Clermont-Tonnerre, a renaissance palace finished in 1546 by an Italian architect, Sebastien Serlio.
About twenty rooms are open to visit, each one more beautiful than the other, sumptuously furnished with painted and decorated ceilings and beautifully maintained parquet floors. It’s a feast for the eyes and imagination takes flight. From the guard room to the library, passing through various drawing rooms, bedrooms and the billiard room, it is a gorgeous journey through the past. On the walls, portraits and paintings place Ancy-le-Franc in direct competition with the chateau of Fontainebleau, which is saying a lot… The website of the chateau confirms this as well (a “must-see”).

At the chateau exit sculpted in white sandstone on a wall is, guess what….a snail of course! I must find out who it is of.
With eyes filled with all these marvels the little band goes round the market, right at the gates of the chateau, and visits the little town of Ancy-le-Franc, where you also mustn’t miss the pottery and the little Roman-style wash-house. On the wall of a house next to this is a plaque to the memory of those pioneers who left for the colonies at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Memories, memories..
It is on our return to the boat that the drama unfolds. All the crew are ready for lunch on the upper bridge when the photographer, searching for something in the camera bag, discovers me. He takes me out of my hiding place and puts me, delicately, I must stress, on the bridge. The end to my incognito status! I couldn’t explain to him why I was there since I don’t speak human and he doesn’t speak snail. The hat intrigued him, evidently, and he rapidly grasped the fact that I was not the same as my fellow snails. But all said and done, I was in my own land, in Burgundy, and that seemed to touch them all, so they gave me a salad leaf (succulent) and left me alone. I was reassured and anxious at the same time. Would my enquiry end there? I am already traumatised by the continuation of the voyage…