Inside the abbey church

Tired of these yet? This is the interior of the abbatiale (abbey church) at Fontevraud. Construction of the church began in the twelfth century. It's built mostly in the romanesque architectural style.

The nave of the abbey church at Fontevraud, September 2003. The people are gathered around the tomb of Eleanor and Henry.

This morning our outdoor thermometer reads zero, freezing. I'm sure it's colder out in the vineyards. And it's my morning to walk with Tasha. It's also a hunt day, but now that the days are getting longer, we can get out and back before the hunters arrive. Unless there's an organized hunt. They start earlier.

It will be interesting to see how frozen things are. The ground is saturated after two days of decent rain. It might be too warm to freeze, or not.

Cloister

This is one of the arcades that define the cloister at the Fontevraud abbey. The photo has special significance for us because the woman standing is our friend Cheryl who passed away several years ago. She was among the first of our friends to come and visit us after we moved here.

Cloître Sainte-Marie, Fontevraud abbey, September 2003.

My pulled back muscle feels much better now. The pain has faded to a soreness that is all but gone, depending on how I move. I knew that I was going to have trouble with that broken down lawnmower, but I'm very happy to have it gone.

Steeple chase

I find that, sometimes, taking the color out of a photo makes it better. Not that there was much color in this image to begin with. These are steeples and the bell tower at Fontevraud abbey. The sky and the slate roofs came out with a blue tint. Just toning down the blue didn't do much for me, so I took all the color out, adjusted the contrast a little, and I like the shot much better.

Steeples, Fontevraud abbey, September 2003.

When I first switched over to digital photography, I used Adobe Photoshop Elements to adjust my photos. I didn't do anything fancy, just cropping, rotating to fix bad angles, and applying some color and lighting adjustments. These days, I'm shooting in RAW format and using Adobe Lightroom to "develop" the images before exporting them to the JPG format for posting on the blog. I'm sure that I don't use Lightroom to its full potential, but not being a professional, it doesn't matter much. There are people on the internet that offer tutorials and hints for using the software and most of what I've learned has come that way.

I shot these older images from Fontevraud with a pocket camera in JPG format. That means that the camera's internal software made the "developing" choices for me and that there was less "information" in the photo to manipulate later. The RAW format gives me a lot more control. Still, many problems just can't be fixed with software. It helps to take a good photograph in the first place. I'm still working on that.

La cour Saint-Benoît

This isn't the cloister, but another courtyard inside the abbey complex at Fontevraud. I don't have much to say about it, but I liked the way that the potted shrubs were arranged.

La cour St.-Benoît at Fontevraud abbey, September 2003.

I went to the dump as planned on Wednesday morning. The line to get in was long, but it moved quickly enough. I had to ask the attendant to help me lift the old lawnmower up and into the dumpster. He was really nice, I could not have done it myself. Still, in the process, I managed to pull a back muscle. Ugh. Ibuprofen helped.

Tarte aux pommes

Last week, I had some leftover applesauce in the fridge and some leftover pie dough in the freezer, so I decided to make a tarte. When I make pie crust, I always have some left over, so I freeze it. When there's enough, I can thaw it, roll it out, and make another crust. I spread the applesauce onto the blind-baked crust then layer on some sliced fresh apples. Then it's into the oven until the apples are cooked. I glazed this one with Ken's home-made plum jelly.

The last piece of apple tart.

Now I have a few apples left, so I'm thinking of making a little compote. That's a fancy word for chunky applesauce.

Eternal rest

Yesterday's post of an alter or tomb at the Fontevraud abbey got some interesting comments, chief among them that fellow blogger Mitchell's partner is a descendant of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II Plantagenet. The former king of England and his wife are buried in the abbey, and their gisants (tomb effigies) lie above their crypt.

The gisants of Eleanor of Aquitaine and King Henry II of England at Fontevraud abbey.

If you're a student of European history or have seen the 1968 film "The Lion in Winter," you probably know their story, so I won't go into it here. I'm in the latter camp. One year, upon our return from a vacation in France during which we visited Chinon and Fontevraud abbey, I was battling jet lag and unable to sleep. I turned on the television and, just by chance, that movie came on and I watched it. I don't think I had seen it before. An eerie coincidence.

My favorite line from the film: “I know. You know I know. I know you know I know. We know Henry knows, and Henry knows we know it. We're a very knowledgeable family.” --Prince Geoffrey.

Fontevraud abbey

Here's a flashback to the fall of 2003, shortly after we moved to France. A friend was visiting and we spent a lot of time tooling around our region exploring châteaux and churches and villages. And cafés and restaurants. I posted a smaller, more severely cropped, version of this photo back in 2010.

Inside the Fontevraud abbey, September 2003.

I don't know what it is, but it's inside the abbey church at Fontevraud, not far from Chinon. I liked how the candles mimicked the columns on the sculpted stone. If I remember correctly, we had our dog, Collette, with us. Ken stayed outside the abbey walking the dog around and sipping wine in a café while our friend C. and I went inside for a look. We had visited this place once before, so he wasn't missing out.