Tiny Lyons la Forêt is an unfeasibly pretty town, particularly for its half-timbered houses in all colours and patterns, many of which survive from the early 1600s. Fewer than 1000 people live there now, which makes the town smaller than it was even in those days. On the other hand, it has been it has been a popular tourist town for a century: Ravel lived there, and painters and writers. It is also noted stopover for drivers on a tour through France – and a few cyclists headed for Paris too.
It sits in Eure in Haute Normandie, surrounded by the forest of its name and you can feel its long history. It centres on a castle. Ironic, given that I was cycling around Normandy largely to look at castles. (I was momentarily enthused: this is just TE Lawrence’s period, too, as it was built by Henry 1 in the early 1100s.) Even more ironic, then, in that I could not see it. I walked, looking for an entry, around the ring of houses that surround the mound, or motte, of what was a motte and bailey castle, but there is no way in. It seems all to be private land. Actually there is very little left of the castle anyway. Through an arch in a house I think I spot an old wall. There is no record of the young TE Lawrence coming here. Perhaps, already in his day, what little there was to see what already hidden away (not that it stopped him from having a look, usually).
Interestingly, if the castle is impossible to see, it does feature in royal British lore. Henry 1 (of England, ruled 1100-1135), was the fourth son of William the Conqueror, but most famously he died here, of a surfeit of lampreys… whatever they are. (Interestingly, they are not eels, but a long and thin, jawless fish and which need to be cured before being eaten.) The town was disputed for another hundred years – the Normans were still hanging on to their land in France – but after 1200, the area became a favourite of the French kings, for its hunting in the forest.
And as a chocolate box town Lyons is a delight to wander around, what with its cream render here, brightly painted shutters and a whole runs of timber frames there. There are wine shops, antique and interiors shops. The centrepiece is the halle, of course, the market building, a steeply-pitched tile roof supported on wooden columns beneath which is an open area. It sees a vegetable and craft market three days a week.
Lyons was pretty enough for all sorts of writers and artists to want to live here starting a century ago. Maurice Ravel composed his works here, and Paul Emile Pissaro, youngest son of the more famous early impressionist Camille Pissaro lived here. Andre Masson, a surrealist artist lived here too. What with his tortured, garishly coloured and subliminal work, it’s hard to imagine him living in a normal house, so perhaps he lived life at an angle.
