This is the Chateau de Pierrefonds. I visited here for the first time way back in 19## when I was just 9 years old on a visit with my penfriends' family. I was amazed with the magnificent building with its fairytale turrets and towers, cobbled courtyard and the wonderful staircase guarded by the statue of a knight on horseback.
It had such an impact on me as a child that when I took my own family on holiday top France I was keen to show them this magical place.
I visited again just recently, stopping off for a brief visit to break the journey from Versailles to Calais on my way home. It gripped me just as much this time round as it did the first. I had to wait ages to get these last two shots without anyone in the shot, at one point there was a woman stood in the middle looking back at me, aware that I was waiting to take a picture and she just wouldn't move. In the end I started snapping away with her in the shot, she quickly moved...
I said it is a magical place and I said in the title to this post that this could be a movie set and in fact it was used as a set for the TV show Merlin. The producers of that show clearly were drawn to the spell of the chateau. I will share some more images in due course but for today, enjoy!
