Good Morning Room 3
I always like to save the best for last so this is the last post in the castle series.
Castles: Part 5 - Chateau de Joudes.
This is a castle very dear to me. I stayed at Chateau de Joudes for a month. I think that makes me a princess now, you must all call me Princess Stinson and only address me as your majesty. Only joking!
This castle is in the French countryside in a very small town of Joudes which is near St Amour with the closest well known city being Lyon.
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| Château de Joudes |
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| This is the view from the steps of the chateau facing the backyard. |
Two lovely French people own the chateau, Gerard and Martine. Martine is known as Mumma Chef because she prepares every meal at the chateau. You eat 3 meals each day and each meal has 3 courses. That means a small entree, main and, the best part, dessert! For every meal, breakfast, lunch and dinner. That's a lot of food!
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| The large old dinner bell. |
But how do you know when it is meal time, it is such a large chateau? They have a meals bell. When the bell rings you have to go to the eating hall. If you are really lucky you get to ring the bell. The bell is so large when it is rung the whole chateau can hear it, which is a good thing because you wouldn't want to miss out on a meal!
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| I am ringing the dinner bell. You can see me to the left of the mini van beside the stairs. I make the chateau seem huge! |
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| One of the old heavy iron locks on the doors. |
The chateau is really old so all the doors are so heavy to push open. They are have large iron locks on them that bang and clatter. There is no lift in the chateau so to get to the top you have to walk up the stairs. My room was on the top floor so I had to walk 6 flights of stairs everyday to get either up or down.
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| View from my bedroom window down to the kids doing a dance lesson. |
But what were you doing in chateau? Good question. Which language to they speak in France? That's right , French! Just like you go to Mrs Ienco to learn Italian. French kids can go to Chateau de Joudes to learn English. I was teaching the French kids English. Only instead of going every week to a class like you do at school these kids came for 1 week to live and stay and only speak English. And they were only a little bit older than you! 9 and 10 years old. Could you imagine if Mrs Ienco took you to a camp from Monday - Friday and you got to sleep and eat in a chateau BUT you were only allowed to speak Italian! I know some of you are saying 'yeah!' And I bet others are saying 'no thanks'.
The classes were in the chateau and the kids got long, long recess and lunch breaks. Lunch in France usual goes for 1 1/2 - 2 hours.
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| Beautiful daisies growing throughout the garden. |
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| Chateau - view from the garden |
At the end of the day they played games and had fun before going to bed at 9.30 or 10pm at night. Hang on a second, 10pm for 9 year olds! Yep, believe it! The sun doesn't go down until about 9.30 in the summer here so many children don't go to bed until later.
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| At the end of the week the students graduate with an English certificate. |
The chateau was so beautiful I could have stayed there forever! Maybe one day you can come to the chateau and learn French.
I hope you have been doing your best work!
Au Revior
Miss Stinson
