St Mitre windmill |
Views from the top of the road looking out over the lake are beautiful but we didn't pause for long as there are even more mosquitoes in the woods there than on our campsite. We are both nursing several insect bites - even Dave who almost never gets bitten.
The sixteenth century windmill pictured above was our first historic
Impressive gateway at St Mitre |
The top section of this original gateway is also strung with lights and also has a plaque commemorating the town's war dead. Only a short stretch of the thick walls still remain and the tiny area of narrow streets just through here must indicate the fourteenth century town area. It's certainly grown considerably since then! Another gateway, the Porte Des Esperettes, was cut through a little further along the wall in 1840 in order to increase fresh air circulation after a series of disease epidemics. Several houses are actually built into the stone walls and the old part of town is very picturesque, even on a grey day.
We got as close as we could to the fountain which is closed off behind an
St Mitre fontaine |
Several signs around town pointed us towards an Expo at La Manare and, intrigued, we went to take a look. La Manare is a new building which seems to function as a small theatre / concert hall and can also be set up, as it was this weekend, as an exhibition space. Le Salon des Metiers d'Art was a exhibition by (presumably local) artisans and craftspeople showing and selling their wares. Stalls included milliners and bag makers, jewellers, leatherworkers, potters, metal sculpture, clothing and painted art. I noticed that very few of the stalls had any promotional literature or business cards set out so I didn't find out who many of the artisans were, and we just don't have the space to have bought up everything I liked. To give you an idea though, three artisans were Betty Beck Houspic who makes gorgeous leather bags, Micheline Lettry creates intricate decorative housewares, and Francoise Joncas who, trading as Phenix, has the most incredible beaded jewellery. Francoise's work reminded me of the Native American beaded costumes we saw on Super Sunday in New Orleans. The quality and standard of workmanship was incredibly high, yet the prices were surprisingly reasonable. And the place was packed with browsers and shoppers. It looked like the whole town had turned out although, to be fair, we didn't see anything else going on anywhere other than one very noisy bar!
A cat that wants to be a gatepost lion! |
No comments:
Post a Comment