Good Lord! They are reviving old French castles
France — the country with really old lushy forests, hundreds of ancient crumbling castles to be explored and … some really loud donkeys. For us France is like the sulking bored uncle who knows it all, but doesn’t want to share his secrets. There are ways, words and woods there, which seem almost impenetrable for people coming from somewhere else. Yet, almost every encounter is friendly. We flew to France for our third urban exploration tour there, this time concentrating on Normandy area and around Paris. Our four day trip to France took a nice twist when we came in contact with an interesting project — Dartagnans.
I’m gonna be straight here — usually we want to avoid people. When exploring abandoned manor houses, castles, churches it is a success not to interact with anyone, except perhaps the supermarket cashier or a security guard willing to make some extra cash by turning a blind eye towards urban explorers. In my mind, I am the bad guy, the intruder who trespasses on private property to visit these extraordinary places. Well, 99 times of 100 there isn’t anyone around to care about us, or the places — they are ‘abandoned’ after all. In France it’s not so straightforward: Even though the castles could be abandoned, or in ruins, still the lands might be in use, or there are plans for renovation, reconstruction or demolition of the places we usually want to visit. This time we were welcomed to couple of these places.
Before arriving, we had been in contact with people from Dartagnans, a crowdfunding platform helping to save old French castles. Anyone can be a co-lord through their platform. They welcomed us to photograph castles they are currently reviving. This was little bit unusual for us, but we decided to go. I think the ‘urbex’ term is “Legal visit”.
After arriving in France and exploring some definitely abandoned places, we were staring at La Mothe-Chandeniers castle, one of the most iconic ruined castles in France — probably in the world. Soon we were talking with two nice French guys from the Dartagnans project who told us about the castle and plans for it. Because during our urban exploration trips we spend most of our daylight hours in places without any maintenance, we were muddy and probably looked like something out of a Normandy landing re-enactment.
I felt little bit uncomfortable because — if I understood correctly — the Dartagnans are quite selective about urban explorers who they let visit these castles. They were nice people and had clearly been impressed about our little art project, Abandoned Nordic. We strolled around Le Mothe for couple of hours and ended up with some really good photos and some friendly licks from the castle doggo James (named after James Steward).
Next stop was the medieval castle of l’Ebaupinay. This castle had been abandoned for several hundred years but was now brought to life by thousands of people around the world with the help of Dartagnans project. We hiked around this castle and it’s murky trench thinking whether Dartagnans only qualify castles with a handsome trench. January felt chilly but there still was shades of green on the walls, on the ground, all around us, unlike back in Finland where everything was white and silent.
Couple days later, on Sunday, we parked our car on a quiet country road and started unpacking our gear. In front of us was the Chateau de Boulogne. This was our final destination, since it was only one hour drive from Charles de Gaulle airport and Paris. The town next to castle seemed dead silent, but it took only a minute before an old man appeared from around the corner with a bicycle. He stopped and after couple minutes of awkward sign language and finger pointing towards the castle, it turned out that he was man with the ‘Clé’ — the man with the key to the castle. Like a true French, he didn’t speak any English. Before entering the castle ground we took some drone photos. Looking the area from the air I started to understand which parts the Dartagnans were planning to reconstruct. After a while, we were greeted by Emily our contact person from the Dartagnans project and her crew. We chatted about the castle, but also about our project and abandoned places we’ve visited, and why we actually go to these places. I’m hopeful that after our conversations, the Dartagnans might understand why we visit abandoned chateaus and castle ruins around Europe.
It was time to enter Chateau de Boulogne. The groundskeeper started telling all sorts of interesting details and events which Emily translated for us. We took a tour inside the underground tunnels and had a look into the abyssal well which never had had any water in it, but had been a portal for good spirits from the ancient French soil. After crashing our drone to a tree I was a bit suspicious about this claim, but it’s nice to have good stories, and this place surely had them. After the little tour, we started our own exploration. For some time we walked around the grounds, spotting ominous but interesting details like separated stony gargoyle heads and ornate statues carved here and there. After a while we were done with the photos and it was time to say goodbye to Emily and Dartagnans who had welcomed us to all three castles. Our visit was officially ended by a really loud braying donkey, which had been staring our tournée from the nearby field — well, this was France.
When I think about it, Dartagnans and we actually share the same appreciation towards old neglected buildings and the ‘magic’ they have. Our goal is to take photographs, turn them into art and share the result to people who are interested. Dartagnans, and anyone else interested in restoring these beautiful places want to revive them so they could be enjoyed again by many people. We are visitors and explorers, they are revivers and builders.
From an urban explorers viewpoint, this kind of co-lord-style of reviving these castles sounds nice. We’ve seen many projects where chateaus and castles have been bought by some wealthy people and after that their doors are closed for good. It’s nice to know that these places are accessible for people who want to participate in these projects.
