Today ended on a rather sombre note as we visited the
village of Oradour-sur-Glane. On June 10, 1944 all the 672 residents were
killed by Nazi soldiers and the town was set alight. The town has been left as
it was as a memorial for these people and walking through the streets really
made you think about them and the real futility of war. All that was left were
the stone walls and metal parts of buildings. Inside were “skeletons” of cars,
and quite a number of metal pieces of equipment. In the church where the women
and children were killed, the metal frame of a pram sits in front of the alter.
We were some of the last people in to the village just before 5 and we had just
over an hour before it closed. The shadows were getting long and to see the
train lines still running down the main street along with their electrified
wires on poles really made me feel the desolation of this town. I tried to capture this with my camera, and
took many, many photos which will need to processed later, but have put a few
up on the blog. We could have stayed in the town but decided to move on another
15 minutes to this village which has a very simple Aire in a grass field
overlooking the surrounding hills, a good place to sit over a glass of wine and
think about where we had just been.
We woke this morning to heavy fog but by the time we had
packed up, and had a chat with Tim and Indie it was lifting and we drove north
with blue skies, great to see the sun. Stopped in the town of Hautefort, mainly
to have a stock up at the supermarket but also to check out the castle. We
stopped in a carpark which overlooked the beautiful Limousin countryside and
had lunch, then I walked up to the castle, but soon found that I needed to pay an
entry fee to just get in and have a close up look and as we had plans for the rest
of the day I passed on it and made do with photos from the road! It was one of
those places that we needed to spend the afternoon.
We passed through really pretty countryside with lots of cattle
and sheep grazing before skirting around Limoges and onto Oradour. There are
just so many places we could stop at and spend time, but realise that our days
in France are quickly coming to an end. Tonight I picked a bowl full of field
mushrooms from around our campsite and cooked up with some garlic – and ate
them all, Ian doesn’t really like them as he finds them too strong compared to
cultivated mushrooms, I didn’t complain!
 |
| The castle at Hautefort |
 |
| Autumn is here |
 |
| Spot Ruakiwi's lunch stop! |
 |
| Drive by ... had to laugh. |
Comments