Quest Through the Forest: Le Moulin de Daudet

Today I wanted to find the windmill that this town is famous for.  They don't make it easy to find; the forest is filled with many winding pathways.  After roaming around for quite a while, the woods provided this view:

What's that I see atop the hill?  It was a steeper climb than anticipated, but it made me think about stumbling upon Rapunzel's tower in the middle of the forest.  It was almost unnoticeable, but it was also enchanting how it just snuck up on me.

So I approached and walked all the way around.  There was a door that had been bolted shut, but there was also a place where vandals, I guess, had broken through the wall.

I squeezed through the opening and had a look around, half expecting Prince Henry from "Ever After" to be hanging out inside.  Remember when he tells Drew Barrymore to meet him "at the ruins at Amboise?"

The graffiti ruined the magic a little bit, but the inside was still magical, and felt like a secret.  If I lived in this town for real, I would tell my friends to meet me here for picnics or maybe stargazing at night, because there's no roof.

I climbed the half broken staircase and sat up there for a little while, but then I decided to press on and try to find the other windmill, because Edith had told me that hidden in the woods were the ruins of the original, and  in another place there was the windmill that had been built for tourists.

There it is, at the top of the hill!  The whole hill is covered with flat, slate-like rocks that I stumbled over numerous times during my journey to the top.  

We're getting closer.

Look, it's right here!

There were actually tourists hanging out around this one, so I had a smug hipster moment where I was like, "Dudes, I found the original down there.  You probably didn't even know this one was a remake."

It had this quote by Alphonse Daudet on it.  My French still isn't the best, and I can't tell what certain letters are, but the quote translates roughly to, "This corner of rock was a homeland to me, and it provided beings and places that I used in almost all my books."

The top of the hill provided a grand view of the French countryside.  

It was a great adventure, and the ruins of the old windmill were my favorite part, probably because no one was there but me.  It felt like I was seeing a cool piece of the past that was invisible to everyone else because they hadn't gone looking for it.  It was very much like the beginning of a fantasy book.