Home from home

Well my people really felt at home here and had their morning coffee in this place run by a guy from Wales! (You'd never guess that would you?). The village of Valance-sur-Blaise was founded in 1274 and the church below is 16th century.

The village has three wells, and it is these wells that helped the villages with stand sieges over the centuries. 

It also has a town port and you can take boat trips here to Condom. Think I'll stick to the poppymobile though as you know I don't like water.

All for one and one for all....

I could not get to the computer to blog yesterday as the Guv seemed to be about all day!  So I'm a day late in telling you about the famous person who was born there.  Charles de Batz de Castelmore, Captain Lieutenant of the Musketeers of Louis XIV better known as d'Artagnan. 

The real d'Artagnan's life was used as the basis for Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras' novel Les mémoires de M. d'Artagnan. Alexandre Dumas in turn used Sandras' novel as the main source for his d'Artagnan Romances (The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After and The Vicomte de Bragelonne), which cover d'Artagnan's career from his humble beginnings in Gascony to his death at Maastricht. Although Dumas knew that Sandras's version was heavily fictionalised, in the preface to The Three Musketeers he affected to believe that the memoirs were real, in order to make his novel more believable.

Castle of d'Artagnan

Not busy now....

So back to my travels. The next village we went to was Lupiac founded in 1090 and is the oldest castelneux in Gascony. The Guv said at the beginning of the 20th century this place was a busy city, but now only 300 people live here. Tomorrow I'll tell you about one very famous person that was born here....

That's a long time...

The Guv told me this morning he and the Missus have been married this day 41 years ago!
Wow my Gt Gt Gt Grandfather was alive then....

Still Happy Anniversary to the Guv & the Missus

Quite "Plaisance"

Another place I can not say much about other than it was very "Plaisance". A big town square that I had a walk around, but even the Guv and Missus did not stop for coffee!

Not much here....

Not a lot to tell you about this town (Marciac) apart from it had a very large centre square with loads of room for the "poppymobile" to park.  

So I just had a walk around to stretch my four legs

Tillac toilets

We came across this village a bit by accident, as it looked rather interesting the Guv decided to stop.  Tillac was originally built around a castle in the 13th century, but the castle has long since gone. A fortified village protected by two towers at either end, the Rabasten Tower and the Mirande Tower.

Never mind the towers just look at all those doggy toilet posts they built for male canines

.....now where's the female one ?

Another day, another village

Our next stop was at Mirande. Not much I can say about this place other than I had a walk around with my people and a look in the church.

I thought someone nicked the round-a-bout but the Guv told me it was a bandstand

Not bad for the office of the Mairie

Spirits in a bottle.......

Yet another place we visited was Larressingle, again a village on the route to St. Jacques de Compostelle (and I'm still not walking there!). The Guv said the village was first mentioned in the time of Alexander III in 1163, so it's quite old.

Far more interesting is the fact from here Maison Papelorey was the first producer to bottle Armagnac prior to shipping, until that Armagnac was shipped in casks. This allowed Armagnac to compete on an even footing with Cognac on the world markets.

Another Bastide.....

Another Bastide village to have a sniff around, this time it's Montreal

I thought the Guv would have liked to have worked in one of these places, I hear him often 

telling people where to go  !!!

                      ....and I told the Guv I'm still not walking all the way there!