Restless in France: Chateau de Touffeau

Tuesday 16 June 2015

Chateau de Touffeau

On the Sunday of the Open Gardens Weekend we drove to Chateau de Touffeau, at Bonnes, a 12th century castle converted to a nobleman's mansion, owned by a relative of Chateau de la Brosse, where we paid entry for the chateau but the gardens were free.
We didn't realise it was a guided tour of the house. Yes, we followed the Madame but we thought the group was a private one. So we'd missed the beginning because we had wandered into the garden. Trying to locate the group I opened an exterior door, which was clearly to private residency, and quickly closed it when a fierce daschund barked at the closing door! Woops! Later, we asked for a refund as we could not locate the group. I hope to go back a different day!
Another reason we did not join the group was because we were startled when purchasing tickets. The woman was aggressively formidable, telling us in imperfect English that commerce had to be conducted only in French, not in English. I didn't understand that she was talking about the guided tour! I thought she was telling us to speak French which we did, when we bought our ticket after they had started to speak to us in English! All very confusing! Later still, I realised the female cashier was in a hurry and LATE for starting the guided tour. We'd coincided with her handing over the reins to a chap and she seemed stressed telling him what to record in a book when he sold each ticket. Lots of columns to tick!!!
For the uninitiated, the guided visit starts one hour after opening time in the morning and the same in the afternoon. I guess the guided visit is 60 minutes at least. It would be helpful if it declared this on the literature! So many people had been waiting a long time!
The gardens were interesting and once much larger than they are now. It must cost a fortune to maintain but some were inaccessible. The chateau is or has been used for wedding or conferencing venues, hence the pool in the garden and inaccessible stable buildings.
ALSO in that region are some Limousin beef farms selling meat so I must investigate with someone else in order to do a shared purchase.
Here is Sunday lunch, then the chateau pics:

Roast Goat ribs, veggie rice, roasted red peppers in scorching garden heat...