The Chateau in the Country - de Cormatin

 For our final long bus ride of the cruise, we drove back out into the area around Cluny Abbey, this time to visit the Chateau de Cormatin. The chateau has a connection with the Abbey in that in 1280 the original owner, Henri de Ble, built a fortified house to control the path leading to Cluny Abbey. Recall that this was when there were many, many pilgrims visiting the Abbey, and if he could exact a small fee for using the road, he would make a lot of money. In 1606 his descendent, Antoine, decided the house wasn't enough and built a castle there instead.

The drive through rural Burgundy was quite lovely and we went through a number of villages that dated back hundreds of years on the way.

The Castle has a long history, including a very interesting story about how it was not taken over or destroyed during the French Revolution. During the 'Great Fear' of 1789 which was the precursor to the Revolution, Burgundy Wine apparently saved the day when a mass of rioters stormed up, ready to burn the place down. Pierre Dezoteux, husband of the owner, Sophie Verne, decided to give them the contents of the wine cellars to calm them down - and it worked! And even during the Revolution, Sophie and her 6 children were safe in the castle, as it was never attacked. Those rioters must have known that wine was particularly valuable.

The chateau even has a pair of resident storks. They will
come back to their nest every year, and we know
there are at least a couple of young chicks in there.

The recent history of the castle began in 1980, when three friends purchased it for a literal pittance of about 250,000 Francs. It was in ruins at the time, but they did want to restore it and furnish it as a historical museum. Once they began restoration, they found some of the painted walls and ceilings that had disappeared under about 300 years of dust. They also discovered some beautiful paintings.

Since about 1990, they have put about 250,000 Euros per year into the restoration, having now spent over 5 Million Euros in renovation, decorating, and purchasing antiques of the periods they want to display. They manage to fund this mainly through the entrance fee paid by the 60,000 visitors they welcome every year. Happy to do our part!

The library, decorated in the style of 1900, when
Cormatin was owned by the Director of the Monte Carlo Opera.
He held an annual Music Festival where performers
such a Caruso would present an opera or operetta
in front of the castle facade.

A beautiful fan fireguard

The Marquis' bedroom, hung with tapestries
from the mid-1600s

The kitchen, which had been the Marquis's antechamber
until Sophie and her kids spent the Revolution
alone. She moved the kitchen closer to the living quarters

The St.-Cecilia Cabinet, or the Marquis's
office. All of this decoration was found under the dust
and is now the best preserved piece of early 17th century
decoration in France

The Marquise's bedroom, where she not only
would sleep, but also eat and receive guests

The Antechamber where visitors waited to be 
received

The very small Hall of Mirrors, which was popular
in the early 17th Century as a 'cabinet of curiosities',
with exotic and odd objects. Here there are tortoise
shells, a skull or two, and two 'unicorn horns', only recently
acquired but fitting the period. We now know them to be narwhal tusk.

Not only is the castle itself impressive, there are beautiful formal gardens around it, which they also had to recreate. The original gardens from the early 1600s were remodeled a number of times, and then destroyed in 1815 when the moat was filled in. In 1988-89, the moats were rebuilt and the gardens could be reconstructed. A baroque formal garden, complete with labyrinth hedge, was planted in the early 1990s and it looks marvelous today.

A look out from one of the upstairs windows

One of the main features of the gardens is the blue wrought iron domed aviary/gazebo. You can climb the spiral staircase inside to overlook the gardens from the dome. The aviary/gazebo is the oldest and largest of this architectural style in all of Europe.

The aviary/gazebo on the left

The view over part of the labyrinth toward
the castle

They also recreated a kitchen garden behind one of the outbuildings, as they do actually live in a separate wing of the castle. It isn't large, but they have some lovely plants, herbs and even orange and lemon trees in tubs.

On the way back to the chateau gate, we passed some sheep resting under a tree in a nearby field.

Another very interesting visit for us. We had an hour's bus ride back to Lyon and the ship, and then had some time in the afternoon to relax before the Chef's Signature Dinner. We spent a little time up on the forward deck again, as it was, miraculously, not raining when we arrived.

Salad

Pumpkin Cream Soup

Deconstructed 'Kartoffelpuffer' (potato pancake)
with Scallop.....not quite what I expected, but it tasted good

'Land and Sea' - a small steak with a large shrimp

Special chocolate mousse dessert. That blob on
the left is a smoke bubble that managed to make
it to the table before it popped!

After dinner we had some local entertainment - a couple of singers with their pianist and soprano sax accompanists. Beautiful French music, lovely voices and quite the sense of humour - we had a great evening.

Tomorrow is the last day on the ship. We have our tour of Lyon in the morning, followed directly by the special lunch at Paul Bocuse which was announced on Saturday evening. We're all looking forward to it, and hoping that the rain might maybe hold off for a whole day. Fingers crossed!