St. Sabine
Chateaux De St Sabine, Pouilly-En-Auxoise, France ( Castle of St. Sabine )
It was late, close to midnight when I felt overwhelmed by tiredness. We had been on the road from Lille in northern France en route to southern France's Cote d' Azur.
When I saw the next exit, I decided to go for it. It read: Dijon 42 km, Poully-En-Auxoise 8 km. I drove through the dark summer night and passed several villages clad in total darkness. No one on the streets, no single soul. I was getting worried the more I drove on, the more villages I passed.
A faint signboard, it read : "Chateaux de St. Sabine" 8 km was all I found in the pitch dark night. I wanted to to lay my head to rest, desperate now, continuing the serpent road that finally led us to the Chateaux.
A dark silhouette became visible in front of us. By all standards this building had gigantic dimensions. No light except a faint fluous. rescent light. The doorbell was lit by a dim light. We entered the Castle's arch doorway. Sonnez. We rang the bell.
In an instance it was as if hell broke lose. We heard the heavy barking sounds of what we thought were hell hounds, eerie and powerful. The wild barkings frightened us.
We drove into the main courtyard and stopped the car in front of what seemed the main entrance to the Chateaux.
We could not see anyone, nor hear, except the barking from somewhere in the dark. Nobody made a move. We were unsure if we should stay or should continue our way. There was something evil, something scary about this place.
The curtain behind the main Entrance moved, we saw a shadow in white, staring at us in the car. In a sudden, the door flung open, the shadow appeared. A tiny old dame, her age in the seventies, appeared and asked: 'Que c'est que vouz voulez? Mancher, diner, coucher?' It meant, what did we want, to eat, dine or sleep.
We could not answer at first, our thoughts lingering to the novel of Alexandre Dumas. The Notre Dame character, Quasimodo became ever so real. There was a resemblance as from the novel itself, it made us hesitate to leave the car. Finally, with a push I opened the car, looking around as I expected the wolfhounds to pounce on me anytime now.
Part 2 - St. Sabine
She introduced herself as "Madame de Bourgoise", relative of the proprietere de Chateaux. Deciding it was too late to wander around in this solitary woods, we succumbed to our fate. No one knew where we were, where we had reached.This is what you call eerie in the utmost sense. Two terrible fangs stared at us of what once were real wolves. Two taxidermic creatures stood on the left and right of the escalier. The wooden staircase leading to the bedrooms. It gave the already scary place an authentic background.
Climbing up the stairs, Madame de Bourgoise showed us to our room. The chateaux was, I found out, a hunting castle for royalty and dates back to the 17th century. With her candle held in the right hand, Madame was even more eerie looking than at first.
To her left opened a huge door to a room. There was a bed, which could have accommodated the likes of Napoleon Bonaparte. It was a four poster covered with a canopy (baldaquin).
No longer did I care where to sleep. Opening the large window, I saw a lake only lit by moonlight. The air was fresh, pure and in the distance we heard cowbells ringing.
The eeriness had by now given way to a more relaxed feel. Leaving the window wide open, no more thoughts about the barking hellhounds, I fell asleep soon after.
France, la Bourgogne, AFRICASIAEURO