Bastille Day…….14th July

We have been in France a couple of times before on Bastille Day and have enjoyed the festivities enormously.

This year was also very enjoyable.

Here in Perigord Noir it began on the evening before. The nearest town had organised an evening of entertainment to suit all tastes. It began at 5pm, but as the first few events were comedians and poets we decided that we wouldn’t venture in until the music started at 9pm ish.

We walked in with friends we’ve made on site, a couple from New Zealand, Gary and Rae.

The town was buzzing, there must have been about 1,000 people and the town is only small, a church, a ‘salle de fetes’, a Logis, with a few houses in between. It’s called St Amand de Coly, and is famous for its church which used to be an Abbey.

We arrived in time for what we were expecting to be a mime to the music of ‘Peter and the Wolf’.

I didn’t recognise the music, it certainly was a much more modern rendition of the old classics, but the mime and dance were spectacular.

There was just a man and a woman, but the props they used were extraordinary. The audience was spell bound, even the 50 or so little children who had sat in a semi-circle at the front of ‘La Place’. It lasted for about ½ an hour.

We wondered towards the Salle de Fetes after the mime, to find trestle tables set up with chairs for people to eat. There was also a music band playing here. Around the car park were several stalls selling walnuts and walnut products, foie gras, pancakes, sugar covered peanuts……the usual sorts of foods we’ve come to expect from this region, but between them all was a butchers van….how odd we all said!

At the back of this area there were 2/3 huge griddles and bbq’s. Talking to the ‘cooks’ we found out that you choose the meat you want to eat from the butchers and pay for it, then they will cook it for you at no extra cost to have with salad and chips which you could also buy if you wanted them. There were also stalls selling wine by the glass or bottle and a beer tent.

We sat and had a couple of drinks while listening to the music, waiting for the big finale to commence at 11pm.

We weren’t quite sure what to expect as the leaflet we had said it involved 56 comedians, a band and some acting, ending with fire works.

The field it was all happening in had had about 50 oil drums erected in a triangle, and there was stage lighting
set up aimed at the oil drums!

At 11pm we wandered over to the outskirts of the town along with everybody else.

It’s very difficult to describe what happened next, because it’s one of those times when you really have to be there, but we will try!

From the other side of the field we could see and hear the band start up. The music was in the style of Pink Floyd, and was very good. The band were set up on the back of a flat bed lorry which had blue and pink fluorescent lighting adorning it everywhere – the lighting making it look more like a train than a lorry.

It took a while for the lorry to come around to where we’d decided to stand, but as it did we were treated to a magnificent spectacle.

All the performers were covered with a blue die like woad. Many were pushing empty oil cans along the ground for effect and sound. They had fire crackers and flares which they let off to enhance the lighting of the lorry.

As they pushed their oil cans along the ground they began to roll over them creating an image of destruction, others came along eating lettuce and drinking blue liquid from glasses with straws, while all this was happening the band were playing and the oil drums were being used to add a percussion sound. The atmosphere was electric, no one quite sure where the next flare or fire cracker would be.

After a while they all regrouped and headed off to the erected oil drums in the middle of the field. Once everyone was in place, music playing all the while, the beat unified and there was an enormous bang. All went silent and black, and then the wall of oil drums came tumbling down.

The procession began again with the music and the actors/comedians/musicians all making their way toward the church which became the most magnificent back drop for a wonderful firework display which ended the night.

I got the feeling that it symbolised a modern version of the French Revolution. An almost nuclear experience, re-enacting the fall of Versailles, but who knows…….it was something well worth being a part of. The pictures only capture a fragment. A little like our whole experience really—there’s too much that can’t be explained, but has given us some incredible memories.

We walked back to the campsite along a track in the dark with head torches on, for another night’s sleep before going to St Genies the next evening (again with Gary and Rae),for another ‘Bastille Day’ celebration, which was a lot tamer, but we had a marvellous meal sitting along the trestle tables along with many other European nationalities, eating the food we watched cooked on the griddles and bbq’s, drinking good wine and enjoying good company!