Abandoned Castles of France

5 o’clock in the morning, an alarm clock and the rays of the rising sun on the horizon. Having woken up in a tiny rented car somewhere in the south of France near a waterfall that could hardly ever compete with Niagara, I cast aside thoughts of continuing to sleep and completely concentrated on the goals of today, which was supposed to go down in the history of my relatively short life. And on this day I had to visit three abandoned French castles, whose prosperous days had long sunk into oblivion. The story is material - I understood this when I went headlong into the world of industrial tourism, because it is interesting to study a foreign country, but it is even more interesting to flip through the long-forgotten pages of the past. Gradually, object by object, the world of the abandoned began to open its doors wider to give me an amazing opportunity to visit a dimension where such a thing as time is completely absent. There are moments that, in principle, at least somehow justify my life. So the time has come to tell me about this wonderful day. The emphasis this time will be on the text.

In the morning, a small rain began to rain, which, on the whole, was only to the advantage of today, given its atmospheric character. The first one on the agenda was Lumiere Castle - even at night, when I reached the small town, the headlights grabbed the empty eye sockets of the windows and outlined the silhouette of a sleeping giant. I love visiting abandoned places in the early morning. So the likelihood of meeting other lovers of the forgotten is minimal, and you can enjoy the atmosphere of a place that everyone has on their own. Having descended from a rather steep hillock, I found myself at a building where an old Citroen, hidden from human eyes, also languished.

Also in this post I decided to experiment a bit with HDR. All European colleagues have long practiced this style when shooting abandoned places. Without claiming perfection in photography, I just leave it here:

I was not surprised when I saw that all the doors were boarded up tightly. Using minimal acrobatic skills, along a richly decorated stucco molding I reached a broken window and ended up inside. Rain drummed on the surviving windows, creating the right mood for this visit and transferring me to the past. A strange, nagging, piercing sensation of emptiness and transience of all earthly things settled in my heart when I ended up in this place and touched things of people long gone into oblivion, as if I were reading a sad and tragic story. But that’s why I came here: to touch the story and let it pass through my soul and heart. I was met by an empty hall with a red carpet. Previously, there was a mirror, but idiots are everywhere - someone broke it, and now there are ads hanging around the castle, pasted by volunteers with the general message "Please do not vandal here!"

Some painted windows are still preserved, and I can only guess how long it will remain untouched. Of course, with every visit to the place, a rhetorical question arises: How could they have abandoned this?

They ask me if it’s scary to wander around such places alone. I answer - not at all. Often it is alone with myself that I am saturated with this place as much as possible when I am not distracted by extraneous sounds of clicking shutters and other noise. I sat on the floor, turned on atmospheric music and just silently watched this beauty. It is impossible to convey through the text a hundredth of what I felt, but believe me, such moments are very atmospheric.

I really like to process photos with a long delay, when such moments have already turned into memories. This makes it clear how much this or that place, this or that moment hooked me. Sometimes you want to relive these events. Miss these times.

Starting to get involved in abandoned places, I lost a large enough part of my audience. People lacked spectacular and dangerous shots, the abandoned seems to them boring and uninteresting. As I grew up, I stopped needing the constant development of adrenaline and found another activity to my liking, and also realized that I should not follow the lines of my audience and make dangerous shots because society wants it so, because I myself cooled down to this occupation . Every business must be treated with love, otherwise it will already be a posturing directed into the commercial channel, and the "soul" of stories will disappear somewhere. I noticed how many in the pursuit of fame lose the main idea of such a passion, and this already guarantees the loss of 90% of all general impressions. Having set priorities, I remained faithful to my hobbies - one grew into another, more meaningful and mature.

The main entrance is furnished very elegantly and refinedly, the hand of professional architects is visible. If earlier strangers could get here with great difficulty, now all you need to do is just to know the coordinates and catch the moment - the “shelf life” of many abandoned buildings is limited for many reasons: 1) the building can be demolished, 2) the building can begin to be restored, 3 ) the building can begin to guard, etc.

Forged painted grilles take me to the world of luxury decadence. Stop, a moment, you are wonderful!

Thus, I spent more than 2 hours in the castle, not in a hurry. In terms of getting impressions for these 2 hours, I definitely justified myself a quarter of a year of ordinary life. Having cast a glance over the beautiful castle hall for the last time, I began to cover myself. Looking out, I found a cute French town in the morning sun. Cozy :)

The next castle, Chateau du Carnel, was located in the pension for the elderly. The castle is being actively restored, and it is possible that it has already begun to function. When approaching the castle, I was met only by his sad guards - sculptures of lions. One of them especially sunk into my soul. It is he who perfectly symbolizes the beautiful word decay (decay), devastation, desolation. But this lion was lucky, he went through a period of oblivion and very soon he will see signs of life in his castle. In the castle itself, the inside is empty and very dark, and all the windows are boarded up.

Past greatness and scope.

Workers are working in the backyard, who did not attach importance to the fact that I wander around the protected area. Going around the perimeter of the castle, I rushed on to the last castle.

Inside it was not as interesting as in the Chateau Lumiere, but still atmospheric. In the main hall, a mirror miraculously survived (though not completely). When I saw myself in the reflection of the broken mirror, all sorts of symbolic and ironic thoughts climbed into my head.

The main attraction of this place is a beautiful staircase. At this point the sights end)))

This was my express trip to the castles of France. Every day in Europe, more and more abandoned places appear, and, alas, it is far from always possible to find out the coordinates of truly cool places. The most annoying thing is that some of them can "hold out" for just a month or two, and for Europeans the standard option for holding a weekend is to take a car and arrange a check in abandoned places. This lifestyle impresses me very much. However, when I live in Moscow, of course, I often can’t do this, so every trip has a special niche in my heart.

Abandoned places cannot be visited corny, they must be passed through the heart and live in it at least a moment, but a moment, otherwise you are unlikely to be imbued with the amazing and amazing atmosphere of such places, wanting to quickly make a good shot and leaving all the most interesting outside the lens.