| Puisaye - Saint Fargeau (Department 89 Yonne) |
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The writer Colette immortalised the Puisaye, describing the ‘blue tinge of a far-off hilltop, where stones, butterflies and thistle soak up the same azure hue’.
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What you find within the Puisaye section
Property prices and accessibility in the Puisaye area
Half timbered houses made from local materials: wood from the forests, sandstone walls, clay for the bricks around the windows and the roof tiles, and warm, earthy ochre pigment – these are the characteristics of the Puisaye. Known by the French, it is an area that has only just started to be discovered by foreigners.
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Accessibility
From Auxerre, to the west, the Puisaye’s main access is along the D965. Using this route, journey time from the Channel ports to St. Fargeau is about 5 hrs 30, either via Paris or Troyes, and 8 hrs from the Netherlands. It is a mere 2 hrs to the centre of Paris, and once on the A6/E15/A77, the main axis through Burgundy, there is excellent north/south accessibility. By air, Paris Charles de Gaulle airport is 2hrs 30 away by car and Paris Orly, 2 hrs. Laroche-Migennes has the best regional train connections to and from Paris. And the train Paris Gare de Lyon - St. Fargeau takes no more than 1hr .
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Puisaye as a region
The identity of the Puisaye is embedded in its soil. Beautiful countryside, unlike any other in Burgundy, there are meadows and orchards, streams and lakes, copses and marshes, and rich, rich clay soil. It is this clay which has been used for the acclaimed pottery, with kilns which were fired by wood from the forests. The pottery is mainly earthenware, that old friend, the everyday crockery used in farmhouse kitchens. Ochre was mined locally and exported as far as Russia for architecture, interiors, ceramics and cosmetics. In the Middle Ages it was the fashion to paint murals in churches; examples of some twenty still exist today in the Puisaye.
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St. Fargeau
This is the main town in the region, dominated by the grand rose coloured brick château, and it is here in summer that a son-et-lumière spectacular is staged each weekend. Little children love the farm alongside the château which has been preserved to show rural life and the trades of the time over a hundred years ago with donkeys, chickens and goats.
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Guédelon
Another reconstruction on a far grander scale is Guédelon, one of the must-see attractions in the whole of Burgundy. Here a medieval fort is being built by craftsmen over a 25 year period, without electricity, hewning the rock, building the horse drawn carts from scratch, and forging the iron.
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Nature and Activity
The Parc Boutissaint is a wildlife park with deer, wild boar and European buffalo roaming in their natural habitat. Nature lovers will also enjoy the riding and fishing, walking and cycling on offer in the Puisaye. One of the best golf courses in Burgundy, Roncemay is in the north of the area near Aillant-sur-Tholon.
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Famous pottery
With this pottery tradition, craftsmen from as far afield as Japan have come to the Puisaye, notably to Lain where Dauphine Scalbert runs international courses. Exhibitions are staged throughout the summer at the arts centre at Château de Ratilly, Toucy and Treigny, and other pottery villages of note are St-Armand-en-Puisaye, Charny, and Moutiers. Moutiers-en-Puisaye deserves a special mention. In the little church you can see some of the wall murals using the ochre dye.
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Colette
And so to Colette, who was born in St-Sauveur-en-Puisaye. There is a museum there to introduce you to, what was considered in those days, her avant-garde and risqué life. No one can match her descriptions of the French countryside, formulated here in the Puisaye amidst the craftsmen, the earth and the sky.
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