Extolling the virtues of Warwick

A group from Warwick visited Saumur recently travelling for the first time by train, Eurostar and the French super fast TGV.

During our stay we gave to town officials contact details of several groups including Warwick Juniors FC, Warwick Community Band, Riding for the Disabled and several primary schools. We discussed plans for a senior citizens’ choral group to visit Saumur next year and the hope that Warwick Town Council will sign up to a youth camp project. This will enable four or five young people to spend two weeks each year working on different projects alternately in each of the twinned towns, Saumur, Verden and Havelberg in Germany, a town in the former East Germany that we have a friendship link with, and of course Warwick.

Warwick has been twinned with Saumur for over 30 years, with Verden for over 20. During this time many links and friendships have been made, some have lasted others sadly, for a variety of reasons, have not. That is why visits between the towns are so important to maintain and create new links.

Back to our trip. We stayed at a comfortable hotel on the riverside in the town centre enjoyed great food and wine all at a reasonable price. Close by are small towns and villages where the café culture and leisurely pace typical of France is very evident, inviting you to stop and pull up a chair. We visited Chinon and Richelieu, two such towns.

On a grander scale there are any number of chateaux nearby, we called in to Fontevraud Abbaye Royale a vast, magnificent building with a chequered history and strong links to some famous English kings and queens.

The highlight of our stay came on the last day, the Fête des Vendages, celebrating the grape harvest, at Saumur’s own fairy tale chateau. A leisurely lunch was enjoyed under the trees with a medieval fair all around us, complete with a monster and a collection of market stalls with some really ugly traders.

The stall offering such services such as tooth pulling, amputations and other means of pain relief had such an array of evil looking instruments it is probable most people of the time would have suffered in silence. Strangely the stall holder told us he really enjoyed his work.

Incidentally, the town owns the chateau, collecting revenue from visitors while having the use of grounds and castle for community events. Now there’s a thought.

All in all a very enjoyable five days, good company and many memorable moments. So the invitation is there for you to visit, a warm welcome assured.

Our next trip will be to Verden in Lower Saxony, situated between the historic cities of Bremen and Hannover. Early June at the time of the Domweih a carnival and week long street fair.

Interested? contact archiedunbeg
@gmail.com or look us up on Facebook, “Warwick Twinning Association”, for more information or to join our mailing list. - Roger Smith, chairman WTA.