Visiting Fort Boyard (Charente-Maritime, France) - Site of France's Aristocratic Games Show with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Fort Boyard - Site of France's Aristocratic Games Show and Great Seafood Platter Lunches - Charente-Maritime (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The next day we took a cruise from Fouras out to Fort Boyard, which has become a symbol of the Charente-Maritime département due to the French Fort Boyard thriller game show.  This show has run for twenty-three years and is broadcast in many countries.

What makes Fort Boyard so unique is that it stands in the middle of the ocean like an island.  It actually sits on a sand bank between two islands.  One island is the Ile d’Aix and the other is the Ile d’Oléron.

Salt, called “white gold,” from the Ile d’Oléron has made this area prey to invasion and occupations for centuries.  According to Thierry Sauzeau in Fort Boyard from the Petite Histoire Series, the Celts produced salt here at the end of the Iron Age.  He further writes that salt became especially sought after due to the long distance ship voyages, beginning in the fifteenth century; Long ship voyages required salt for preserving food.

Other world events that caused salt to be as valuable as gold were the growth of consumption of herring and cod, which both required salt for their preservation to enhance trade possibilities in lands far from the ocean Sauzeau writes.

Protecting revenue from this valuable commodity as well as protecting France from the English, who could use the islands of Aix and Oléron as staging posts for an invasion, made the Fort Boyard important for kings even if it took centuries to build.  Sauzeau writes that the first monarch to consider building a fortress in the middle of the ocean was Louis XIV (1600 – 1715).  Louix XIV’s military engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1633 – 1707) downplayed the idea due to its difficulty to build.

Louis XV (1710 – 1774) actually had plans drawn up for the fort, but did not have it built due to a lack of funds and worry that the English would destroy the construction site according to Sauzeau.  The first stone for Fort Boyard was laid in 1804 under Napoléon Bonaparte (1769 – 1821) according to our cruise commentator. 

However, after Napoleon’s naval forces were defeated at Trafalgar by the British under Lord Nelson (1758 – 1805), Napoleon preferred his land forces to naval ones; work on Fort Boyard was suspended in 1809 according to Sauzeau. 

Fort Boyard was completed under Napoleon III (1808 – 1873) during the Second Empire in France.  Fort Boyard was eventually used as what the French call a “passive” fort, a jail, a private residence, and now the scene of a thriller game show.

The Fort Boyard television series makes use of the fort’s individual cells to have one team per show try to win keys that will help them solve a puzzle at the show’s end. If the team solves the puzzle, contestants have the chance to amass gold coins before tigers that appear to be menacing enter the coin drop area.

Some of the show’s challenges include bungee jumping off the top of the fort to grab a key while others require dealing with spiders, rats, and snakes in close quarters in addition to mud wrestling, strength, and strategy games.

The day we went out to see the fort, the ocean was choppy as a storm was blowing towards the coast.  When the children saw Fort Boyard, they screamed and their parents and grandparents took photographs.

I think all the French rulers who wanted to build Fort Boyard would like to see it used a game site to test strength, courage, and intelligence in the television show.  

The seaside restaurants in Fouras can replenish your forces after a trip out to Fort Boyard.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting the Chateau de la Roche Courbon in Charente-Maritime, France with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Chateau de la Roche Courbon in Charente-Maritime, France with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I picked up a thick brochure on a tourist stand of all the principal sites to visit in the Saintonge area of Charente-Maritime outside La Rochelle.  I felt like a child in a candy store going through the brochure’s pages, especially when I calculated how close we were to the chateaus, convents, monasteries, and churches I wanted to visit.

The first place we ventured out to was the Château de la Roche Courbon with its famous garden and park.  The château was built in 1475 by Jehan de la Tour and modified by the Courbon family in the seventeenth century.  The famous garden and park were created by Jean-Baptiste de la Quintinie (1626 – 1688) in the second part of the seventeenth century under the direction of Jean-Louis de Courbon.

