Men in tights

Tuesday 31^st May

We decided we’d visit the castle in Fougeres this morning rather than do the 200k back to catch it later. The weather was very ordinary today – overcast and a cold wind, and threatening rain. The rain held off long enough for us to do the tour. It was fabulous and they have presented it so well with a good audio guide. This castle is regarded as one of the best preserved castles in Europe. We are glad we didn’t miss this one and it was interesting to hear a bit of the history – seems like in medieval times they were always at war with each other. There was always someone looking to bump someone else off the top perch.

This is the imposing entrance to the castle. There was a moat inside the first entrance, as well as the one outside.

This water race was alongside the moat inside the castle walls and is still in operation.

A few shots of the towers of the castle. There are 11 towers in this castle. 

Walking the ramparts.

We thought they were waiting for the castle to open, but there are 'no dogs allowed' on this tour.

We are glad we found this castle - we only happened to come here because it was about half way between where we were and where we need to be to go to Guernsey. Until we came here we'd never heard of Fougeres and had no idea there was a castle here. 

After the castle we just hit the highway to try and cover the 200k so we could get to the Guernsey ferry departure place while it was early enough to work out what the go is tomorrow. We stopped at a fuel/food stop on the highway for lunch. We’ve had a couple of these and they are usually pretty good and reasonably priced. We learn something new each time though – this time we figured out there was a microwave if you want to heat your meal up a bit, and they do have free water.

The ferry departs from a little town called Dielette, almost to the tip of France, near Cherbourg. Hope it’s not so windy tomorrow or it could be a rough crossing. It’s only 1 hour so hopefully I will be OK with the seasick tablets.

The rain arrived just before lunch today and continued most of the way here. We saw on the news at breakfast this morning that they have had lots of rain and flooding north of Paris. I don’t think it is anywhere we plan to go.