This part of France continues to throw up interesting things and today was no exception. Last night I met another of the guests from this fabulous BnB. It turns out she was a fashion designer from Paris but was also involved in a boutique business here in this tiny town of La Tour Blanche. The business manufactures material and clothing from cotton yarn. Not huge amounts, but it was great to see some successful manufacturing, that can still compete against the mega plants in China and Bangladesh etc. I visited the plant this morning and it bought back memories of my time in the cotton industry. The success of the business is due to unashamedly promoting the fact that their garments are "Made in France" and their logo reflects the local windmill just on the edge of town. It's a shame that all our cotton processors in Australia went out of business in the 90's. One of the fascinating things this business also does is manufacture the boxing team uniforms for TEAM GREAT BRITAIN, so keep an eye out when watching the boxing during the Olympics.
The afternoon was spent finding other interesting things and a must visit incredible site is the subterranean church of Saint-Jean in Aubeterre-sur-Dronne. The first church was dug out from the top of the cliff in the seventh century and enlarged by Benedictine monks in the 12th century. It is the largest underground church in Europe. Pilgrims would come to the church as part of the 'Way of Saint James' the pilgrim route to the Cathedral of Santiago-de-Compostela in Spain. At the end of the church is a necropolis which contains about 170 tombs carved into the stone floor and each with the head pointing to Jerusalem. Interestingly the church remained hidden by a rockfall and was only discovered in the 1950's. From here I visited a garden full of weird concrete critters in Chalais. Then onto the town of Angoulême, which was the home of the paper industry in France. The city has some amazing comic type murals on the walls as it became the centre of a cartoon novel scene which kept its paper in high demand. Driving on the roads around this part of France is stunning with medieval towns of churches, castles and chateau's separated by crops growing madly thanks to the long day light hours. Bliss.
How very interesting