Week-end in Limousin: chateau des Cars and Oradour sur Glane

If friendship invites you South of Limoges for a week-end in early Spring, the lack of sun at this very moment will for sure not turn it dull: the region is gorgeous, green, peaceful and it is a pleasure to see as many rivers and brooks, lakes and ponds of all kinds. 

On the Richard the Lionheart Route, between Lastours and Chalus where King Richard died on April 6, 1199,  be welcomed by the ruins of the de Perusse family castle (the contemporary French writer Guy des Cars did a lot for "his" castle). Les Cars, a small village of the "pays des feuillardiers" (chestnut tree wood works) offers a former Renaissance chateau, rebuilt on the ruins of a medieval castle. And it is up to the prehistoric period of the last hunters-gatherers (- 7000/- 6000 B.C.) that archeologists searched the place. A good part of the finds are shown in the little museum hosted near the castle. A guided tour of both chateau and museum is a must ! 

Way back home, several lanternes for the dead can be found in cemetaries along the road to Oradour sur Glane. Built in the cemetaries as early as the 12th century, the lanterns for the dead used to protect them even when buried far from the church. 

Oradour, the martyr village of World War II was totally destroyed on June 10, 1944 and its people almost all massacred. It was listed Monument Historique and kept as it was. 

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