Journey with Django and Tashi too!: 8 days in France!

When you have an opportunity to stay at a 500 year old chateau in Southern France, what do you say, but.... Oui!!

We stayed at the Chateau Mallefougasse in the tiny village of Mallefougasse-Augès, population just over 200 (same as in 1830! -- It dipped to only 22 people in 1968)

It is situated far up a windy road in the hills of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence region. There is not a single shop in the village, not even a boulangerie.

This was our second stay, and we were lucky enough (again!) to have the whole castle to ourselves.

It was quite a treat to have the run of the place!

Stopping for lunch in Grenoble on our way from the airport in Lyon to Mallefougasse.

During our stay, Django stepped into the role of key and gate master.

He loved opening all of the doors, locks and windows!

The chateau from the lawn. We saw early photos from the 1800s and there were no downstairs windows.

We were greeted by the most magnificently bright double rainbow I've ever seen!

A good reason for a toast!

It looks quite green in the distance, but it was exceedingly dry there. We were told by our local friends, Stephan and Veronique (who we met on our first visit 3 years ago) that is hadn't rained for 4 straight months! He had been in the raspberry business (after getting out of the goat cheese business), but it's simply not viable with so little rain. They are exploring the prospect of growing saffron crocuses, as they can do with very little water.

They also have a lovely property with some apartments they've created and rent out on AirBnB.

First breakfast. Outside the studio

Since we had the place to ourselves and could spread out comfortably, we made a game of dining in as many rooms and spots as we could. It was very luxurious to have so many options!

Breakfast in the lower grounds

Django looking cool with a crepe

Breakfast on the inside courtyard

Breakfast outside our bedrooms

Dinner in the living room

Dinner in the library. Full of art books, and the place where Simon and Django read Harry Potter nightly. Perfect, right?!

Dinner in the front hallway, outside the library

Dinner in the studio

Somehow we forgot to get a picture of us eating in the kitchen with the big fireplace.

It's actually where we ate most of our meals.

Ok, so we didn't have dinner in the bathrooms, but what a view!

The view from our bathroom

The view from the boys' bathroom

The View!

Then there was the pool! I think this was the boys' favorite thing of all at the chateau! We spent many hours lounging in the sun while the boys played in, on and around the water. Django really discovered his love of the water in a new way. He had swimming lessons earlier this year and he took those skills and ran with... I mean, swam with them!

(the water was darn cold, but I did venture in for about 30 seconds after a short run)

An interesting pool attraction was the variety of bugs one found in the pool filter. We tried to rescue several. We had at least one success with this praying mantis!

Praying Mantis!

Strolling in the village

Behind the Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Mallefougasse

I always love seeing old churches!

Inside the 11th century church. We only got to peek in as the gate was locked.

While it was quite tempting to drive all around Provence to see the beauty and visit Côte d'Azur (the French Riviera), we opted to mostly just stay 'home', enjoy the chateau, and not try to do too many things. It was a good choice, as the chateau is a destination in itself.

We also used our stay there as a work retreat, so we spent a lot of time on songwriting.
Simon and I worked on several songs together, which was exciting and
fun because we haven't actually done that very much.

We did venture to one of the larger towns about 30 minutes away. Forcalquier has a population of around 5,000 and a wonderful Monday open air market. We came here to experience some local color, as well as find a wifi cafe, as we had no phone or internet at the chateau!

Eight days without internet was not an option...

Forcalquier market (not my photo - found on google search)

Our wifi cafe. I love the old man in scarf and hat reading a book.

Groceries from an organic co-op

We found an amazing little cheese and wine shop just next to the cafe. She had all kinds of local and organic cheeses. We bought an olive fougasse (type of bread common in Provence) some herb encrusted Chevre, an astounding Roquefort, an aged hard cheese that made our tastebuds dance, as well as a delicious local organic wine! (See upcoming photo for a close up)

We spoke with the man in the green jacket, who is an American from Virginia

where he owns a winery. He spends a lot of time in France as his wife is French.

He was very friendly and invited us to visit them in Virginia sometime.

