Saturday 29th September 2012 – Pierrefonds, Northern France

We had a clear plan for today – a walk in a forest, visiting a chapel and Roman remains followed by a Mediaeval town. We drove south from Attichy and as we came down the hill into Pierrefonds our plans changed as we both let out an involuntary “Wow!”. Laid out in front of us and dominating the town was the most fantastic castle. Fantastic is the right word because it looks like something out of a fairy tale.

We followed signs to a car park that had a view over a lake to the château and walked down into the town. We found the Tourist Information Office that had a sign saying that it opened at 10:00. However, this is laid-back France and it was 10:00 before a lady arrived to open up. We obtained a town walk leaflet (disappointingly lacking in historical information) and asked about camping. We were told that the Pierrefonds municipal campsite was closed and the nearest campsite was the municipal campsite in Attichy – the one that we parked by last night.

We walked up to the castle, admiring the huge walls and the turrets towering above us and bought tickets at the office (€7.50 each). We then walked in the imposing entrance over the drawbridge and under the portcullis with the murder holes above.

The castle is actually quite modern, built in the mid 1800's by Napoleon III over the ruins of a 14^th Century castle that was destroyed, after a siege in 1616, by Louis XIII. Napoleon III was influenced by the growing interest in romantic ruins in the 19^th Century and he commissioned the architect Viollet-le-Duc to restore the château as an occasional residence. A second home like no other!

There are some lovely decorated rooms and there are intriguing stone carvings, especially in the courtyard. You also get to see some of the defensive parts of the castle with arrow slits and murder holes. The size of the rooms and solidity of the building are quite awesome. The only disappointment is the number of areas that are off-limits especially some of the higher towers. In the grounds (no ticket required) are a number of massive replica catapults of the type that would have been used in Mediaeval times.

Walking back down into the town we found a restaurant with tables next to the lake and sat in the sun sipping glasses of cider. Jane had her favourite French dish – Gallette, a pancake in this case stuffed with ham, cheese, mushrooms and cream. I find it difficult to visit France without having Moules Frites (mussels and chips) at least once, so I decided to have my fix early just in case I don't see it on a menu later.

We decided to combine parts of the Town Trail with the Country Trail and set off round the town before heading into the forest. A combination of a very poor map and our very poor French meant that we went slightly off the route but this turned out to be fortuitous. We arrived at the municipal campsite to find it looking distinctly open despite having been told that it was closed. When we enquired, we discovered that it was open for one more night – just what we needed.

We found our way back to the correct path and after emerging from the forest we enjoyed a lovely view of the château seemingly surrounded by forest. We also passed a large stag with huge antlers on the edge of the forest and noticed from a information board that they are to be found wild in the area. However this one was either domesticated or had been tamed by the local people as it seemed quite at ease next to house with people and a dog in the garden.

Returning to the car park we drove round to the campsite and found a pitch bathed in late-afternoon sunshine.

Photos: The Pierrefonds Château – a view from the walk; The Dressing Room with its en-suite facilities in the corner; Detail of painted stone carving above one of the many fireplaces.