The first thing we learned on a guided tour we took and in a temporary exhibit was that a French-style garden is characterized by three elements: symmetry, geometry, and perspective.  La Quintinie used all three elements of a French-style garden at Roche Courbon. 

Jean-Baptiste de la Quintinie also worked with landscape designer André le Nôtre (1613 – 1700) at the château of Vaux-le-Vicomte.  Both men later worked at Versailles, where La Quintinie was put in charge of the royal kitchen gardens and orchards to provide fruit and vegetables for King Louis XIV (1638 – 1715).

Since 2000, the garden at the Château de la Roche Courbon has been built on wooden pilotis, or piles, due to its sinking into a marsh.  As long as the wood is submerged in water it does not rot.  The château itself sits on a rock.

Inside the château, the upper class servants’ room was most interesting.  The beds were short, not because everyone was short.  Rather, people slept sitting up as lying down resembled death.  Several people slept in a bed with a curtain pulled around the bed for warmth.

At the château’s exit, there were several games for royal and aristocratic young people set up for visitors to compete with each other.  The games featured strategy and dexterity to win.  One game called Billard à balles required rolling a ball up an incline on two rods that you moved together.

Another royal and aristocratic game called Bâtonnets shows up on France’s Fort Boyard television show.  In this game, you can draw one, two, or three sticks with the objective of leaving your adversary with one stick.  There are twenty sticks on the board; counting helps with the strategy for winning this game.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Laurent Paget Photography

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Visiting La Rochelle - Site of Historic Religious Wars Between Catholics and French Protestants (Huguenots) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting La Rochelle - Site of Religious Wars between Catholics and French Protestants (Huguenots) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

As Laurent and I drove out of the Limousin and towards the Atlantic coast in the Charente-Maritime département, or state, where La Rochelle is located, I thought of how much I liked the Limousin.  The porcelain from Limoges was a big draw revealing my Anglo-Saxon heritage. 

On the way to La Rochelle, we passed the chateaus of Chalus (where Richard the Lionheart died during a siege), Rochouart, and Rochefoucauld.  We kept crossing the path Richard the Lionheart (1157 – 1199), which had me planning travel itineraries for upcoming years.

We stopped in Cognac and ate salads for lunch at an outdoor café.  The sun beat down on us as we toured the circular downtown area.  Tasting cognac and driving do not mix, so we continued on towards the coast without going into one of the tasting rooms.

Our drive westward took us into the Poitou-Charente region, which includes the Charente-Maritime département.  Regions existed before departments; many were royal provinces. Today there are 27 regions and 101 départements that make up France according to the CIA Factbook (www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/fr.html).  La Rochelle is a city located in Charente-Maritime.  Charente-Maritime is a département located in the Poitou-Charente region.

La Rochelle is famous in French history for the Siege of La Rochelle, which pitted Catholic forces under Louis XIII (1601 – 1643) of France against the French Protestant Huguenot forces of La Rochelle with their English allies during 1627 – 1628.

Wars and battles often define culture as the defeat of the Huguenots of La Rochelle proved in the Peace of Alais (1629).  The Huguenots lost everything but their religious freedom guaranteed by the Edict of Nantes (1598) that Henri IV (1553 – 1610) had promulgated.  However, with the Huguenots weakened, it became easy to take away their rights.  Louis XIV (1638 – 1715) revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, making it illegal to be a Protestant in France for centuries.

Today La Rochelle is known more as a fun summer destination.  During our stay in Charente-Maritime, the Francofolies were taking place there.  This event is a series of concerts devoted to French-language contemporary music.  It was sold out, and the crowds were in the streets of La Rochelle despite an impending storm.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting the Gallo-Roman Performance Venue at Cassinomagus in the Charente Department (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Gallo-Roman Performance Venue at Cassinomagus in the Charente Department (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My husband Laurent and I visited the village of Chassenon in the Limousin, which marks the beginning of the south of France.  You can easily detect if you are in the south of France by looking at the roof tiles; those in the south of France have orange half-circle roof tiles.

