Chateau Roche Courbonn August 9th

There are quite a few castles in the area and we recently visited one called Roche Courbon.  It was a beautiful Chateau and we were able to visit a few of the castle rooms as well as the gardens and grounds.  On the grounds are old grotto caves from prehistoric ages 50,000 years ago.

The grounds are beautiful and as it happened there was a wedding the day we went.  They were taking pictures all over the gardens with the fountains and lake.  There was music playing that you could hear all over the grounds.  There were neat little pear trees too that were laden with fruit to add to the decor. We were going to crash the wedding party and have a glass of champagne but since I was wearing my pink tennis shoes we decided not to as they might feel out of place!  What a special place for a wedding.

Some of the rooms are still lived in.  We took a tour to see some of the interior.  I loved the kitchen of
course.  There was a unique rotating spit using a counter weight that was really cool.  I guess it would be the birth of timed cooking!  You could change the weight and therefore change the speed of the rotation on the fire pit.  On the wall were huge gradient copper pans.  I think I could have taken a bath in the big one.  Most of the pots would take 2 people to lift.  It was neat to see.  I think  pear tarte is in order!

The bedroom had an old fashion bed with the high four posters and surrounding curtain. This of course was for heat preservation as there wasn't any heat other than the fire.  We were told that people often slept sitting up as they thought laying down was for the dead.  Another idea for sleeping was laying side by side with one person's head by another person's feet.  So you might have 6-8 people in one bed.  Visitors would often cram into the bed whether they were family or not!

Here is the website with a slide show of pictures.  Enjoy.

http://www.larochecourbon.fr/en