodwork is so intricate that it will take ages... but they're not making a song and dance out of it like at Duras, and they are doing it well and faithfully. The proportions of the rooms are heavenly, alternating grand chambers and warm little nooks. The red and orange tiles have the paw- and hoof-prints of favorite household pets embedded.