At the end of our route through highways and county roads, we crossed into the Charente département where we found Chassenon.  Outside this village, you can find the Cassinomagus Gallo-Roman archaeological site, dating around 200 C.E.  The French often vex Italians by telling them that their country has just as many archaeological sites as Italy. The French also compete with the Italians to turn these sites into venues for concerts, theatrical works, lectures, and workshops in addition to guided tours. 

So far the Cassinomagus excavations have brought to light baths on three levels, a large temple, 49 water channels, two small temples, one theater, and an aqueduct according to the informative brochure from the visitor’s center.  If you can understand French, you can download this brochure from their website (www.cassinomagus.fr).  Suspended boardwalks allow you to walk above the baths under a roof.  You can visit the rest of the site on foot. 

Cassinomagus is a prime example of French cultural tourism with English tours now being offered in the summer.  The visitor’s brochure, though, lists many examples of how to make an archaeological site part  of the intellectual life of a community as well as a site for relaxation, cultural activities, workshops for children, and cultural activities.  I have chosen several of the activities at Cassinomagus for the 2012 year in its French-language visitor’s brochure as suggestions for making local historical sites a sought after place to visit no matter where one lives.

Cultural tourism as Cassinomagus begins with highlighting a monthly storytelling series.  The stories in French deal with how one becomes a storyteller, stories of fairies and pixies, creation myths where women play a leading role, Greek and Roman myths such as Eros and Psyche, Indo-European sun god myths, and a play for children focusing on medieval and traditional stories about the wolf, the fox, and the weasel.

There is a wrestling (lutte Gréco-Romain) club for children and adults.  A Roman garden has been created on the site called the Gardens of Pliny the Elder (25 – 79 C.E.).  Pliny wrote all the documentation that made it possible to recreate Roman gardens.  The visitor’s guide to Cassinomagus says that there are plants here for medicine, aromatics, decoration, utilitarian purposes such as dyes and fabrics, foods, and perfume-making in the Roman garden.  

In addition, there are treasure hunt nights for a mystery object, dress balls, permanent and temporary exhibits, guided visits, conferences with archaeologists on European Patrimony Day and National Archaeology Day.

Lectures at the Cassinomagus site for 2012 include “Math of the Gaules,” “Roman Life at Banquets,” “Photographic Tours in Roamn Gaul,” “Horticulture or the Romanization of Gaul by Plants,” and “Ancient Complexes in the Massif Central of France.”  There are philosophical cocktail hours where visitors can discuss topics such as “Political Power and the Control of the Electorate.”  Children’s workshops include learning how to carry out an archaeological dig, ancient games, wrestling, and arts and crafts of the Gallo-Roman world.  Schools are welcome for visits to the site as well.

Big events include National Archaeology Day with films and archaeologists, Star Gazing Nights with a local astronomy club complete with a buffet, family days at the site, and the Friends group holding a meeting where professions related to antiquity are discussed according to the visitor’s brochure. 

The Gallo-Roman theatre is in constant use as well and provides entertainment such as comedians, classical music, new music concept shows such as OVNI (Observance Viellistique Non Identifiée), theatre featuring French classics with a twist such as presenting them as street theatre, dance programs and jazz according to the visitor’s brochure.

I imagine tickets are in short supply for the Cassinomagus shows and the lectures and clubs must be well attended.  The site is outside the small village of Chassenon and somewhat difficult to find the first time.  Chassenon, however, benefits from the cultural offerings of a much larger town and probably has many regional tourists come to Cassinomagus archaeological site.

