A bohemian artists village called Barbizon

Barbizon is like a fairytale French village, made all the merrier by the metres of French flag bunting criss crossing the main street, Grande Rue. It just so happens that our quaint apartment is located in this street, and overlooks the daily passing traffic. Our hostess, Marie - Ange, a mature gracious French women who speaks very good English for her generation, meets us at the gate and shows us upstairs to the house of her inlaws who were more than likely artists. Barbizon is fascinating; a bohemian artists commune, established in the 1800's, upon the invention of paint being contained in a tube. This enabled the artists of Paris to travel to the country outside Paris, notably the Fontainebleau Forest which just happened to be at the end of the main street.

There was a large gathering of artists who stayed in Barbizon, including Millet, who painted the famous 'Angelus', and was particularly known for his fabulous sketches and paintings of farm life in the country. We unload the car and then wander from one end of the village to the other in search of a cooling refreshment. The options were limited, with restaurants not opening for business till well past happy hour, and as we discovered later with further research, there were some very mixed reviews. We settled on a wine and Aperol at 'The Royal' - indifferent service so no great desire to return, and picked up a few groceries at Mohammed's grocery store. Here the welcome was warm, the beer and tonic cold, and since Australia were playing Morocco in the World cup that night we had something in common.

Barbizon, it seemed was a sleepy little village and as the temperature rose people remained inside the cool quaint cottages most of the day. Except that is for our friendly elderly neighbour across the road, who appeared in only his birthday suit, keeping all his bits cool by leaning out his attic bedroom window for a good 20 minutes just watching the passing parade in the street below. I did mention artists are an eccentric lot! A photo may have been encouraging, and too obvious, but I'll leave it to your imagination. Suffice to say, the next morning he did reappear, this time in a bright orange towelling robe.

We ventured out to Fontainbleu, a larger village, famous for its chateau, where Napoleon finally abdicated in April 1814, before fleeing to exile in Elba. The parklands and grand canal on the estate were a beautifully cool retreat and we walked to the local supermarket for just enough supplies for our 6 night stay.Read more