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A Casual Corner of the Château

  A Casual Corner of the Château Photos posted later Not every gathering place at Château Marouatte needs a grand dining table, centuries-old fireplace, or formal room. Tucked along the outer buildings is a much more casual space, the kind of place where you can simply wander outside, pull up a chair, and stay awhile. The path leading here is part of its charm. A narrow gravel walkway runs alongside a building almost completely softened by climbing greenery. Ahead, the gardens seem to take over. Trees, shrubs, vines and potted plants overlap one another, creating the feeling of a garden that has evolved over many years rather than one carefully installed all at once. At the center of the gathering area is a wonderfully informal terrace beneath a heavy wooden pergola. Vines weave through the beams overhead, providing patches of shade, while a collection of white metal chairs and tables waits underneath. Nothing feels overly arranged. There are pots everywhere, some terracotta, so...
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The Château Office: A Working Room Full of Character

  The Château Office: A Working Room Full of Character Photos later One of the pleasures of exploring Château Marouatte is discovering the rooms that aren’t necessarily meant to impress. They are simply part of the everyday workings of the château. The office is a perfect example. You enter through a single door into a room that feels less like a conventional office and more like a collection of different centuries that have somehow learned to live together. Immediately noticeable are the warm peach-colored walls, red carpeting and massive exposed wooden beams. There is nothing sleek or corporate here. The furniture has weight and age. Wooden desks and cabinets show the marks of years of use, while books, papers, photographs, artwork and practical office equipment fill almost every available surface. One of the most striking architectural features is a pair of enormous wooden doors along one side of the room. I initially thought they were an entrance, but they are actually stor...
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Dining in a Room That Refuses to Be Ordinary

  Dining in a Room That Refuses to Be Ordinary (Photos later) There are dining rooms, and then there are rooms where simply sitting down for dinner feels like becoming part of the château’s history. The main dining hall at Château Marouatte is unquestionably the latter. The first thing that strikes me is its length. A single enormous table runs almost the entire distance of the room, lined on both sides with high-backed, dark wooden chairs. The table is covered in a magnificent red and gold patterned cloth, creating a brilliant ribbon of color straight through the center of the hall. When we gather here for meals, there is nothing intimate about the architecture, yet the long communal table somehow makes the experience wonderfully intimate. We are all brought together in one place. And then you look up. The ceiling may be my favorite feature of the room. Massive, rough-hewn wooden beams form the exposed roof structure, their irregular surfaces and age left visible rather than ...
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My Room in the Outer Buildings

 Photos later My Room in the Outer Buildings My room is tucked away in one of the outer buildings of the château, and it feels wonderfully different from a conventional hotel room. It is a simple, private bedroom, with the bathroom in the room next door. The bedroom has the unmistakable character of an old French country house. Massive, dark wooden beams cross the ceiling, including one wonderfully irregular beam that spans almost the entire width of the room. Nothing about it looks manufactured or perfectly straight. The bends, cracks, knots, and uneven surfaces of the old timber are part of its charm. The walls are a soft pale green, while a deep red carpet and an Oriental-style rug add warmth. My single bed sits against a substantial dark wooden headboard, with a small table and lamp beside it. There are framed pictures scattered across the walls, an old wooden chair, and a few pieces of furniture that look as though they have accumulated here naturally over many years rather th...
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A Quick Peek Inside the Pigeon House

 Photos will be provided later.  A Quick Peek Inside the Pigeon House One of the more unusual buildings at Château Marouatte is this enormous round stone structure. From the outside, it could easily be mistaken for another defensive tower. In fact, it is the château’s colombier, or dovecote , built to house pigeons. And it is enormous. The commune of Grand-Brassac describes Marouatte’s structure as a “colombier monumental,” located within the château’s first polygonal enclosure or lower courtyard.  Another source associated with visits to Marouatte describes it as the second-largest pigeon house in the Périgord Vert .  But the most remarkable number comes from the Société Historique et Archéologique du Périgord. Its account of a visit to Marouatte specifically describes the pigeonnier as having 3,000 holes .  I had a quick peek inside, and suddenly that number seems entirely believable. The interior is extraordinary. The curved walls rise almost to the roof and...
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Saturday in Brantôme: A Geocache, a Riverside Lunch, and the Cleanest Public Toilets in France

 Photos will be added later.  Saturday in Brantôme: A Geocache, a Riverside Lunch, and the Cleanest Public Toilets in France Saturday morning began with a 10:00 departure for Brantôme , and I was especially happy about this particular outing. Of all the towns we have visited in this part of France, Brantôme is one of my favorites. It is sometimes called the “Venice of the Périgord,” and it does not take long to understand why. The Dronne River curls around the historic center, and almost everywhere you look there is water. Old stone houses sit directly along its banks, bridges cross from one part of town to another, and trees lean over the river, their reflections mixing with those of centuries-old buildings. On this bright Saturday morning, the water was remarkably calm. Buildings, trees, bridges and even the great abbey were mirrored on its surface. Every few steps seemed to offer another photograph. The imposing Abbey of Brantôme rises beside the river, backed not by an o...
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