Castle in the Clouds

When I was a kid, one of the things we did on vacation was visit the ruins of this old castle in Grimaud. The trick was, it was high o the hill. They liked to build them up on hills, you see, because it was safer and harder to get to. Especially with a picnic basket. Once there, we were free to climb through the ruins and sift through the rubble. We found shards of old pottery and would venture out onto precarious ledges. We rarely ran into anyone else.

Sometime between the time I became an adolescent and spent my summers elsewhere, and the time I married and started returning every couple of years, someone decided to restore the castle. One day we returned and they had rebuilt a few walls. Parking areas now had stairs conveniently leading to and from the castle. And you couldn't turn around without bumping into a cluster of German tourists snapping photographs.

I wanted to take the boys last time we were in France, but I waited until the last day, which turned out to be too hot, and after an uncomfortable morning at the port Steve talked me out of lugging three kids under five up a mountain.

This year, I made it an early expedition.

First off, the boys can fall walking on a flat surface, and the were rushing up and down the steep steps, millimeters from steep drops into rocky brush and bracken. It freaked us out.

The boys seemed to like the castle OK, but they weren't terribly enthusiastic. Nate asked if King Louie had lived there, and I immediately made a mental note to plan a boy-trip to Versailles. Is that bad? I mean, I figure I should jump on these interests while they have them.

At the very end, when the boys were sitting under an arch, Nate asked "Can we go see the castle now?"

Apparently castles have moats and roofs.