I woke early in the morning to thunder storms which did not bode well for the day ahead, but thank fully by mid morning the weather cleared. We spent the morning doing domestics and getting ourselves organised which made us all feel better, before walking up to the village to see what was happening on this day of the fete. There was quite a bit of activity with a few market stalls and the square filled with medieval games for the children to play. We all had a go at walking on stilts, a medieval version of table hockey and throwing the horseshoe.

Finally the boys participated in a pole climbing competition to see who could reach the bags of food at the top. The pole was really slippery and unfortunately no one reached the top!

Eventually the lady who had fitted us out for our costumes approached Chris and told him off for us not being in costume. We hurried back down the hill, got dressed up, took lots of photos of ourselves (the boys especially looked GORGEOUS) and drove back up to the village.

By now the fete was in full swing, there were people in costume everywhere and the medieval music was very loud. We sat at Cafe Sybella to watch the action while we drank a kir, before joining our other costumed friends at the Chateau for the parade. The parade was divided into three “sections” – there were peasants, Renaissance people and Louis 14th people. We were part of the Renaissance section. Finally the parade started, led by medieval troubadours juggling, playing bag pipes (!!!), clarinets and drums and we paraded through the village twice waving at the spectators. It was hilarious and there were many jokes among the participants. Chris and I have got to the stage where we can understand some basic French and so we were able to laugh along with them. For instance, when someone commented on how small the feather in his chapeau was Chris responded “C’est petite mais c’est tres belle!”

At the end of the parade we walked back to the chateau to be seated for dinner. What an amazing atmosphere. It was magical! Here we were, in a courtyard of a chateau that was around 1000 years old, at long tables, being served venison, lentils and vin rouge listening to medieval troubadours and watching a whirling dervish!

Let me digress momentarily to talk about this whirling dervish. I have never seen anything like it before. Apparently around 700AD the Moors made their way into France and got as far as Paris. The Moors are a part of the history of the south of France. I wish I had enough space to upload a video of this spectacle. It was entrancing and spooky watching this amazing man spinning himself into a state of ecstasy as he whirled for over 30 minutes. The music was hypnotic. Even the children were completely engrossed.
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After dinner we went back to the square to listen to more music and dance. The dancing started with minuets and then evolved into Zorba the Greek. We all danced and laughed and clapped. It was really joyful.

The kids were flagging so finally around midnight we called it a night. What a night!!! I will never forget it as long I live.