Avon-les-Roches

We've driven through Avon-les-Roches often enough on the way to somewhere else and each time remarked that "we really should have a look at the church the next time we pass through". Well, we finally managed to do just that a couple of weeks ago.

Notre-Dame, Avon-les-Roches

The church sits right on the road and we've only had a glance in passing. but noted that the porch was definitely worth a closer look. The bulk of the church - choir, nave and apse - was rebuilt in the 13th century with the later addition of the spire [C16th]. The whole was restored early in the 19th century.

12th century porch

The porch was built around 1120 and formed part of the original church and has a splendidly carved doorway and windows, in the Romanesque style. Capitals supporting the arches display life-like faces and beasts - both real and imaginary. The south door retains beautifully detailed geometric & zig-zag carving framing its round arch. Just above the south door you can see the lower part of a window which has been truncated by the current roof.

South door

Inside the porch is an intriguing bit of graffiti preserved behind a perspex panel. We spent quite some time trying to decipher what it said and were able to make out some of the text: L'an, Lorrene, duc de Bourgoigne and de la typhan..?. but that was as far as we got.

Late 15th century graffiti

According to Tourainissime© it reads:

 "L'an MYL IIIC* LXXVI devant Nan dedans Lorrene fut tué le duc de Bourgoigne la vigille de la typhaine"                                                                                   
* should be read as MYL IIII in our opinion

Which translates as: 'In the year 1476, on the eve of Epiphany, before Nancy in the Lorraine, the Duke of Burgundy was killed.'

Detail on the capitals

Charles le Téméraire [Charles the Bold] died at the battle of Nancy on the 5th January 1477 according to our modern day calendar. At the time it would have been the 27th December 1476 in the Julian calendar; but, irrespective of the date, it would still have been the eve of Epiphany. [Tourainissime seems to have his dates muddled up and states that the vigil of Typhaine would be the modern day 1st of November, Toussaint]

Looking out from the porch

Sadly, the church was locked so we were unable to see inside. We will have to go back as we'd like to see the 12th century holy water stoop and the 12th century font. The stoop is unusual enough to be classed separately as a 'monument historique'.

Le girouet

The Valley of the Loire has held UNESCO World Heritage status since November 2000. Stretching from Sully-sur-Loire upstream of Orléans to Chalonnes-sur-Loire just downstream from Angers, it covers 280km of the river.

Le girouet de Savonnières

Each commune which is within the world heritage site sports a sign to designate its status. They look like stylised flags, which isn't too far off the mark. In fact, they're called 'un girouet' [not to be confused with 'une girouette' -- French for weather vane]. The reason the girouet was chosen as the symbol/logo for the Val de Loire is because it is so closely associated with the golden age of travel & trade on the river.

River boats tied up at Savonnières 

Historically the girouet served to identify the boats sailing the river. Each was unique and carved by the boatman from a plank of wood. A great deal of pride and one upmanship was involved and some were, by all accounts, very elaborate and beautiful indeed. To finish off their girouet boatmen added bright coloured pennants, the colours of which were as specific to a particular boatman or flotilla as the carvings on the girouet. As the girouets were so personal they were sometimes referred to as a "beggar's escutcheon", or "beggar's coat of arms". As well as being an identifier, the girouet served a very practical function - it indicated the wind direction; vital for the boatmen when they sailed back upstream.

A load of barrels:  the boats were the workhorses of the river

Each Val de Loire girouet has 3 images: the UNESCO logo, the World Heritage site logo and between them an image specifically linked to the commune. The blue section of the sign represents the pennant. The one we photographed is from the village of Savonnières.

Detail of the girouet

If you are interested you'll find more information on girouets as well as some lovely photos of reproduction girouets  on this French blog post.

La grêle!

Yesterday was a glorious day warm, sunny and towards the late afternoon quite 'heavy'. France Météo had been warning of possible thunderstorms, so early evening we checked the weather online.

An orange level warning was [and still is] in force in our area [red is the highest] for possible severe thunderstorms accompanied by violent gusts of wind and monsoon-like downpours and/or hail. Before turning in we dutifully switched off all electrical stuff and our internet connection and moved all the outdoor furniture into the lee of the house.

Just before 5am lightning flickered frantically across the sky, the rumbling began and the promised 'rafales' [wind gusts] arrived. In the eerie false dawn light it looked pretty scary. Meanwhile, we were fretting about our two cats who were outside, pre-dawn is their favourite hunting time. Instead of a monsoon downpour, we got hail. Hailstones the like of which neither of us have ever seen, except in news reports.

A 'small' collection of hailstones

Enormous 'grêlons' [hailstones] boinged off the roof, clattered against our upstairs windows and bounced on the grass outside. The noise of them hitting structures was disconcerting, an angry sound as if someone was trying to force a way in.

A seriously large one! Almost 6cm in diameter

Needless to say, Tinka- no sense in wee brain, arrived in our bedroom towards the end of the hail episode slightly damp, but thankfully none the worse for wear. A direct hit could have caused serious damage to a small cat. She seemed totally unfazed by either the lightning or the thunder. Shadow appeared later, dry, having had more sense to shelter somewhere until it was all over.

Two holes, neatly punched through

Earlier we went to have a look to see what damage we had sustained. The roof tiles seem fine; we can't see any cracked or displaced ones. The car too has no damage to the paintwork that we can see and our windows, including the velux, are sound. We heaved a sigh of relief. Amazingly the pot plants out front, including the tomatoes haven't been shredded. However, just now we went to wipe down the outdoor furniture and found that the hail has punched some holes straight through. A couple of chairs and a table have sustained damage.

We consider ourselves very lucky indeed. Certainly compared to the devastation suffered by the Vourvray wine growers last year when they had a similar hailstorm. Fingers crossed we don't get anymore as the orange level warning is in force until early tomorrow morning and the thunderstorms, with and without hail, are predicted to re-appear this afternoon.