Jean Cocteau's memorial in the delightful chapel he decorated in the south of France

The Chapelle Saint Blaise-des-simples de Milly-la-Forêt, France.

Photo from Wikipedia.

Problem
Where is it? What is it? Is it worth a visit?

Answers
Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), like me, was a writer, poet and artist. He lived in the south of France in the city with a small chapel. The chapel, called Chapelle Saint Blaise-des-Simples, was originally built in the 12th century alongside a leper colony, long since gone, but the chapel survived.

The Meaning of the Name
The chapel was named after Saint Blaisé, who bestowed good health. The word simple comes from the simple, or unmixed herbs, grown in the garden and used by monks to treat illness. (Remember the saying, let food be thy medicine.)

La Forêt is French for the forest. The circumflex or little hat symbol over the e usually indicates the missing or former s sound, as in the English word forest.

The Inside
In 1959 the chapel was restored. Local resident, Jean Cocteau, painted the interior with designs showing Jesus, the resurrection, symbolised by a cat, and the plants used to restore health. So we have the resurrection and restoration of the chapel, the restoring plants healing the body, and, if you are a believer, the resurrection to come - that of Jesus in the past, plus the promised resurrection of yourself and your loved ones after you and they have died.

Jean Cocteau also designed the windows.

The Outside
The windows Jean Cocteau designed can be glimpsed from outside. What if you arrive after the place has closed? Anything to see from outside? I think the grounds are lovely.

And it is illuminated at night, sometimes or always - I am not sure - one can never be sure of these things, since the situation may change, and it may depend on the time of year and when dusk occurs.

Illuminated Outside

Inside

Their websites are quite comprehensive.  could not find a link which converts into French. So I read both the English and French Wikipedia and the local chapel and city websites and everything else I could find in English and French and spent several hours translating.

« ma ville est un jardin »

Where Next?

 Sculpture of Jean Cocteau, France.

Your Jean Cocteau Trail:

1 Jean Cocteau Museum, Menton, France

2 Jean Cocteau Bust Sculpture, Villefranche-sur-mer, France

3 Jean Cocteau grave and artworks in Chapel.

The Chapelle Saint Blaise-des-simples de Milly-la-Forêt, France.

Travel Tips And Information From These Handy Websites:
https://wikitravel.org/en/Menton
http://uk.france.fr
https://www.tourisme-menton.fr/-Menton-French-Riviera-.html?lang=en
https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/
https://www.easyjet.com/en/
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villefranche-sur-Mer
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean_Cocteau#/media/File:Jean_Cocteau
https://www.museecocteaumenton.fr/La-Donation-Wunderman.html
https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6629 Cocteau's grave, portraits, biography.

Author

 Travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Author of Quick Quotations for Authors and Speakers. Who Said What When (quotations for every day of the year, featuring people who were born or died on that day or on that day did something remarkable.

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Castle Hotel, Castello di Monterone in Umbria

Castello di Monterone means castle of Monterone in Italian. Monte is mountain and I remember the end of the name is the same spelling as Toblerone, the mountain shape Swiss chocolate. Where is Monterone? About three kilometers from Perugia, the capital of Umbria. We flew from Stansted airport in England to Perugia airport. I have spent hours reading through the TripAdvisor reports on hotels in Perugia to see if I had missed out on staying anywhere better and other people's reviews confirmed my impression that this castle hotel is THE place to stay.

Why? I stayed there four nights and every time we drove into the driveway and saw the castle set on the hillside overlooking Perugia my heart lifted when I saw the battlements and said to myself, 'I'm staying in a castle hotel!'

Photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

The doorway and entrance hall match the outside perfectly - you are straight into rooms with painted ceilings, wood and heavy stone walls with inserted antiques. I met the owner whose family have restored it.

He speaks perfect English, as did the girls on reception. The building is listed and they have brought it up to date with modern conveniences such as power showers and lifts, plus the obligatory and reassuring fire extinguishers. You can go from the restaurant in the basement to a bedroom on the second floor or clomp up and down the wooden staircase via the little library.

I tried both and each time passed a suit of armour, standing waiting. Returning upstairs after two glasses of Prosecco by the fireplace before dinner the first evening, I nearly asked it what time was breakfast.

I contemplated doing a mock interview as a selfie video with the suit of armour. But I realised it was a waste of time talking to the suit of armour, which probably spoke Italian.

I had been learning Italian on Duolingo, which teaches me to say things like the cat is on the bed. I now needed useful things, such as, 'What time is breakfast?' which I should have learned from my Earworms disc (a budget version of Berlitz teaching tourists the 200 most needed words).

I shall tell you about learning English in Perugia in my next post. However, here I shall concentrate on the happy hotel.

We had a view across the green valley to hilltop Perugia from our bedroom window. If you don't get a room with a view, you can go out onto the rooftop (or down by the outdoor pool in summer). The pool is closed and covered in winter.

After I got home I discovered the hotel has a sauna. I was so busy out travelling, excited by wineries, frescoes and the place where St Francis of Assisi lived, that somehow I missed my hotel's sauna.



The castle's bedrooms vary in size. You can have a larger room if you pay more. Our room enjoyed a view but was quite small, so that two of us with laptops on an antique desk were covering the box which had a local chocolate or two hidden inside it on the first day.

I loved the servicing of the room. My night dress was folded on top of the pillow or underneath the pillow. The black hotel slippers were placed neatly together under the basin. The bathroom kit included toothbrushes and mini toothpastes. The shower was perfect. The giant marble or granite tiles were spotless. The towel rail was so hot my clothes dried out overnight.

You can't please everyone. My new friend in the next room would have liked a coffee maker in the bedroom. I would have liked a chocolate on my pillow every night, not hidden in a box. I somehow only got a chocolate the first night. I assumed that was the way things were. But according to the girl in the next room and the website I SHOULD HAVE HAD A CHOCOLATE EVERY NIGHT! Maybe mine was taken by my husband, the person who serviced the room, the ghost or the suit of armour. Minor details.

The downstairs dining room seemed more modern and not in keeping with the medieval theme. I enjoyed the selection of dinner time music which included my favourites such as Amy Winehouse, but something Italian, a snatch of opera, would have added to the atmosphere.

However I loved the Prosecco and orange juice for breakfast. I followed this with the perfect scrambled egg on a slice of the hot seed bread. Then a small croissant and a small Danish pastry. (What do the Italians call them? Paticceria danese). I still had room for a sensibly small size chocolate chip muffin and a sachet of Nutella. You could enjoy fatty salami and solid cheese, but I decided to feel fit and virtuous eating healthy fruit. Breakfast is included in the room price which, depending on season and room size, ranges from just under £100 up to £250.

What does the highest price get you? The honeymoon suite. I think if I'd had any room in this hotel on a honeymoon, birthday or wedding anniversary I would have been delighted.

The ceilings were decorated like a cathedral. As a bonus, on the last day an exhibition of colourful paintings including colourful local scenes with masses of tiny figures. When I looked closer at one of the paintings I saw that what I took to be tiny brown-robed Benedictine monks were cycling along tightropes! Were their trips business or pleasure? They were obviously enjoying a holiday!

See the castle hotel website:
www.castellomonterone.com
See the regional website:
www.umbriatourism.it

Photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright 2016.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.