Little streams known as les mauves flow between the houses in the village of MEUNG-SUR-LOIRE, 14km southwest of Orléans on the Blois rail line. During the summer months they leave slimy green high-water marks, but the sound of water is always pleasant, and Meung is an agreeable place to spend an afternoon, having accumulated a number of literary associations over the centuries.More than seven hundred years ago one Jean de Meun added 18,000 lines to the already 4000-line-long Roman de la Rose, written half a century earlier in 1225 by Guillaume de Lorris, from the town of the same name in the nearby Forêt d'Orléans. Inspired by the philosophical spirit of the times, de Meun transformed de Lorris's exquisite, allegorical poem into a finely argued disquisition on the nature of love, and the resulting roman inspired generations of European writers, Chaucer among them. Most recently, the town featured in the works of Georges Simenon – his fictional hero, Maigret, takes his holidays here. Looming at the western edge of the old town centre, the Château de Meung (March to mid-May & mid-Oct to Nov daily 10am–12.30pm & 2.30–5.30pm; mid-May to mid-Oct daily 10am–6pm; Dec–Feb Sat & Sun 2.30–6pm; €6.30) remained in the hands of the bishops of Orléans from its construction in the twelfth century right up to the Revolution, since when it's passed through seven or eight private hands. The exterior of the Château on the side facing the old drawbridge looks grimly defensive, retaining its thirteenth-century pepper-pot towers, while the side facing the park presents a much warmer facade, its eighteenth-century windows framed by salmon-pink stucco. You can explore the older part on your own, even climbing up under the roof, but most of this pleasantly shambolic section of the building was remodelled in the nineteenth century, and little sense of the building's history remains. A guided tour takes you through the more impressive eighteenth-century wing, where the bishops entertained their guests in relative comfort, and then down into the cellars where criminals condemned by the episcopal courts were imprisoned. The most famous of the detainees was the poet François Villon – murderer, thief and originator of the much-quoted line Où sont les neiges d'antan? ("Where are the snows of yesteryear?"). His writings indicate that he was imprisoned in the bottom of a well, outside the main body of the Château, and the guide will show you an appalling chamber sunk into the ground of the gardens. Villon was imprisoned at the Château between May and October 1461, which seems a short time until you actually look down into the dank hole. For a spirit-restoring lunch, head for the Café du Commerce (closed Mon), on the adjacent place de l'Église, which has simple menus from €9.50 on weekdays. Alternate spellings:: France, Château de Meung, Château de Meung, Chateau de Meung
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