Noisy-sur-École

Tiny pink roses
drape heavily over walls -
bright against old stone.


Noisy-sur-École is the village where we have been staying these last several weeks. Roughly 60km southeast of Paris, it is on the edge of the department of Seine et Marne in Ile de France. Milly-la-Foret, the closest small town (about 5km away), where we do our grocery shopping, is in the department of Essonne. As well as being on the edge of the Fontainebleau Forest, where we have been climbing, we are also in the heart of the Gâtinais Français, a region known especially for wheat, honey and peppermint.

This is actually in Le Vaudoué, the next village, where we have stayed in previous years.

 

The village itself is only about five streets and most of the streets lead to the fields that surround the village - wheat, canola (rape) and some vegie gardens. Our landlords have one of these vegie gardens, as well as chooks in the backyard here. They are forever bringing us fresh things to eat - eggs, spinach, lettuce, broadbeans, cherries, red currants, endive, peas, even some home made bread. 

All the houses in the village are built of stone, most have rooves of traditional flat clay tiles. Their walls and gates are built of the local sandstone as well, with flowering plants in front or climbing over to give a bit of colour. When we arrived, the roses were just coming into flower, some are still blooming. Then there were rainbows of iris and lily, now it's hollyhocks. All looking a bit bedraggled at the moment after a week of rain and wind.

Past the fields is the forest, acres and acres of it. Pine trees, chestnuts, oaks and birches make up the majority of the woods, but there are plenty of other species of trees and shrubs in there as well. It is permissible to gather chestnuts, mushrooms and daffodils 'in moderate amounts'. Unfortunately we arrived too late in spring for daffodils and we haven't had much luck with mushrooms. Scattered through the forest are sandy walking tracks, horse trails and mountain biking tracks as well as thousands upon thousands of boulders, great for climbing or scrambling up. We have seen red squirrels, deer, and plenty of birds including woodpeckers - which actually look really scary close up (sorry, couldn't get a good photo).

We've loved it here, but it's getting close to time we took off again. This time next week we'll be on the road again, heading for the Loire river then parts eastern all the way to Istanbul. 

Well, that's the current plan...


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words by Gabby, pics by Neil & Gabby