Milly la Forêt Plus Plus Plus

Car voice assistant Frank and Kath fell out on the road to Milly la Forêt from Niort. It was a tense situation with Frank as he/she/they would bugger up the navigation and then refuse to go away when Kath took charge.  This tense relationship continues. I tried to include a voice recording of Frank and Kath but it didn’t work. Here is one from Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/lynkco.global/videos/477655494073621/?mibextid=zjnd3F8JVLI2prtF

We made a stop in Tours and LOVED it! We walked for 2 hours in this university happening town and would like to return one day.

Dogs and owners enjoying the day

Waste management technology. These bins go deep into the ground and are emptied periodically. Elaine and Kath saw them in Italy. I haven’t seen them but maybe we all will soon

Back to the journey. We pushed on, and it was a push. I find it hard to drive for more than two hours especially on a freeway.  We committed to stopping in another hour as I knew I had my beautiful father’s falling-asleep-at-the-wheel gene. I at least have a couple of hours before the zzz’s envelop me. I recall a drive on the outskirts of Broken Hill in the 1970’s… we were hitting the road edges within 15, maybe 30 mins of starting! “Daaaaad!!!” 😳😫😱 !!! 

So we called in to Orléans which was an important place for Joan of Arc. No, she wasn’t burned at the stake here as we first thought. No, we didn’t see the related statue of Joan on horse. Yes we did: 

- see the water cups and toilets at McDonalds, 

- discover we were very low on fuel, 

- enlist the help of the delayed car passenger in how to use the automated fuelling system; and 

- headed on pretty back roads to Milly La Forêt. 

Farming land, colourful fields - the bright yellow cf canola, contrasted with dark green leafy vegetables and big blue skies with fairy floss clouds.  The occasional tractor. The occasional farm house. 

And she promised fairy floss clouds 

And still she promises fairy floss clouds!

Ou

Photo by someone else 

At first I was dubious about our hotel in Milly La Forêt. Hôtel Restaurant Le Cygne. The rooms were up stairs and a bit dusty, in line with their worn décoré.  

Pardon my stuff everywhere

I swallowed an antihistamine and all was well on the nasal and chest congestion front.  We were located in the very heart of Milly! 

cat guarding our cool car

La Halle 1479 under maintenance

Full moon over Milly La Forêt 

We walked around the town centre and found what was to be our regular haunt Brasserie des L’ O’Pignons (language dictionary hunt delivered nothing and informally we found ourselves calling the place Opinions). The owner, Willy, was fun.  He was there for the afternoon and night activities and a woman whose name I don’t know made great coffee in the mornings  it was great to watch her sleepy handle there intense rush of customers and has a great, happy way about her. I’ll take a photo of her and Willy before I leave Milly, I hope.

The outside area is always full and chatty

Willy runs a great business. 

We like it at Opinions. It is fun and the menu is wide enough (no lamb chops though)

Elaine spotted a black and white cat making its way along the rooftop to my bedroom window and later that day we saw the same cat in the sill of my back window!  Cheeky cat likes to spend the days in my room.  

Pic by Elaine

Back lane cheek 

Antihistamines make that possible.  I was very sad to hear from John, Trish and Wednesday that their loved adored cherished cat Joey had died (last week now). 😢

The reason we chose Milly-La-Forêt to visit was because Kath and Elaine’s close friend Jackie Hyde worked hard on the restoration of Jean Cocteau’s home two years earlier. Jackie, ex-Sydneysider and 78-er has been living in Paris for decades working in the arts. Huge talent who, much like Cocteau, is difficult to peg down to one aspect of the arts. 

The beginning of the Wikipedia entry on the man: Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau(UK: /ˈkɒktoʊ/, US: /kɒkˈtoʊ/, French: [ʒɑ̃ moʁis øʒɛn klemɑ̃ kɔkto]; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the surrealist, avant-garde, and Dadaistmovements; and one of the most influential figures in early 20th-century art as a whole.^[1] The National Observer suggested that, "of the artistic generation whose daring gave birth to Twentieth Century Art, Cocteau came closest to being a Renaissance man."^[2] 

We found Jean Cocteau’s home and was taken through by Laura who practised the English version of the new tour on us. 

We returned the next day with Jackie. Here are a selection of photos, from inside and outside this beautiful museum.

Elaine admiring Jackie’s work

Jackie’s work

Jean Cocteau liked to sleep alone

Chopin’s hands I think

The bare kitchen with floor warmed by the heated water stored below

A Cocteau sculpture

The orchard 

With Elaine in the garden

While Kath, Elaine and Jackie revisited Jean Cocteau’s home, I took Jackie’s wailing, pining, distraught dog Momo away from them.  

