Today, I want to tell you about a book & French castles. Oh, and maybe I’ll brag a little…
Note: This post includes an Amazon affiliated link. If you decide to purchase the book, I may get a small commission at no extra cost to you.
You already know I love castles and architecture. There are plenty articles on RTatW that suggest so! Leaving in Europe makes it really easy as there are castles just about everywhere.
You also already know I like drawings. My drawings are all over the place!
Castles (and churches I’ll admit) are one of my favorite drawing topic! I mean, look at my Luxembourg map, it’s filled with castles.
So when I draw a castle and the following happens, I’m all in!!
Castles, Towers and Stones: A guide to the castles of Saône-et-Loire, France
There are thousands and thousands of castles, châteaux, small of big fortified houses, towers, ruins, etc in Europe. Some built over 1000 yeas ago, some far more recently and anything in between.
When Kristin Lesclide moved to the French Burgundy region, she realized that there were over 300 castles in her department of Saône et Loire alone and no guide to show them. So she did what every sane person would do: she created one!
OK she limited her guide to the castles that you can visit or see from the road. That is still a pretty number!
I think you’ll really like it and you should check it out!
It is called Castles, Towers and Stones: A guide to the castles of Saône-et-Loire, France and is available as an ebook for Kindles.
Check it out and you may notice something…
Well, here comes the bragging part…
Kristin found the drawing of a medieval castle I had done for my Medieval castle architecture mini guide and contacted me to see if she could use it, in her book.
I said yes right away and then looked at the drawing and thought: it’s not really good, I can do better… so I did! Well I think I did!
And here it is:
This drawing of a castle isn’t meant to be realistic, it’s meant to show all, or almost all the architectural parts of a castle. It is a condensed version of castle architecture all in one.
If you check out Kristin book, Castles, Towers and Stones: A guide to the castles of Saône-et-Loire, France you will find such drawing in it!
Oh actually you will find 2 of my drawings in Kristin’s book!!
I won’t show the second one here, you have to check out the book to see it! You should because it will give you a hint on what I’m planning.
My Medieval castle architecture guide
The first mini guide I created was the medieval castle architecture one. I thought it would be quite useful for people to have such a mini guide when visiting castles, especially the ones with no English tours or explanations.
What I didn’t expect is that such guide would become so popular. OK not famous, but quite popular. Schools are recommending it to their students you know! It’s mind blowing to me.
I gave a lot of thought to such guide, but the drawings weren’t extraordinary. I mean look at the castle on it!
I didn’t want to put here my old castle drawing and the new one next to each other, because this isn’t about improved drawing technics. Yes the new one is better (in my opinion) but it’s just because I drew it much bigger and intentionally include more details.
But I guess this means that I need to redo my medieval castle architecture guide! And if you check Kristin book and look at the other drawing that is in there, maybe you’ll guess what I have in mind…
Ah so many projects, so little time!!
It will happen though. I love castles too much to not do it!
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