On with the show

Now that our freeze threat is over -- it's warmer this morning than it was over the weekend and there are no smudge pots or hay bales lit outside our house -- we can get back to photos from our trip to Le Puy-en-Velay in the Auvergne. This is Arlempdes, a small hill town and ruined castle very close to the headwaters of the Loire.

The castle walls blend into the rock and are hard to see. They're just above and to the right of the church's bell tower.

They say that Arlempdes is the first château on the Loire. Not first in time, but first in direction from the river's source to its mouth. Beaufort, that I pictured the other day, is the second. Now I'm going to have to figure out what the last one is...