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Tuesday July 18, 2006
Villedieu-les-Poêles
Yes - that's right: God's town, (of) the frying pans.
Best not to ask. But they are well known for their copper ware (as even
a passing tourist might deduce), and for their bell foundry. On previous
visits we did the museum
tours - I wanted to see the lace
museum (which I enjoyed but no-one else did), and I can thoroughly
recommend skipping the tour of the furniture museum (yawn) - what a lot
of wardrobes those French have... my, my.
But the tour of the bell
foundry was a real treat (honestly) - not to be missed. I think it
has to be said we were lucky with our tour guide who seemed to be a young
member of the family who own the place, and utterly fluent in English
as well as very knowledgeable on the casting processes. They make small
commerciaI souvenir items, like doorbells, but their traditional business
is in casting gigantic bells - big one-off special projects for churches
and so on.
Today we were there to catch the Market as this is where the Market
is on a Tuesday. It does not get to Brécey until Friday and we
will be thinking about leaving by then. It was very hot (has been every
day). So having got up at 6 while it was still cool enough to work in
the garden, we were in Villedieu well in time for coffee and croissants.
We were also on a mission to buy a replacement for our cafe curtain which
the previous visitors had broken somehow, (hard to imagine how but it
was mangled and the fitting snapped). Instead of mentioning this when
they left, they had set it up like the slapstick "paint bucket atop the
door" joke, so that it fell on our cleaner immediately she walked in -
very amusing....
Posted by Christina at 3:39 PM. Category: France