Simon at the cheese and wine shop in Forcalquier

It was as delicious as it looks!

As it was so amazingly dry, I was quite surprised and delighted to find a

large patch of stinging nettles growing on the lower grounds. We made tea!

I was similarly excited to find some arugula growing wild. What a persistent plant. We made salad!

Django and Tashi displaying their nettle stung thumbs. Django prepared a healing compress of nettle leaves to apply on the nettle sting by actually picking a leaf, crushing it and chewing it!

He learned how to do this without being stung on a nature walk at his school. Cool, eh?

Nettle stings feeling better after applying Django's natural cure.

And then...

In the midst of all that French cheese, charming old stones, wine, and joie de vivre came a moment. An OH SHIIIITT! moment to be more exact.

So, here's what happened: I made a run to the store, which meant driving 9km down a winding, narrow road that often had a small rocky cliff rising to one side and a sharp drop off to the other. Passing cars going the other way is a bit harrowing, and one becomes grateful for small efficient tiny little European vehicles. So, gather groceries, head back up the mountain. I'm driving relatively carefully, so a local driver passes me on a straightaway. It's slightly nerve racking. Very shortly after that, a car comes in the opposite direction and being cautious I drive as far to the rock craggy cliffy edge as I can. I'm still on the road, and yet by some ridiculous chance I encounter some very low to the ground immovable rocks that jutted out into the pavement and impacted BOTH of my right tires (as I soon discovered), blowing them out immediately. I stopped quickly and got out to assess the damage. Not good. At this point I'm thinking "I'm still a few km from the chateau... Will I have to walk up there?! Leave the car here? Fuck!" I stood by the roadside and waited for someone to stop. Several cars drove by in both directions. Finally someone coming up the hill pulled over. Unfortunately he didn't speak a word of English, and my French is demonstrably, umm... lacking. I desperately tried to locate our friend Stephan's phone number while the man called the mechanic in Mallefougasse. No luck. I decided to leave the car in the middle of a narrow two lane road (I flagged it with some bright emergency gear in the trunk) and took a ride back to the castle. Needless to say Simon was surprised and somewhat alarmed at seeing me step out of a strangers car, our vehicle God Knows Where. I sought out our other friends just up the road (thank Goodness for friends! I honestly don't know what I would have done. No phone, no internet...) Sandra called the insurance company and after some time arranged that we would meet a tow truck driver down the mountain to release the damaged car, and the next day they would send a taxi for me and drive me all the way to Aix-en-Provence for a new car (the closest rental agency- an hour away).

Before I go on, here are some photos of the car being towed....

Well, all worked out well in the end, and I was incredibly glad I opted to pay the additional 5 euros a day for full coverage with no deductible! We all took the taxi the next day to Aix-en-Provence, thinking maybe we'd do some sight seeing after quickly picking up a new car. Unfortunately we encountered the absolutely worst customer service at the rental agency. It was truly and stunningly awful. I will spare you the painful details, but it took us almost two hours to get a new car. By that time we were annoyed and tired, so we drove straight back to the chateau.

At the end of a long day, celebrating with our local friends. Music, champagne... ahhh...

Our Drive Back to Lyon

Structures of and on stone!

Seriously, how did they get the stones up there?!

The drive between Lyon Airport and Mallefougasse is about 3 hours. On the first trip, we were on the highway most of the time. On the return, a different GPS (different rental car!) decided that the fastest route was primarily off the highway, up into hills on narrow winding roads with hair pin turns and tiny villages. We couldn't imagine how it could be faster than the highway, and so what would be an absolutely lovely journey if one had a leisurely day and was not trying to make a flight to get to Denmark then drive the next morning 5 hours across the country to arrive just in time for Simon's grandfather's 90 birthday party and the initial reason we made this trip in the first place.... was, let's say fraught with a bit of stress! BUT... it was a gorgeous drive! Amazingly, within about an hour of driving, the countryside was very green, and clearly had a totally different weather pattern than further South. We look forward to exploring this area with more ease next come we come to France.