We woke to grayness and dampness. Almost everything was wet. Even the foot of my sleeping bag, wrapped in plastic against just such an eventuality, was soaked. We woke early and left the earliest yet, before ten o’clock. The sky was so gray that the sun hardly shone through, the trees still dripping with the memory of the night’s rain, and a mist hung cloyingly to the ground. Packing up was a wet and unpleasant business, most especially the tent, which no amount of shaking could get rid of the water. We pedaled desultorily down the road, feeling the latent moisture in the air seeping though our clothes until we stopped at a nearby town to stock up on food for the coming Sunday.
Despite my complaints, I always enjoy the rain and last night was no exception. At times it came down so strongly that it startled us from unsettled sleep and the constant patter brought continuity to the night. Even this morning, gray as it was, had a certain ethereal beauty, everything so laden with moisture that it seemed possible to drink from the branches. But we live in a stark reality and the moisture was a worry to the fabric of our clothes and sleeping bags. Mold would not be so beautiful to live with.
I, being taller than Heather, have the continuing problem of my feet touching the back wall of the tent, with the result of having all the condensation run down onto my sleeping bag, leaving it soaking every morning. We tried to cover my feet in a plastic bag last night but either because of the hole in the plastic bag or condensation inside the plastic bag; my sleeping bag was wetter than ever this morning.
The first half of the day was very chilly, almost clammy. The town we stopped at was an old stone village called Creance and I froze outside, protecting the bikes, as Heather got our groceries. But soon after Creance the sky cleared up, revealing clear blue skies with scarcely a cloud.
Instead of returning directly to the main road we followed instead a parallel country lane and found ourselves, all of a sudden, directly across from Le Chateau De Pirou, Pirou Castle.
The castle was a “lost” castle, one that had disappeared from all records and everything but local legend sometime after the fourteenth century. It was easy to see why. Recessed from the road, sheltered by high hedges and trees, it was impossible to see. Heather and I decided to stop. We both had a feeling, unvoiced, that we had been passing through the French countryside without seeing the historical sights of France. It is more difficult here as our map only lists Michelin approved sights and all of these are far from our chosen path. Pirou castle was not on the approved list.The castle itself is well protected. Three gates defend the main courtyard. Then to get to the castle proper one has to walk a semi-circle around a water-filled moat and cross a well defended bridge. It was a very beautiful site, with trees hanging down until their branches dipped in the moat and the rocky towers gave the castle an ancient craggy look.
The castle itself was in a strange location, among the sandy flatlands that lead up to the coast. Local history records that it was the last castle to stand against the waves of invading Norsemen, protecting the natives of the region almost until the King of France ceded Normandy to them.Of the fall of the first castle to guard this site, the natives paint a romantic legend. Unable to take the castle by storm the invaders decided to lay siege and starve the inhabitants out. Days went by, and then weeks, until one day no movement could be seen within the castle. The invaders, fearful of a trick, decided to wait a single day more before storming the castle. At dawn they were woken by a flock of geese flying overhead. The advanced cautiously towards the castle and, again seeing no movement, they eventually charged in. They found the castle completely deserted, not even bodies were to be found, save for one old man. The invaders promised to spare his life if only he would tell them were the lord and his family had escaped. “They left this morning” was the reply “transformed by magic into a flock of geese.” Enraged at the old man’s reply the invaders burnt the castle to the ground.
Now everyone knows that to reverse a spell of transforming one simply reads the spell that changes you, only backwards The next year the lord and his family returned to Pirou, searching for the magic book that would change them back. They found only ashes. Now every year at the beginning of winter, the lord and his family return, condemned to search through the ages until the book is found.
The Normans who burnt down the first castle must have soon regretted it, because the king granted them Normandy, to fight off other frontier invaders, and so they were forced to rebuild what they had destroyed.
Its location on flat land was at first in a prime location to fight off flat-bottomed ships like Viking long ships. The purpose of the castle changed to accommodation, when the area came under Norman control. The castle went on to sponsor a knight who invaded England in 1066, the founder of an estate known as Stoke Pero in Somerset. Eventually the castle was abandoned and became a farmhouse, hardly existing even in local memory until it came to be restored by students, working from the 1960’s to now.
We explored its large rooms and very tiny ramparts eagerly, often getting stuck in miniscule doorways.
Outside the central keep there was a chapel for Saint Lawrence and a darkly lit room with a tapestry running around the building near the roof.
At first I took mistook it for a replica of the Bayeux tapestry but it turned out to be a tapestry depicting the Norman invasion of Sicily and southern Italy. There is, apparently, no monument to the “Norman Empire” and the people of the region most of the descended from Norman stock, are trying to organize one at Pirou.
We left Pirou much cheered, both by the stop to visit the castle and by the transformation in the weather. It was now almost too sunny to bike and we had to stop and apply sunscreen. A little joke from whoever commands the weather I do not doubt.
We kept at it for quite some time until exhaustion forced us to give in. We turned off towards Agon-Coutainville, and tried to stop at the first campground we found. It was not, however, up to Heather’s standards, or to anyone else’s I suppose. There were piles of garbage bags at small intervals and the bathrooms were locked. At first I thought we had encountered our first example of a campground closed for the season, then I realized that the front gate was wide open when it could easily be locked, that the caravan where the groundskeeper would stay was occupied and that the front desk was open, just abandoned. We thought it best to move on anyway.
We found a small campground in the middle of town instead. I reserved a site, but not without meeting the owner who kept cutting off the girl at the desk as she tried to tell me where to pitch the tent. “Don’t you see that he doesn’t understand French?” He kept telling her. ”The only thing he can say is merci.” Which would have been fine if he had tried to give directions in English, which he didn’t. I said "Merci" as I left. I hope the sarcasm translated.
We pitched our tent in the shade of the trees and went to see if the bathrooms were pleasant. They weren’t.
The campground was very full. One gentleman across from us kept flinging liquid from a gas can onto his car. I sat watching, anticipating a flung match and a whoosh at any moment, but it turned out that he was only washing his car, not collecting insurance money. Still, it seems like a strange container to store your water in to me.
The ground of the place was completely littered with tiny snails, crunching as you walked. I have come to some conclusions abut the origins of escargot. Some brainy Frenchman was crunching along when he thought “zoot da Lourdes” (I don’t know if they really do that) “Here I have so many snails. I will pretend that the French love to eat them, then export them around the world. And voila” (I’m pretty sure they do that), “Less snails and more money, what a wonderful life.”
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