Aubazine

 

We're on our way to the honey festival in Aubazine, but I couldn't resist taking a photo of this flock of sheared sheep.

 

 

This one seems to be telling me that it's not worth the drive to look at honey when you could be enjoying the sunshine and some very succulent green grass.  To each her own!

***

 

The village of Aubazine is on a promontory overlooking the Coiroux.  The central feature of the village is its Abbey.

 

For this festival, loads and loads of tables with local wares for sale.


Colourful straw and cloth bags of all sizes.

 A variety of apples, both red and green.

 

 

Here are some Charlotte strawberries!  I thought the season was over for them, but apparently not.  I bought a big basket with Emélie in mind.  She's my niece who discovered how very sweet these were for breakfast with a croissant and a "chocolat chaud" when she visited us on a previous stay in France.

These tomatoes have a pretty pointy end.  Not the shape I'm used to seeing.

 

I mentioned that Aubazine is celebrating honey, and that means in all its forms.  The wax from the honeycomb was used for these candles, coming in various shapes and sizes.  Care for a cherub?  A teddy bear?  A little fox?

 

This booth reminded me so much of the market in Sarlat.  Well, they come from the Perigord, so perhaps they made the trip for this special occasion?

I think this is the closest thing that Karl will get to "sanglier", wild boar.

 

 They had sausages with bison, with nuts, with herbs.  A real cornucopia of choice!

These are little mustard spoons on the left and honey dippers on the right.

 

 Would you believe key holders and some sort of golf or croquet mallet head?

Big fat bunches of white garlic, pink garlic, small, elephant size...  What's your pleasure?

Cheese.  Look at that big round of cheese on the corner!  Wow - that would feed all the people who showed up for the luncheon feast.

 

 Are these delicious little cupcakes?  Wrong!  Candles, and flavoured with mint, chocolate, coffee...

With all these honey products, I swear I can hear Abba singing "Honey Honey".

 

 Different sizes of pottery. 

 

Here are the stars of the show: a bee hive.  They were contained, but the bee keeper assured me that bees don't sting unless they are provoked.

Incense cones and sticks.

 

 Some soaps and essential oils absolutely needed for your home spa.

This olive oil is for your cooking needs.

 

 This is acacia honey as well as Royal Jelly.

Remember those sheared sheep at the beginning of this posting?  Well, this is what becomes of their wool once carded and tinted and woven.

 

 Yes, more honey.

This lady makes jewelry from real leaves.  It's a process that takes 4 days from the drying of the leaf to the mummification of the leaf, to treating it with a special "bath".  At the end of all that, if the leaf is still integral, it is dipped in gold or silver and made into a jewelry piece.  I was attracted by the maple leaves.

 

 

 This is where Karl stops every time: macarons!

 

This gentleman wasn't selling anything.  He had simply brought all his intricate wood work and put it on display.  What talent, time and love went into each piece!  That mill actually turns.

We were too late to get into a restaurant for lunch, and hadn't bought tickets for the "déjeuner" under the canopy, so we stopped for a baguette and ham and ate our "tartine" at the corner bar with a rosé and a muscat.

 

 

My new "honey" recipe book

 

 

Aubazine has its origin in the foundation of a monastery by Étienne de Vielzot in the 12th century.  The monastery was affiliated shortly after to the Cistercian order.  Very soon, an associated convent of nuns was established in the village of Coyroux a few hundred metres away.  The two monasteries existed until the Revolution.

The Cistercian Abbey

The Altar in the Abbey

 

 The transept in the Abbey

One of the old Cabinets

Did you know:  After Coco Chanel's mother's death when she was eleven, Coco Chanel's father dropped her and her two sisters off at the orphanage at the abbey at Aubazine.  Chanel spent six years at the orphanage, until the age of 18, leading a simple life where the future designer learned to sew.  Much of Coco Chanel's design lexicon is rooted in her time at the orphanage at Aubazine.

The ruins of the Coyroux convent can be seen not far from the abbey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

***

 NB  -Coiroux and Coyroux are both acceptable spellings.