Escape to La Roche-Guyon

Looking for a spot of more far-flung escapism, my friend Dan and I ventured out into the Isle de France to the wonderfully picturesque village of La Roche-Guyon. Nestled at the foot of a chalk escarpment, in the scenic Val de L'Oise, you couldn't wish for a more perfect afternoon away from the city.

Arriving by taxi, in the searing heat, from Mantes la Jolie - buses at mid-afternoon in this part of the world are rare birds indeed - we were right in time for lunch. Save for a few hardy merchants selling saucisse seches beneath the colonnades of la mairie, everyone was enjoying their dej. Following suit we tucked into gammon and chips (jambon grillé) and the most welcome of cold pressions, while tapping the locals for info on the best sites to see.

We were both keen to head up to the ruined tower on the hill we'd noticed on arrival, so, after taking a post-lunch stroll along the Seine, we made our way to the Chateau de La Roche-Guyon. Built up against the chalk cliff itself, the castle contains a melange of different architectural styles ranging from 12th to 18th century. Facing the river are additions made mostly in the 18th Century and the grand designs of duc Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld and his daughter la duchesse d'Enville. Intricate ironwork gates and ornate pavilions catch the eye, but it is the hidden, older buildings that take the breath away (quite literally)

Various views of the chateau

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Coat of arms of the de La Rochefoucaulds

A very grand entrance!

At the eastern side is the imposing cour d'honneur, flanked by a round tower and abutting the cliff that contains a series of tunnels, storerooms and bunkers hollowed out by the Germans during World War 2. Inside the grand entrance a stunning stained glass window refracted a rainbow of coloured shards of light across the otherwise austere stonework.



Upstairs, amongst the usual trappings of life two centuries ago, we found immense, exquisite tapestries that both of us thought must have been paintings, until we saw the weave. There was also a room of curiosities, containing myriad stuffed animals and mysterious balls of rock. Perhaps most curious of all was the red, leather sofa placed half way along a medieval walkway. What with temperatures touching 30º, we could only imagine duc Alex was on intimate terms with Palin and co.'s Spanish Inquisition.

In a passageway, just past a little, nondescript courtyard, a small sign read "There are 250 steps to the top..." Said steps began in a regular, square-cut fashion as they spiralled up and into the building. At one point, however, the stairway opened into the fresh air, the chalk cliff making up one wall and a wooden framework the other. We then plunged into the cliff itself, into a tunnel bored through the smooth white rock, the steps, worn down through the centuries, turning into treacherous, down-curving shelves, ready to catch the unwary climber.

Now, both and Dan and I have become quite obsessed, over recent months, with George Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire ("Game of Thrones" for those only watching it), a smorgasbord of war, sex, political intrigue and dragons, set roughly around 200AD. So, as we wound our way up the rough-hewn passage, it became hard to rein in wild imaginations: the dwarf, Tyrion, climbing the Eyrie to win his innocence in front of mad Lysa Arryn; Varys creeping through the bowels of the Red keep, sewing intrigue and betrayal, or Grand-Maester Pycelle trudging his way to his ravens' roost (now dovecote) with some message of foreboding.

"No, no, my Lord Eddard. After you, I insist!"

"After you, my Lord Tyrion."

When, finally, we emerged once more into the air, and then into the remains of the medieval dungeon keep, each grey, stone cell, with mere arrow slits for light, became, without much of a sortie into the imagination, the prisons of the noble, but naïve, Eddard Stark, the bitter, but rueful, Theon Greyjoy and the arrogant, but honest, Jaime Lannister. There was even a genuine, 12th century privy, for the disposal of m'lord's night soil.

...and you thought Turkish toilets were bad!

Gazing over the view from the keep, over village, symmetrically laid out gardens,  and further on to the wide, looping Seine and mottled green/white cliffs, gave us a fleeting sense of power - from here, you could defend against anything. Come the Second World War the Germans must have been less certain.

...I don't know either

Back downstairs we took a trip into the 1940s and entered into the pallid chill of Rommel's caves. Square incisions into the walls indicated shelves on which the sheltering soldiers stored tinned foodstuffs, ammunition or clothing. Larger tunnels, with room-sized hollows carved into the side, could have been dormitories in which they cowered from allied bombing raids. A sound system broadcast the sounds of perpetual panic through the tunnels, though, in truth, they needn't have bothered as the sense of history was as palpable as the damp seeping through the chalk. In the final, cavernous room a monstrous contraption consisting of a chair surrounded by bands of metal connected, by a cobweb of wires, to an array of antique machines, conjured up images of unspeakable inhumanity. No labels were present so imagination, as it had done for most of the day, filled in the blanks.

The day finished as it had begun, with a couple of cold ones at the local, the conversation barely touched the realities of the working week ahead and as we poured ourselves out of the taxi a little later on, both Dan and I agreed that to really take a break from it all you need to let your mind wander.