Village life

 Wednesday 28th May

We are now staying in the village of Le Pont de Beauvoisin - about 1k out of town. We headed into the village in the morning to visit the tourist information office which was only open Wednesday. We struck a very helpful lady there who spoke very good English and was able to give us suggestions on what to see over the next few days. We came away with a handful of brochures and half a plan. 

Time for morning tea at the bakery across the road, then a visit to the boucherie next door for dinner for the next couple of nights. A queue had formed at the butcher which was right in the heart of the village, and we watched as lots of cars passed by right through the centre of the village. This village has a great feel to it - the sort of place we enjoy spending time in. The village actually has 2 halves separated by the river - one half is in department Isere, and the other in department Savoie. We have a map for a walking tour of the village which we will do maybe Saturday.  

Washing day again so we found the laverie in the supermarket car park and did the washing while we grocery shopped. As we headed to the laverie it was right on 12 and the church bells gave us a really good performance - not just the 12 bells for the hour.

Thursday 29th May

Today is a public holiday - Ascension Day. Many countries in Europe celebrate this day with a holiday. It's a beautiful warm day - Rob has broken out the shorts. Hopefully this lovely weather will continue. 

Today we headed out to visit 3 medieval villages nearby. The first, Morestal - the city of painters (though we didn't see much evidence of this, only one artist exhibition). This village was a fortified village from the 14th century with a tower sitting on top of the hill, which once used to house a dungeon. The views from the tower were pretty spectacular. Over in the distance we could see snow on the Alps. The village was very quiet - not sure if this was normal or because of the holiday. 

The tower at Morestel.

View from the tower, across the rooftops and to the mountains.

We elected not to explore this street - some real ankle turners there!

Hmm! An alternative to a mantlepiece.

The tower from a different angle, with the flag flying.

Moving on to the village of Cremieu, only 10k away from Morestal. This one was great - old fortified remparts, through the gateway into the heart of the village. The church was started in 13th century and finished 17th century. An Augustine monastery from the same period. The remparts were mostly still in existence with housing etc built on and into the walls. Perched on the hill above the town were ruins of the old castle and towers. The remparts went up this hill and around the towers we could see on the hill. We didn't walk up the hill to the old towers but this had been one pretty impressive village in its time. We had lunch in the village - along with lots of French people enjoying their day off. 

Beautiful colour.

The exterior fortified walls of Cremieu.

One of the gateways.

The old covered market - still in use today.

The cloisters at the Augustine monastery.

The old tower ruins on the hill above the village.

One more stop on the way home in the village of Saint-Chef. This was a bit of a loss. We had been told about the frescoes in the abbey (dating from around year 500),  but the abbey was closed so we missed out. 

The 'locked' abbey at Saint-Chef.

This was out the front of the biblio museum.

Snow - it's a long way off but pretty spectacular.

We'd obviously climbed a bit in our trip to these villages because as we came home we could see lots of snow on the Alps.