Momo taking me for a walk 

Well, Momo soon forgot that the herd was split, that his beloved Jackie was not with us.  He took me for a vigorous tour of Milly.  Such a great dog. Strong and curious.

Later we drove Jackie and Momo to the station and they returned to Paris. 

I returned Jackie’s
warming night dress 

We went to the extreme, opulent Chateau de Fontainebleau. Built in the 1100’s and home to the Napoleon Museum. Incredible.  It is on such a scale as to render my photos unworthy of posting.

But, I will anyway.  Obviously you can search the place online. Significant for Marie Antoinette but we were immersed in Napoleon, Josephine, the divorce, the remarriage, the sons (one neglected and one raised in cotton wool it seems), the battles won and lost and lost again… twirling eyes with all the art and opulence and I wanted to fall onto the deeply historical carpet and sleep.

You can see him in it

Not at all cocooning. Wouldn’t be a good bedroom really

Baby’s room

 It was so nice to drive home to our humble hotel Le Cygne in Milly. Chinese food that night, pretty good. 

We went to see Le Cyclops!  It was in the middle of the forest. It was a fantastic giant one-eyed sculpture of a silvery beast. He had moving parts and giant silver balls  travelled within and behind him when the machinations fired up with a roar and commotion. Exciting. And then it would all settle and the Cyclops would be quiet again.

Nearby and within the perimeters were things high in the trees all around. A Japanese woman was behind the installation that in turn chimed, or clanged, tapped like a woodpecker or shimmied like lamay and chirped… It was fabulous. I found this on the net:  ‘This musical assemblage, in a tenuous equilibrium akin to juggling, is the fruit of the collaboration between Rie Nakajima and Pierre Berthet, a sculptor who turned her attention to sound and a musician who took the opposite path.’ 

Elaine and Kath in the forest between Milly La Forêt and Fountainbleau 

We loved Le Cyclop.  Walked in the forest.  Beautiful forest. 

Château de Courances built much later (1630 ish) probably suffered as a result of our burn out with Chateau Fontainebleau the day before. Though much smaller, this Chateau visit was a little too rigid in the rules of where we could go. To see inside we were trapped in a French language only and no questions permitted droning tour by a woman who spoke perfect English but didn’t bother to even throw a sentence our way every now and again. She looked and sounded bored. I moved from leg to leg, keen to sit on the 17th century chairs but forbidden, naturally. I’d already taken several photos before she said “no photos”. Ok. Well here’s one or two.

All for real 😮 
The displays were riddled with the British royal family visits.  
Elaine, Kath and I were all steadfastly avoiding the coronation of King Charles but there he was in pride of place as a prince back in the day. 

The Japanese gardens there were beautiful.

And then there was the early morning drive to Chartres to attend mass at 9:15am at the magnificent church there.  Very very beautiful. The acoustics made the small choir sound big and rich.  When you looked closely, there were no young people in the choir. Not many parishioners.  We left mid way through the sermon as I had wanted to do as a child and eventually did once I left home. It is time to use this magnificent church in other ways. As other places are doing - a community creative centre with plays and performances, sadly maybe even to operate as a conference centre at times.  Anyway, here are some inadequate photos of the church. Best to look on the net if you want to see a decent snap of it - it is just toooooo grand for my iPhone.

I think that’s enough for Milly La Forêt. I failed in my attempt to find the Dior perfume of the same name (Milly La Forêt) that I remember (thanks to Michael McCabe)  from my teen years. The elderly woman in the chemist shop couldn’t get past her suspicion that I was a shop lifter to fathom my rubbish French request for the perfume. 

Signing off without Elaine and Kath’s summary of Milly-La-Forêt.  But I can say I really love this place. The dusty, run down, casual Restaurant Hotel Le Cygne will receive a 5 star rave review from me.  We had lunch here today and it was beautiful ; well… the steak was a little tough and I wish I had had the veal Kath had with the same creamy mushroom sauce.  The hot chips are the best I’ve ever had, beautiful potatoes deeply and darkly fried.  

L’Opinions will do similarly well in my ratings and Willy was great. 

I posted a card or two to the family. And I conclude with this photo from my walk with Momo… today is, afterall, Victory in Europe VE Day. Tomorrow we drive in to the heart of Paris as I like to travel during parades (referencing St. Patrick’s day parade last year when I was commuting through Dublin…) bad idea then and maybe a bad idea tomorrow, but if so, it will be a good story to tell. 

On my walk with Momo on the eve of the VE anniversary

PS.  I keep my promises: