The Castle at Tarascon

After spending the morning at le chateau fort at Les Baux, we headed north a little ways to Tarascon, the site of the castle of our friend,the Go0d King Rene (remember him? He was the guy with the Muscat grapes in Aix-en-Provence). But of course, before we could see the castle, we needed to see the church building, Eglise Ste-Marthe. This church building has a crypt with the 3c-4c tomb of St Martha.

The picture above is the castle. It is exceptionally well-preserved, and dates from before the 13th century. This massive building sits right on the edge of the Rhone River.

Here are the children crossing the moat.

Above is a view up within the walls, but not actually inside the castle.

Here is the painted ceiling in one of the rooms. It looked just the way a castle is described in story books: high-ceiling expansive rooms, stone floors, massive stone fireplaces, and latticed arched windows. Cameron had sword battles with imaginary knights in nearly every room.

A view of the Rhone from the top of the castle.

The men of the family on the roof

The city of Tarascon from the roof of the castle. The mountains in the back are the Alpilles. St. Remy, where we are staying, is situated near the foot of those mountains.

This is a look at Eglise Ste-Marthe from the roof of the Chateau. I love the house with the blue shutters just beyond it.

That beautiful Provencal sky! And two cute kids.

The castle weather vane.

It seems like every castle served as a prison at some time in its history. The prisoners here left elaborate grafitti all over the walls of several rooms. Here is a sample.

And here are some inmates.

A gargoyle keeping watch over the courtyard while he does his duty as a rain spout.

(Posted by Mom)