{"id":7753,"date":"2026-06-23T18:14:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T18:14:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=7753"},"modified":"2026-06-23T18:14:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T18:14:37","slug":"9-still-at-clamecy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=7753","title":{"rendered":"9. STILL AT CLAMECY!"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are lots of interesting places to visit near Clamecy.<\/p>\n

At Mailley-le-Chateau bas, there is a fountain, La Fontain du Loup.\u00a0 It’s a recent (1992) installation remembering the appearance of a ferocious wolf that terrorised the region between 1731 and 1734, with around thirty victims.<\/p>\n

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That’s in lower town!\u00a0 The chateau is upstairs!<\/p>\n

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There’s a LOT of country round here.\u00a0 \u00a0And, notably, a lot of small woods. The view from the chateau …<\/p>\n

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We spent many happy hours trolling the tiny roads through pastures, cornfields and woods looking for deer.<\/p>\n

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Largely unsuccessfully – well, why would any self-respecting deer stand out on the open in the full heat of the day.\u00a0 We had the car’s AC to keep us comfortable.\u00a0 But our navigator-cum-deer-spotter located several during our stay in this part of France.<\/p>\n

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Back at base we had some lovely sunsets.<\/p>\n

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Another day, in Coulanges-sur-Yonne, we met one of the workmen renovating a building …<\/p>\n

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The French have certainly taken to the idea of painting murals.\u00a0 We’ve seen lots.\u00a0 From enormous ones covering the whole sides of buildings to teeny little ones.<\/p>\n

At Surgy we found a place to tie up your horse (or your children) while you go to the boulangerie (or the bar\/tabac).<\/p>\n

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At Druyes-les-Belles we found the “famous”, but almost universally unknown, lime tree.\u00a0 Le Tilleul de L’Eglise.\u00a0 The accompanying notice said (something to the effect of) “The person who planted the tree is not known; the date of planting has been forgotten; why it was planted here is totally unknown; but it’s been here a long time and is classified as ‘multicentennial’ and it’s now about the same size as it was on 14 October 1935!”\u00a0 Only the French …<\/p>\n

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The church of the lime tree is, of course, substantially older having started in the sixth century as an “eglise primitive”.\u00a0 After some 600 years it burnt down (probably an insurance scam or maybe during the riots following Paris Saint Germain football team beating Arsenal 2:1!). The current version was “rebuilt” in the 12 century.<\/p>\n

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In the centre of town, the Rivi\u00e8re de Druyes feeds a still and beautifully clear lake under the watchful eyes of the chateau on the hill.\u00a0 But there’s nobody moving anywhere in town.<\/p>\n

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Behind the lake there are some tiny caves underneath a cross.<\/p>\n

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These, allegedly, were home to Saint Romain who was born in 462.\u00a0 He died aged 81 years and donated one of his lower leg bones (a tibia, apparently!) to the church in town while the rest of him was transported to Auxerre for interment.\u00a0 (That’s if you believe the French sign … AND my translation skills!).<\/p>\n

One last mission into the countryside in this area saw us pass through the tiny hamlet of \u00c9tais-la-Sauvin.\u00a0 Seventeen houses, a pharmacy (!) and a restaurant, the Bar Le Partage.\u00a0 It was 2 pm as we enquired whether lunch was still available.\u00a0 “Bien sur!”\u00a0 “Lucienne, put back out the buffet which you have just finished packing away.\u00a0 We have two more punters needing a feed!”\u00a0 And Lucienne obliged with a genuine smile – just like waiters in UK restaurants would after kitchen closing time!<\/p>\n

While we were at Clamecy we had to call in Hercule Poirot.\u00a0 \u00a0The Case of the Missing Sandal.\u00a0 One morning we woke to find only one of my sandals tucked under the caravan.\u00a0 I’m fairly sure there were two when I took them off the previous evening!\u00a0 OK, I might have hidden one of them somewhere clever, but it hasn’t turned up for weeks now!\u00a0 Still, I remain hopeful.<\/p>\n

On that note, we moved to the outskirts of Autun.\u00a0 Camping les Deux Rivi\u00e8res at La Celle en Morvan, about ten kms NW of the city.\u00a0 If you recall, I hinted at a disaster to come involving our fridge.\u00a0 Well, this is where it happened.\u00a0 As we opened up the caravan, the door of our lovely, tall, no-kneeling-on-the-floor-needed fridge fell off.\u00a0 Just totally detached from the now open shelved array of slightly cool commestibles.\u00a0 This was bad news and resulted in a few recitals of the refrain “We are getting far too old for this!”\u00a0 … and a few other choice words!<\/p>\n

After 20 minutes of reading the handbook (pretty useless) and another 20 minutes lying on the floor trying to engage the hinge pins with total lack of success, the second engineer suggested we should ring the supplier of the caravan for advice.\u00a0 Before they leave work for the weekend.\u00a0 \u00a0Well, the news of our catastrophe was greeted with loud laughter and an offer to come to us to fix it.\u00a0 Not helpful!<\/p>\n

When we were connected to a realq engineer, he admitted it was a fiddly procedure.\u00a0 In the end, two of them tried to remember exactly how the door was reattached and to explain the process to us.\u00a0 Once Glenda had pointed out that I was trying to put the door on upside-down (which was actually physically impossible to do), things started to work according to the plan.\u00a0 The instructions made sense and the door clicked into place – but now it opened from the left side not the right (the left side being the wrong side).\u00a0 Another procedure completed and it was as if nothing had ever gone wrong.\u00a0 “We get this problem a lot” said Stuart.\u00a0 “It’s a good idea to put a couple of washers under the door to increase the security!”\u00a0 If it’s such a good idea, why aren’t they installed like that?<\/p>\n

For the next four moves we have taken all the heavy and potentially carpet-staining products out of the fridge and transported them in a cool bag in the air-conditioned car.\u00a0 And taped up the door at the four corners.\u00a0 No repeat dramas!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are lots of interesting places to visit near Clamecy. At Mailley-le-Chateau bas, there is a fountain, La Fontain du Loup.\u00a0 It’s a recent (1992) installation remembering the appearance of a ferocious wolf that terrorised the region between 1731 and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-france-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7753"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7775,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7753\/revisions\/7775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}