The Bon Vivant

Join me on my six month sojourn
  • Home
  • Contact
  • Tag: castle

    • King of the castle

      Posted at 2:04 pm by mondeuseandmountains, on January 22, 2018

      It was a rather significant birthday for my husband in January. Being the selfless wife that I am, I thought perhaps a stay in a castle might take his mind off the fact that he is now officially middle aged. Plus it is 800 years old, so waaay older than him!

      We set off early and stopped enroute in a charming spa town called Aix-Les-Bains. No time to check out the thermal spas this time but I put it on my extensive ‘research’ list for next time. We were wandering around in search of a café au lait (yes we sometimes rebel against French culture and have a milky coffee after breakfast!), then I spotted something out the corner of my eye.

      Aix-Les-Bains has a cat cafe! Cat cafe’s don’t work so well in Australia because of all our rules and regulations, but here they can pretty much sit in your lap whilst you sip on your coffee like these handsome chaps did. I like to think it was because they could sense I was a cat lover, but I think it could have had something to do with my muffin.

      Alas we had to leave our furry friends and carry onto our castle.

      Wow. What a castle! It took our breath away as soon as we arrived.

      Château de Bagnols, originally built in 1217, is perfectly placed amongst the Beaujolais vineyards and is a sight to behold. As you can imagine over 800 years it has gone through several periods of disrepair and then revitalisation, in 1970 some of the ceilings fell in due to an airplane’s supersonic boom! The recent loving and meticulous restoration also subtly included all the modern conveniences of a five star hotel so it really ticks all boxes.

      This is library where we had our aperitifs (my kind of library).

      Our beautiful room overlooking the vineyards really made us feel special. The walls are covered in frescos or magnificent original tapestries.

      Fabulous tub for a soak! Almost as big as our entire apartment in Sydney.

      Throne room

      Of course this opulent castle comes with a Michelin starred restaurant. The stunning dining room has the largest gothic fireplace in Europe (possibly the world, according to our waiter).

      The food was exceptional.

      Each of our outstanding five courses was delivered to us under silver cloches with a theatrical flourish. Even the bread and butter was next level!

      Overall I couldn’t have found a more perfect place to celebrate a special occasion.

      Happy Birthday darling husband!

      45.916626 4.608311
      Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments | Tagged Beaujolais, castle, ChâteaudeBagnols
    • Beth yw castell drawiadol!

      Posted at 12:14 pm by mondeuseandmountains, on December 30, 2017

      Our next destination was Wales via Heysham to find the church where my parents got married.

      St Peter’s dates back to the 13th century, although it’s believed a church in some form has been on the site from the 8th century. Around the side of the church there are some impressive medieval coffins carved into the sandstone. It’s in a beautiful spot on the bay and as usual for England we had lovely weather (seriously). Great choice mum & dad!

      It was sweet to think I was in the same place as my parents on such a happy day for them. Mum tells me that Dad was wearing an apricot coloured shirt to match the apricot coloured flowers in her bouquet, how delightful!

      We arrived in Conwy, Wales just in time for a quick visit to Conwy Castle. It was perfect timing as we had the most spectacular sunset (at just after 3pm) and no-one was around – another reason why I like to travel in the off season. Conwy Castle was built by Edward I in 1283 and is incredibly impressive and well preserved. He sounded like a bit of an arse but he can sure build a castle!

      Queen of the castle!

      I’d never been to Wales and to be honest didn’t know much about it, I was pleasantly surprised to hear so many people speaking Welsh. I had heard it was a dying language but people all around us were conversing fluently, there was even a TV channel all in Welsh. It’s such a funny looking language, vowels don’t rate highly. According to my trusty google translate, ‘I’ll have a beer please’ is ‘Bydd gen i cwrw, os gwelwch yn dda’.

      The next day we went to Snowdonia, which sounds like a ski themed adventure park but it’s actually a large national park. The scenery here was different yet again. Sharp and imposing slate cliffs which were accentuated by the dramatic eerie mist. We went for a beautiful walk around Llyn Ogwen where I half expected dragons to come swooping down from the mountains… maybe I have been watching too much Game of Thrones.

      I could have easily spent more time in Wales but gingerbread and mulled wine were waiting for me in Europe.

      Posted in Travel | 11 Comments | Tagged castle, wales
    • Mondeuse and Mountains

  • Recent Posts

    • Alptastic May 12, 2018
    • Wine tasting in Burgundy March 17, 2018
    • Express to Espresso February 14, 2018
    • King of the castle January 22, 2018
    • Christkindlmarkets/Marché de Noël January 1, 2018

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com

Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×