So on Saturday, I drove out to a garden in Remalard, east of here by about an hour and 15 minutes. I got there at 11:30AM only to find that it was open from 2-5PM. I was disappointed, but the trip had been beautiful. So I decided to stop at Alencon on my way back. It was market day there, apparently, but the market was pretty lame, so I sat in a cafe and had lunch--a beef bourguignon that really hit the spot.
Alencon is quite large and I drove around its narrow street for a time before I got back on the road home. I decided to take the back roads through some other smaller towns. But I was not alone on those roads. There are a lot of bike riders here. This was the tail end of a group of about 50 that seemed not to be having a race so much as a tour.
I felt kind of bad sitting in my car since the weather was not great and some of the riders were as old as I am.
I had read somewhere that the Chateau de Carrouges was very lovely and it was on the way, so I stopped.
It's pretty imposing as you enter the grounds.
And what you see after you enter is a real live castle built in the 1300s.
With a working moat.
The castle is open for visits...and should have been open when I was there, but the person with access to the castle was nowhere to be found. All the doors from the inside courtyard were closed. More bad luck.
So I just strolled around a bit. These gates go into a field. I'm thinking there was a different entrance at one time and this was the way in.
So I went home and took a nap...not a bad way to spend my afternoon off.
The pictures of the castle are great. I want to go there now. We have also seen cyclists on the roads and noted that many of them are middle-aged or older. I suppose they are members of cycling clubs.
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