Not every country has Gallo-Roman ruins in the fields, but every culture has elements that could be used to teach tourists about the history and geography that make their culture unique and interesting.  Cassinomagus provides numerous examples of how to organize a site for cultural tourism.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting a 19th Century French One-Room Schoolhouse in the Limousin with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting a 19th Century French One-Room Schoolhouse in the Limousin with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget - Ruth Pennington Paget

My husband Laurent and I went to the small village of Montrol- Sénard to start a trip around France.  The village has made its downtown into a small museum.  Cars from Belgium, Germany, and France filled the downtown of this smart initiative to create an educational touristic center with limited funds.  The visit with a map is free, but donations are accepted.

Laurent and I loved the one-room school house from the nineteenth century.  Geometric and 3-D mechanical drawings and maps covered the walls.  The maps were colored yellow with age and included Algeria as a French département, or state.

The math problems on the chalkboard were all word problems.  For younger students, there were little balls strung on a stand-up wire frame to teach number sense.  The old desks were there with a spot for an inkwell.  You were allowed to sit at the desks and write.  One father was working on the math word problem with his son.  I liked all the old textbooks and snakes preserved in jars with formaldehyde for biology class.

At the blacksmith’s shop, we looked at old tools and an exposition about people from the village.  There were two restaurants in town with one advertising “animation” and paella on a Sunday night.Laurent’s relatives who told us about Montrol-Sénard said the mayor wanted to create a village “d’autrefois” or old-time village.  In addition, he has had the village take part in the “villages fleuries” program.  

This program rewards villages and towns that make themselves beautiful with flowers.  Using a little imagination, you can make even the smallest of towns a happening place to be.

I am sure that parents come back to Montrol-Sénard to show their children where their great-grandparents went to school and am thankful that the community welcomes tourists as well.

My souvenir of the village is the level of drawing expected of students.  This skill might have been a necessary one for drawing what kinds of tools farmers wanted a blacksmith to make or create, for example.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Laurent Paget Photography

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Touring the Alsatian Wine Road and Riquewihr (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring the Alsatian Wine Road and Riquewihr (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The Alsatian Wine Road (Route des Vins) offers many interesting stops to visit – rain or shine.  The only problem is that the towns along the way are so adorable that you could stop and never make it to the next town.

Driving through the Alsatian wine towns is hazardous, though.  Some towns like Bergheim require driving through a one-way lane arch with two-way traffic. The roads in the towns are almost pedestrian-only thoroughfares with enticing restaurants on either side of the road.

The weekend we visited men in checked shirts drove horse-drawn carriages and wore straw hats with brims.  They were working on Saturday, so they had the right of way as far as we were concerned. We enjoyed driving through the towns of Molsheim and Bergheim, but cut over to D1422 to make a faster route to Salestat, where we were also able to drive through vineyards.

Alsace like Burgundy is very religious.  Roadside shrines with a crucifix in them had bouquets of flowers on either side of the shrine.  These shrines stand by vineyards where workers of all levels pray for the harvest, give thanks, and maybe pray for assistance I would imagine. In Burgundy, these roadside shrines are hidden on back roads away from major roads.  In Alsace, I noted that the shrines are right on the major roads.

The flowers at the vineyard shrines probably serve the purpose of showing if there is mildew or harmful insects in the vineyards.  Delicate flowers show damage before grapes.  Flowers planted at the end of vineyard rows also serve this purpose.

When we arrived in the town of Riquewihr, we took many pictures of the half-timbered houses sitting at angles on crooked, narrow lanes where even a small car could not fit.  The houses date back to the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries.  Riquewihr is famous for its Riesling wine.

We ate at a restaurant in one of the half-timbered houses called “Au Relais des Moines,” which I loosely translate as “The Monk’s Stop.” Laurent and I both had dishes with forest touches.  Laurent had a steak with wild mushroom sauce with thick French fries.  I had médaillons de faon forestière with homemade tagliatelle.  Forestière refers to the cèpes mushrooms used in the creamy sauce.  Faon refers to the meat from a young female deer.  I ate a crème brulée for dessert while Laurent had coffee.

