The Chateau's turrets reached way up into the blue sky at the ends of the beautiful glazed tiled roof. Our guide welcomed us so warmly and gave us the most interesting tour of the Chateau. The kitchen had a central piano oven, which, in its day was stoked with wood and coal. AJ got to see medieval weapons used by foot soldiers, some used to cut the necks of the enemies horses in order to disable the riders. The walls of the Salle des Gardes were decorated with old crossbows, the most powerful weapon of the middle ages. We stood in a chamber located in the castle's tower, the walls were nine foot thick - the neighbors could make as much noise as they liked and you would still sleep like a baby in a bedroom like that.
From La Rochepot we drove on to Nolay. There was an artisanal market on in the Les Halles marketplace and I met a guy, Bruno, who had the most amazing array of salt, in all flavours, and in all colours of the rainbow. He even had Australian salt and shared with me that he thought it was a beautiful product.
Thanks to the market, Nolay was buzzing with life. Townsfolk and blow ins, ambled the village square, browsing in the tiny antiques store, and sitting under the awning of the cafe, sipping cold beer or espresso.
AJ had spotted a circular route that encircled about 10 km of the local area and asked could we drive it. Gosh it was funny. First of all, the roads were only marked out in a tourist brochure and the roads weren't labeled with names or numbers so we had a difficult and confusing time finding them. When we did, the first one was a dirt road. We didn't want to disappoint, so on we plodded ever so slowly taking care of the little red car. The dirt road spat us out onto a more civilised terrain after passing some glorious wheat fields with a square of happy, yellow sunflowers in the middle.
His road was a bit of a fizzer as far as roads go, he thought it looked like a race track on the brochure. In the end we really didn't know why it was marked on the tourist brochure it was such a non-event. Anyway, we had fun.
We drove home through the pretty village of Puligny Montrachet and stopped for AJ to spot some cars. This village is home to a pretty ritzy hotel so attracts a pretty well heeled crowd. It didn't let him down and he snapped a few pics of a shiny, black Maserati. Happy days!
