May 22nd-25th: Here and There

Not far from Brantôme is the village of St Jean de Côle. The centre still retains a medieval appearance and atmosphere. You feel you are stepping back in time. The old bridge has the original cobblestone surface as you can see from the photo, but look carefully at the stones and see how lumpy they are. This makes them quite uncomfortable to walk over, even wearing modern footwear: a small reminder of the realities of life long ago that it’s easy to overlook when visiting these idyllic places.

The whole area is just countryside, at its most lush at this time of the year. Occasionally you discover something that you haven’t seen for years or even since childhood. The next picture is one of these- a clump of wild strawberries, with one nearly ripe.

Our rambles around also included one very sobering moment. We came across the monument shown below in a clearing, beautifully tended. It commemorates, on the 26th March 1944, the execution by SS firing squad of 26 local men as a reprisal for an attack by the Resistance on a German general’s car. The obelisk lists each name on the pillar. The setting exudes tranquillity but at the same time is a powerful inducement to reflect on that awful scene of March 1944. It would be comforting to think that the collective effect of memorials to such atrocities would influence future conduct, but history, past and recent, appears to indicate otherwise.