Love cheese, love Neufchatel....

Ok, as a strap-line goes it's hardly marketing genius; however, although there is little to differentiate this soft Normandy cheese from its neighbours, it has managed to create a unique brand through shape rather than taste. Typically cheese from Neufchatel-en-Bray comes heart shaped. Just to prove how much the citizens of Neufchatelen adore their cheese they designate the middlle Sunday in September as the town's annual cheese fest, something which we were blissfully ignorant about until we screeched to a halt at a 'Route barrée' sign and found the way to the Aire de camping-car cut-off by a Glastonbury sized cheese stall encampment thronged with excited and voluble fromageurs and fromagistes.

Eventually we managed to squeeze Maisy through the narrow side streets packed with randomly parked cars and installed ourselves in the aire. It was drizzling a bit. Nevertheless we donned cagoules and walked back into the town centre to join the cheese festivities. These small scale local events celebrating local produce are one of the delights of rural France. This was no exception. So, some photographs of the highlights....

Fromage ancien...lovely

Cheese and......

Vintage tractor chat...

Showcasing the local....

Big cheeses on the platform

A local cheese activist

and his understanding spouse....

Love cheese, you have to love cows,

especially the 'business end'

Cheese and onion pie for supper...what else!

Later on we took a stroll up the via verde track at sunset. This part of Normandy, inland from Dieppe, is not quite so famous as the area west of the Seine but it is just as lovely. Even in the short time we have used the Aire at Neufchatel it does seem to be gaining popularity. Today, a Monday in September, by early evening all 20 or so places were taken. Perhaps it was the intermittent showers that kept everyone inside; we had the track almost to ourselves, just us, the sunset, a few cows dotted about in the water meadows and the river Bray, a thread of silver reflecting the twilight sky.

The via verde runs right past the aire

The idyllic valley of the Bray -  a 'haunt of ancient peace'

 Not utter solitude though, on the track in front of us an elderly man worked slowly through a set of Tai Chi moves, adding a slightly exotic note to the tranquil twilit scene.