Sunday 26 August 2012

A Weekend in France: Saint Amour

Yesterday, I promised you a stroll through Saint Amour for today, and here it is:

The village square with the church on one side. 

Inside the church.

A better shot from outside.
In the village; vineyards come right up to the houses.

The mairie (town hall) with a heart-shaped sign (Kay, you'd like to see one like this above every town hall, don't you!). This must be a very popular place for couples to have their marriage registered. (Of course, in real life, neither the road nor the buildings are as lopsided as they appear. Lopsidedness seems to have become my trademark...)


More random pictures from the village.

See that little dog running towards us? He wasn't barking or aggressive; he simply accompanied us on our stroll until he found an an open courtyard with a little boy and a cat and decided they were more entertaining company than us (or is it "than we"?).

This house was completely different from the rest of the buildings here. Apparently it belongs to the same family who own the Hameau Duboeuf, shown in my previous post.
Looking up at those tightly shuttered and bricked up windows, my sister and I were both quite sure this place is inhabited by at least one vampire.

Bye-bye, little dog - and bye for now, Saint Amour!

There'll be a trip to Macon, nearby larger town, tomorrow. And I am now off for my Sunday morning run - the sun is out, the sky is blue, it's beautiful, and so are you!
(Lines borrowed from "Dear Prudence" by The Beatles)

10 comments:

  1. A Sunday morning run! Even if I were young with two working knees I wouldn't join you on your run. Or would I? Perhaps given my life again I would like running. As it was I disliked long distance running and stuck to sprinting.

    French villages like this have a certain character I've never found anywhere else. Each country and, indeed each region, so often has it's own charm (or otherwise!).

    I would suggest that the answer to your question is 'we' because it could be followed by 'were' which was unsaid. It quite amused me that you should ask because your use of grammar and knowledge of the English language is so much better than that of many of the native English speaking people I meet - and of mine.

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    1. Graham, I have started on Sunday (sometimes Saturday) morning running only recently; usually, I go for a run in the evening after work. But sometimes it gets late and/or I have other things coming up for the evening, and the days are getting considerably shorter already, so mornings are a good alternative.
      Yesterday, I only did 6,5 km instead of 8,5 km. Shortly after I had left the house, a huge pile of black clouds came threateningly close, so I took a shorter route than usual because much as I like a shower after running, I prefer to have that in my bathroom, not out on the fields.

      Thank you for answering my grammar question!

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  2. Oui, it's 'we'.

    What I want to know is did the bricking up succeed in keeping the vampire in?

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    1. The bricking up must have been successful, John, because we didn't see a single vampire during our stay in the village.

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  3. I'm catching up on reading your blog! Love the inside of the church and find the entire area looks like a wonderful place to visit/ I realize that except for Paris, I've mostly found France as a place I go through on my way to some place else, which is what Americans tend to say about Kansas, not very fairly. And it is certainly not fair about France!

    I guess I should say I stayed a few days in Provence and Carcassonne on our way to the Costa Brava so we could be robbed. (It was not our intention to go to Blanes and be robbed; it's just what happened.) And we enjoyed it a good deal. But I would like to see more of northern and central France. You're inspiring me, Librarian!

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    1. Oh, thank you, Kristi! If my blog manages to inspire, then that is more than what I could hope for! By the way, our Australian friends visited Carcassonne, too, while they were staying in France. They showed us many pictures and it looks an impressive place.

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  4. And I don't mean that we enjoyed being robbed. I have my foot in my mouth too much today!

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  5. Oh yes! I love the Town Hall with the heart on the front of it! Why does it have that I wonder?

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    1. Because the community thrives on the "Amour" bit in their name. According to their website, they are very popular for couples from all over France to get married there, and Valentine's Day is the most important day of the year for them. It brings tourists and money, and induces people to keep their houses and garden in nice shape, which is never a bad thing, is it!

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