Normandy Trip… Le Chateau Neuilly la Foret

The Chateau that we rented for our four days in Normandy deserves it’s own post. Just the view of the outside made our eyes widen and our hearts stop. Each garden, wall, staircase and room we explored after that just added to the enchantment. It was perfectly magical. We found it on homeaway.com (Property #55509) and were sold the minute we read that it was a thousand year old French Chateau built and lived in by William the Conqueror’s half brother. Cool.

“This magnificent fortified Norman chateau at Neuilly la Foret, in the Cotentin peninsula of Normandy in France, was originally constructed between 1074 and 1077. It was built by the half brother of William the Conqueror, Odon de Conteville, then Bishop of Bayeux.”

Apparently Odon was kind of a bad dude… “Ambitious, arrogant, rapacious, turbulent, tyrannical, ungrateful and licentious this bold bad man appears to have been destitute of every virtue”.

“During this period, a chateau built in stone (as opposed to earthworks and timber) indicates financial, military and political power. This would be the manifestation of great freedom and power given by William the Conqueror to his half brother. From then onwards it became the main seat of residence for the bishops of Bayeux.

During the Hundred Year War the Chateau de Neuilly la Foret enters history, playing an important part in the defense of the French Kingdom but was captured and occupied by the English in 1418. An English garrison was resident until 1449. Many important historical characters (like the French king Louis XI) have resided in the chateau. Due to wars, revolution and the passing of time, only a third of the original Norman chateau remains.” (from cheateauneuilly.com)

In the same courtyard is a 13th century church, now with crumbling walls and weak foundation, and home only to firewood for the chateau and a small animal we saw scurry over the rafters when we opened the door to peek in.

The side of the church and the church door…

The back fields…

The Chateau from the back fields…

From the chateau garden you could see the chateau’s barn… also neglected and deteriorated, but who must have enjoyed being my favorite ‘subject’ for the week.

We were pretty excited to get inside. The door was open, per the instructions we had received via email, and we wandered around while the kids RAN ahead begging us to move faster.

The kitchen was great. The table was huge… there were extra seats even when the ten of us were sitting down together. We brought lots of food so we ate breakfast there every morning and a lot of dinners.

The kitchen sink and view of the barn from the window…

We played quite a few games of Dominion each night. We love it!

Grandma and Grandpa took the room with the cool attic section and their own sitting room… the kids thought it was the coolest thing ever… until they saw their room…

The stairs that led up to the ‘west wing’ were so worn and uneven that you really had to be careful with your footing so you wouldn’t fall. Authentic, yes. At the top of the stairs was our bathroom.

Chris and I stayed in here. I love all the church pews everywhere.

At the end of the ‘west wing’ was a large KIDS bedroom. The kids had found it first and had just stopped exploring and planted themselves here to enjoy the room. When we finally wandered in they were excited to show us…it had five beds. 2 at the end (Luke and Megan), 1 by the door (Katie) and 2 up the stairs into a cool alcove (Ryan and Emily). With books, a pool table, foosball and an antique doll house with furniture they were set to hang out in their room for awhile.

After hanging out in the kids room for a minute we decided to head back to the thing which had caught our eyes the moment we entered the property… the tire swing. When we got there we found more than that… a tire swing, a rope swing, a normal swing, a high bar swing, several rope ladders and a ropes tied between trees forming a mini ropes course.

The Chateau had a walled garden area that we played in a lot. Emily, Megan, Luke and Matthew spend several nights outside playing in the rocks until 10:30 when the sun finally started to go down and they’d wander in.

Both Luke and Matt like to be without a shirt whenever possible. It’s ‘awesome.’ One hot night when Chris was putting the boys to bed he said, “Luke, you don’t have to wear a shirt to bed tonight” to which Luke replied “You mean we get to be AWESOME all night long?!” Luke and Matthew spent one evening shirtless running around the walled garden. Luke loves an audience for his ‘muscle show’. Just look at that face. Oh I love that kid.