Abandoned castles in France (27 photos)

Mister_marat writes: 5 o’clock in the morning, the alarm clock is ringing and the rays of the rising sun are on the horizon. Waking up in a tiny rented car somewhere in the south of France near a waterfall that could hardly ever compete with Niagara, I threw away thoughts of continuing sleep and completely concentrated on the goals of today, which was supposed to go down in the history of my relatively short life. life.

And on this day I had to visit three abandoned French castles, whose prosperous days had long since sunk into oblivion. History is material - I realized this when I plunged headlong into the world of urban exploration - it’s interesting to study a foreign country, but it’s even more interesting to turn over long-forgotten pages of the past.

Gradually, object by object, the world of the abandoned began to open its doors wider to give me the amazing opportunity to visit a dimension where such a concept as time is completely absent. There are moments that, in principle, somehow justify my life. Now the time has come to tell me about this wonderful day. The emphasis this time will be on the text.

From the very morning a light rain began to fall, which, in general, was only to the advantage of today, given its atmospheric atmosphere. The first on the agenda was the Lumière castle - at night, when I reached the small town, the headlights caught the empty eye sockets of the windows and outlined the silhouette of a sleeping giant. I really like to visit abandoned places in the early morning - this way the opportunity to meet other lovers of the forgotten is minimal, and you can alone enjoy the atmosphere of the place, which is different for everyone. Having descended from a rather steep hill, 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 little with HDR. All European colleagues have long been practicing this style when photographing abandoned places. Without pretending to be a perfect photograph, I'll just leave this here:

I was not surprised when I saw that all the doors were tightly boarded up. Using minimal acrobatic skills, I climbed along the richly decorated stucco molding to the broken window and found myself inside. The rain drummed on the surviving windows, creating the right mood for this visit and taking me back in time. A strange, aching, piercing feeling of the emptiness and frailty of everything earthly settled in my heart when I found myself in this place and touched the things of people who had long gone into oblivion, as if I was reading a sad and tragic story.. But that’s exactly why I came here, to touch to history and let it pass through your soul and heart. I was greeted by an empty hall with a red carpet. There used to be a mirror here, but there are idiots everywhere - someone broke it, and now there are notices all over the castle posted by volunteers with the general message “please don’t vandalize here.”

Some of the painted windows are still preserved, and I can only guess how long this will remain intact. Of course, every time you visit a place, a rhetorical question arises: how could something like this be abandoned?

People ask me if it’s scary to wander through such places alone. I answer - not at all. Often, it’s when I’m alone that I get the most out of a given place, when I’m not distracted by the extraneous sounds of shutters clicking and other noise. I sat on the floor, turned on atmospheric music and just silently watched this beauty. It’s impossible to convey even a hundredth part of what I felt through text, but believe me, such moments are very atmospheric.

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

Having started to get interested in abandoned places, I lost quite a large part of my audience. People lacked spectacular and dangerous shots; abandoned things seem boring and uninteresting to them. As I grew older, I stopped needing the constant production of adrenaline and found another activity that I liked, and I also realized that I didn’t want to follow the lead of my audience and take dangerous shots just because society wanted it, since I myself had lost interest in this activity. Every business must be treated with love, otherwise it will be posturing aimed at commercial purposes, and the “soul” of your stories will disappear somewhere. I have noticed how many, in the pursuit of fame, lose the main idea of ​​such a hobby, and this already guarantees the loss of 90% of all overall impressions. Having set my priorities, I remained true to my passions - one developed into another, more meaningful and mature.

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

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

Thus, I spent more than 2 hours in the castle, without rushing anywhere. In terms of the level of impressions I received in these 2 hours, I definitely justified a quarter of a year of ordinary life. Having looked around the beautiful hall of the castle for the last time, I began to cover myself. Looking outside, I found a cute French town in the morning sun. Cosy :)

This is what the castle looks like from the outside. The family coat of arms has long been covered with rust, and the garden has long been overgrown with ivy and thorns. With indescribable sadness, I moved on.

And this is what it looks like from the reverse side.

The next castle, Chateau du Carnelle, was located on the territory of a boarding house 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 greeted only by its sad guards - sculptures of lions. One of them especially stuck with me. It is he who perfectly symbolizes the beautiful word decay, devastation, desolation. But this lion was lucky - he survived a period of oblivion, and very soon he will see signs of life in his castle. The inside of the castle itself is empty and very dark - all the windows are boarded up.

Former greatness and scope.

There are workers working in the backyard who did not attach any importance to the fact that I was wandering around the protected area. Having walked around the perimeter of the castle, I rushed further to the last castle.

But this castle, the “Monkey Castle”, has a not very pleasant story connected with it. Having parked near the church, I decided to take a shortcut to the castle through a small forest, which, as it turned out later, was obscenely overgrown with thorns. For 20 minutes, with difficulty breaking through its thickets and earning unpleasant scratches every second, I did not want to retreat - the top of the castle was visible, and it seemed that the goal was very close.. However, having gone even further, I realized that the trail was from the trodden the path is irretrievably lost, and I will not go further.

Selecting choice curse words, I went back, and when I came out of this trap, I noticed with annoyance that there was no living space on me, moreover, I tore my jeans in three places. Cursing first of all at myself, I took a detour and soon saw that it was much easier to get here - from a country road.

This is what the castle looks like from the outside.

The inside turned out to be not as interesting as in Chateau Lumiere, but still atmospheric. In the main hall, the mirror miraculously survived (albeit not completely). Seeing myself in the reflection of the broken mirror, all sorts of symbolic and ironic thoughts entered my head.

The main attraction of this place is the beautiful staircase. This is where the attractions end)))

This is how my express trip to the castles of France turned out. Every day more and more abandoned places appear in Europe, and, alas, it is not always possible to find out the coordinates of truly cool places. The most annoying thing is that some of them can “last” for just a month or two, and for Europeans the standard option for spending a weekend is to take a car and arrange a drive through abandoned places. This lifestyle really appeals to me. However, living in Moscow, of course, I cannot arrange this often, so each trip occupies a special niche in my heart.

Abandoned places cannot be visited trivially, they must be passed through the heart and lived in it, at least for a moment, otherwise you are unlikely to be imbued with the amazing and stunning atmosphere of such places, wanting to quickly take a good photo and leaving all the most interesting things outside the lens.