Back in Time

We don’t ever have a plan on these trips as you might have already worked out. Future trips may well be planned because I’m learning a lot about what I enjoy from this trip but for the moment we are in no plan mode. So when a friend told me the story of how her grandfather was stationed in a small town in France after World War II - I wondered if this town was nearby and it wasn’t too far. We set off on a bit of a jaunt in an easterly direction to a place I’d never heard of… Mehun-sur-Yèvre.

Diesel (Gazole) €2.09 per litre. We had queued from the the roundabout to this point

On the way we saw a sign that seemed to say this trip was a very good idea. We were travelling along the motorway in need of a coffee when we saw the literal sign… Diesel €2.09 per litre! Do you remember the last time we topped up it was €2.25 a litre? There was a queue but a very a fast moving and cheerful queue so we waited.

Shady spot in Mehun-sur-Yèvre

The camper app helped us find a place to park overnight in the town and here was another surprise. It was free and our spot was right on a canal under tall trees. Not great for solar power generation but if we only stayed one night all would be well. In the end we loved the shade because it was a scorching hot day in Mehun-sur-Yèvre.

The Chateau or what’s left of it

Lunch time on Friday May Day, we arrived and fortunately we had bought a baguette in the cheap diesel services, so there was lunch. Yea us! Although I have eaten half a baguette every day and I don’t think that keeps the doctor away. After lunch Denis settled down to some fun work and I went off to take pictures. I hadn’t told my friend that I would be visiting the town - just in case it didn’t work out. My idea was to take photos of building and scenes that might have been here in 1945.

Can you see the water wheel under the house?

I spent a lovely 2 hours wandering around the town looking for old things… Mehun-sur-Yèvre is a medieval city with a chateau from the 12th century - in ruins but still quite impressive and would definitely have been there in 1945. Eglise Notre Dame is a church from the 11th century and was a two minute walk from the ruins. As was a beautiful park with lakes and streams and French picnickers. Nearby and half way down Rue Jeanne D’Arc there was a clock tower from the 13th century. It was part of the town wall at one time. The reason the street was called Jeanne D’Arc became obvious. There’s a hotel (no longer in use) called d’Hotel Pucelle where Jeanne D’Arc stayed in 1429 and 1430 while visiting King Charles VII possibly with some important information because Jeanne d’Arc ended up saving the king’s life… he did not return the favour.

The Clock Tower

A thing that we keep forgetting each time we visit France is the number of days that are holidays, i.e. days when we cannot access a supermarket (or it’s closed by 12.30pm. And there’s no way of knowing before hand which might be open. Well there’s one way… On google maps when you look up a supermarket or boulangerie it shows the opening times - usually - for the week and if there’s a holiday it will say the particular holiday and something like hours may differ Of course that doesn’t tell you much except - get your groceries the previous day.

A peep into Eglise Notre Dame. I thought that might be St. Patrick in the window as he was from France but it wasn’t - just looked like him…

We arrived into Mehun-sur-Yèvre and followed the signs to the supermarket, it was before 12 so even if they had early closing we’d be fine. There was a crowd in the car park so we were delighted with ourselves. Now although there were plenty of spaces an official looking young man was standing by a makeshift barrier saying (in French) no we could not go in. Denis tried to persuade him (in English) that we would only be a few minutes. He looked confused. I asked (in French) if the supermarket was open and he brightened up. Non, Ferme. Closed. We had failed at for the holiday rules again.

The former hotel where Jeanne d’Arc stayed when meeting the King in the Chateau

So as I walked through the town it was deserted, like a sunny Sunday in Ireland in the 1970’s - nothing was open. It was so quiet I couldn’t get it out of my mind that this wasn’t a Sunday. I heard about an experiment once where they took a group of men in their 70’s and 80’s and brought them to stay in a monastery that was decorated to look like their homes might have looked in 1959. The same music, the wallpaper was highly patterned, black and white tv, etc. They had to take care of themselves, cook, clean, carry/unpack their own suitcases. And while they were there they must speak as if they were still in the 1950’s. So they were behaving and speaking as if they were 20 years younger. After a week there were both physical and psychological changes. Increase manual dexterity, better posture, scored higher on memory tests, vision and hearing tests… one participant even got rid of his walking stick!

Old house with working shutters

When I got back to the canal Denis was ready for a burger and had found a place open on google maps. I reminded him that it was a holiday and there was no way of knowing if any takeaways were open. He was confident there would be one open. I was similarly confident they would all be closed. I was wrong.

There was a lovely walk along the canal

He found a Turkish takeaway with kebabs and burgers. Denis chose a burger and I just had frites (chips) after all I was not expecting anything and had made myself porridge before leaving… The lady behind the counter was definitely Turkish and only spoke French but we muddled through. We took our seat but before long she was over to us to offer something she had made herself… for free. She looked so enthusiastic we accepted. She brought out something that looked like a very thin base pizza with sauce on it, rolled like a wrap, half for me and half for Denis. It was very tasty. Then our burger and frites arrived. But just as we were finishing she came back to offer us cake she had also made herself! Also free! Of course we accepted. It was a very tasty orange cake, a slice for each of us! We took this as another good sign. Could we have gone back in time?

Delicious Orange Cake made by a very kind and generous woman

On our way out of the town on the next day we passed a huge tower and looking it up we found it was a long range radio transmitter station. It had been built in 1938 but destroyed by the Germans as they retreated. If you’re of a certain age you’ll remember the long wave radio? As a teenager before music was easily accessed there was Radio Luxembourg (where I first heard that Elvis had died.) The radio had a dial and sometimes a screen and you could turn it to one station or another, Radio Luxembourg for the teenagers and Athlone (with the Irish news and weather) for the adults. This transmitter at Mehun would have been on the screen, it was called, Allouis.

A very old Boulangerie, could it have been here in 1945?

Co-incidentally we passed a repair shop a week later in a different town, in the window was an old radio and we saw Athlone on its screen!

Not a great photo but I promse we could see Athlone on the screen. Couldn’t see Allouis