Living La Vida Lester: Boulboning Around

Tuesday morning came, and brought with it 4 very tired people. Instead of making the effort to go somewhere, we all decided to stay in Boulbon for the day. I will admit, part of the reason I decided to stay in town was that I was thoroughly engrossed in The Hunger Games Trilogy and wanted to continue reading. When the non-reader in the group Kevin was thoroughly bored, we set out to explore the fort and the restored windmill in town.

From what I could gather from the information booklet in our house written in French, the fortified chateau was built starting in the 11th century by the local Seigneur (Feudal Lord) to protect his land from invaders (possible other Seigneurs. I think I read something about War of the Lords in the booklet). While the keep still exists today, most of the rest of the chateau, including living quarters, defense towers, and terraces have crumbled over the years. Some of the old walls to the chateau are still located in town, with houses (like ours) built right in. We took a walk around the fort, looking for an entrance, but it appears that the fort is not open for visitors-probably due to the steep dropoff located directly on the other side of the keep walls.

After exploring the outside of the fortress (and Kevin and John climbing the hill to attempt to sneak in), we decided to head over to the restored moulin (windmill). Once again, John vocally stated how much more exercise he was getting today. However, I joined in with John in protestation due to my improper hiking clothes (I thought we were just walking) and improper footwear (Pumas are not good for scrambling up icy, muddy, rocky hills).

My attempt at being artsy

The fort and aerial view of Boulbon

Grapevines as far as the eye can see. I must be in Heaven

Once we got our fill of the view, we headed back down the giant hill, me complaining about my choice in footwear the entire way. Once back at the house, John decided to cook dinner that night and settled on Pasta and Meatballs. Katie and I had bought a 500 gram bag of small macaroni on our binge shopping trip the day earlier, but John thought we needed more, so we headed back to the store to pick up another bag of pasta and jar of sauce. We then headed to the butcher to pick up some ground beef for meatballs. It was actually pretty cool – the butcher grinds the meat right in front of you.