After lunch, we walked around Riquewihr’s defensive wall dating back to the thirteenth century.  Riquewihr is about one hour away from Strasbourg and beckons visitors to come back for food, walks, and beautiful Jacquard tablecloths as souvenirs.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Viewing the Issenheim Altarpiece by Gruenwald in Colmar (Alsace, France) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Viewing the Issenheim Altarpiece by Gruenwald in Colmar (Alsace, France)  with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Since we lived in southwestern Germany, getting to Alsace in eastern France was a day-trip away from our home.  Colmar with its Petite Venise (Little Venice) series of canals and the Unterlinden Museum merit several visits to this town of half-timbered homes on crooked, medieval streets.

Alsace has been French or German for centuries according to French governments or German ones; the Alsatians would most probably say, “We are our own people.” However, I think in this century, at least, that Alsace is very French for several reasons.

Citizens in Colmar have an almost Parisian gait to their wiry bodies.  The women’s fashion on the street looks like classic Chanel with colored silk scarves at the throat.  Perfume wafts through the air to complete “the look” that one puts on to be seen as one goes about one’s business.

Houses in Alsace have a well-trimmed abundance of flowers that accentuate the rectangular window frames, which makes me think they are competing in the French “Villages Fleuries” program.  This program names a village or town that makes itself the most beautiful with flowers every year.

Restaurants in Alsace also expect you to wait to be seated as in France.  In Germany, restaurant customers can sit down where they want as long as they do not sit at the stammtisch (owner’s table).  French is spoken by everyone in Colmar, including the German tourists it seems.

There are busloads of tourists from all countries, who come to Colmar to visit the Unterlinden Museum.  Unterlinden means “under the linden trees,” and there are linden trees all around the museum.  The Unterlinden Museum houses the Issenheim Altarpiece, one of the greatest works of German art painted by Matthias Grünewald (ca. 1475/1480 – 1528) and sculpted by Nicholas de Haguenau (1485 – 1526/1538) between the years 1512 and 1516.

The Issenheim Altarpiece is not a joyful artwork, but rather one of Christ’s empathy for sufferers of what was called Saint Anthony’s Disease; the Issenheim Altarpiece offers hope for salvation from suffering on earth.  Saint Anthony’s Disease was caused by fungus on rye used in bread baking.  

According to the Musée d’Unterlinden Colmar in the Connaissances des Arts series, the church’s liturgical calendar determines the showing of the three collection of paintings of the Issenheim Altarpiece.  There are nine scenes that deal with the life of the Egyptian hermit Saint Anthony, scenes from the life of Saint Mary, and the Crucifixion.

In the scene of the Temptation of Saint Anthony Grünewald’s monster’s have ugly, tortured faces and gnarled hands.  They look joyful, though, as if they were hazing new recruits to a sinister fraternity.

Today the altar piece has been separated and hung in a former chapel of a thirteenth century Dominican convent.

Other galleries occupy the former convent’s rooms.  The wood carving of the Haut-Rhenan School from the Middle Ages on display is life-like and deeply carved into the wood.  A roomful of long-haired, blond Madonnas sculpted in wood shows them gazing towards their son with gentle curves at the hip to hold a baby.  Wood sculpture on altars shows flowers almost blooming out of their background, because they are carved in such high relief.

The Canals of the Petite Venise run in front of the Unterlinden Museum and restaurants.  The day we visited it was raining, so Laurent and I did not do our traditional assessment of every restaurant menu in town before deciding on one.

Fortunately, our choice of a restaurant turned out to be a welcoming place with excellent food named Pfeffel.  I immediately liked the soft, red and white tablecloths and linen napkins.  The restaurant was located inside a medieval, half-timbered house with wood beams running across the ceiling.

I ate pork medallions in cream sauce followed by a good slice of Muenster cheese rolled in caraway seeds.  The caraway seeds improved the flavor and downplayed the scent somewhat.  The meal was a marvelous finish to a wonderful outing in Colmar.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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