Astrid Jeanson, who looks after public programmes at the Musée George Sand et de la Vallée Noire, brings one question to Issoudun: was George Sand an environmentalist? The museum’s reading of that question runs through the forests, fields and rivers Sand observed, described and defended, and the peasant wisdom she set beside them. The word ecology did not exist in her century. The floor then passes to the audience and the invited guests.
Tag: local-history
Les landes de Sologne, a talk at the Auld Alliance
Angélique Souriau-Villeger heads the Naturalist Studies division at Sologne Nature Environnement, and comes to Aubigny-sur-Nère to explain the Sologne moors. The talk sets out their landscapes, their vegetation and their part in the region’s biodiversity. It also follows these moors’ surprising connection to Scotland, which suits the town’s Auld Alliance centre. They count as a rare ecosystem, and the hour treats them as local natural heritage.
Micro-Folie: the Pays du Nahon and its lordships
The Nahon links Vicq-sur-Nahon to Langé, and this Micro-Folie session follows the river into the history of the small country around it. Castles, villages, landscapes and heritage sites along it are read as the record of a berrichon territory. The talk reaches back to medieval origins, then to the great families and lordships that shaped who held power there. Much of that story stays little known even close by, and it is pitched for every age.
Châtillon-sur-Indre: the motte castrale read anew
Jean-François Da Costa speaks on the motte castrale of Châtillon-sur-Indre and on the traces that time has cut into the land around it. His case is that such a site can be reimagined, reinterpreted and revitalized once heritage, landscape and memory are put in conversation. The lecture asks what still ties the present to what came before, and what a well-known monument of the town might yet become. Reservations are required to attend.
Alexandre Calder à Bourges: Caliban and the city
Alexander Calder’s connection with Bourges is the subject of this talk by Florent Allemand, heritage curator and head of collections for the town’s museums. It accompanies the exhibition Calder and Estève: Free Forms. The thread runs from the set design Calder made for La Provocation to Caliban, the monumental sculpture commissioned for the Maison de la Culture. The talk comes while Caliban is undergoing a major restoration campaign.
Guided walk in the forest of Coatloc’h, Scaër
A guide from the Pays d’Art et d’Histoire leads this walk through Coatloc’h, a preserved massif on the edge of Scaër. The route follows the traces left by the sabotiers who cut clogs here and by the charbonniers who burned its wood. It passes the vestiges of a prétendu château, a castle nobody has proved stood there. Quimperlé Communauté runs it: four kilometres on reservation, closed to anyone who walks with difficulty.
Bons Baisers de Plounéour à l’Abbaye du Relec
Reproductions of postcards of Plounéour-Ménez from the last century hang in the park of the Abbaye du Relec and along the streets of the bourg. Their picture sides carry the commune’s landscapes, its trades and its places of daily life. On the reverse, messages of all kinds pass on fragments of ordinary existence. The old views and the standing village, read side by side, let a walker measure what the built and natural heritage has kept.
Chataignes grillees a la Bogue d’Or, Redon
Kristine Allard takes children and their parents through Redon to explain how its festival of autumn came about. The walk follows the origin of the foire Teillouse and of the Bogue, the two gatherings that fill the town at harvest. The chestnut is then set out as the emblematic tree of the pays de Redon, with its fruit and its prized wood. It closes on the knack of telling a châtaigne from a marron.
Night walk to the lights of the Pays des Abers
The Pays des Abers tourism office takes walkers onto the GR34 after dark, four kilometres there and back. The route turns on the history of the île Vierge and the île Wrac’h, their lighthouses and the maritime signalling that marks this coast. The guide reads the territory’s heritage under those lights, so the beams become instructions to shipping, not a view. A torch, sturdy shoes and warm waterproof clothing are needed.