La Brenne: birds and railways

I well remember my brother Paul returning from France around 1967 and saying he'd discovered this wonderful place called La Brenne. He, especially, and I visited it many times in the next few years. Since then, La Brenne has been discovered by a few other people and is now protected as a Parc natural régional. It's a rather interesting type of wetland habitat - it is dotted with many lakes (known as étangs) which are basically large fish ponds. Yes, the area thrives on pisciculture!

Last week we saw many of the birds we expect: great crested grebe, little grebe, grey heron, night heron, wigeon, pochard, coot, kingfisher, whiskered tern, black tern, kestrel, buzzard... We also saw an osprey which is unusual there. But what has changed is the abundance of birds and, perhaps even more so, the abundance of butterflies. Basically, the area has suffered significant population declines, even though to all appearances the landscape hasn't changed at all! Perhaps someone is researching the issue.

Recently, I seem to have had a date with narrow gauge railroads of the two-foot variety. I've visited three in Maine in recent months (and will visit the route of another very soon) and of course the Billerica and Bedford railroad was the first such railroad in the U.S. Now, I've added another, albeit slightly wider, narrow-gauge railway.

Starting from Le Blanc, which delimits the area in the southwest, and extending all the way to Argent in the Sologne (a similar area somewhat to the north) was a metre-gauge railway called the Chemin de fer du Blanc-Argent. This remained intact only for about 50 years. The southern section of the line, from Le Blanc to Buzançais passed through La Brenne but is now almost impossible to detect. Nevertheless, I attempted to map the route here earlier this year.

Part of the line, from Argy to Luçay-le-Mâle is operated as the Train Touristique du Bas Berry. My mother, niece and I took its rather crowded "autorail" last week on a short section of the line starting from Écueillé. We all had fun. Another part of the line, from Luçay-le-Mâle to Salbris is still operated with regular service by TER.

While I certainly find these narrow gauge railways fascinating, and I recognize that they are much less expensive to build and maintain, I still lament the fact that Brunel and the Great Western Railway in England were unable to persuade people of the speed/safety benefits of the broad gauge (approximately 7').

Next blog: GR3

La Belle France

France really is a wonderful country. They do so many things well there: food, roads, railways, and many more. Even the beer is better than I remembered. And - best of all - their mosquito population all seems to be en vacances up at Kezar lake, in Maine.

Kim and I just returned from eleven days in the department of Indre, in the region Centre, visiting with my mother, brother, sister-in-law and niece Mia. Mia is seven and a real joy. More on her in a future post. Their village has a marvellous medieval feudal layout with the castle on the top of the hill and the serfs' houses spread out between château and river. The weather was wonderful, starting just a little too hot (mid 90s/30s) but becoming very comfortable in the following days.

We went with a list of activities and we managed all of them with the exception of visiting a vineyard. Oh dear -- next time. We played bridge (see Le Bridge), we attended a service at a Benedictine Abbey to hear the plain song (Gregorian chant), we visited two castles, walked some of the GR3 (one of France's wonderful Grand Randonnee routes), rode a narrow gauge railroad (see future blog), had some great food (and some that was not-so-great), did some bird-watching with Paul in La Brenne (where we first went 40 years ago!) and just hung out.

We finished up at a fantastic bed-and-breakfast (Château de Jonvilliers) near Chartres, but unfortunately tropical storm Danny threatened a problematic return today and so we flew home yesterday instead, thus missing our second night at the chateau and our visit to Chartres itself.

So what's so great about their roads? Apart from excellent paving of the meanest, narrowest country roads, their signage is really excellent (contrast with Massachusetts for example). Their speed limits are clearly marked and are reasonable (contrast with the U.S. in general). Their trains are probably the best and fastest in the world (Japan notwithstanding).

There are a few things which aren't so wonderful. There's apparently a law which prevents them from having English language options for telephone messages or web sites (well, if it's not a law, it's a moral imperative). Their menus are works of art in the obfuscatory sense. Would you expect Salade à la Maison not to have a sprig of greenery but instead be a plate of nameless fleshy objects, for example? But these are minor irritations.

Next blog: Le Bridge