Between 1774 and 1789, François de Montville, a man of the Enlightenment passionate about architecture, botany and music, created the Desert of Retz.
This landscaped park originally covered 38 hectares and included some strange architectural creations inspired by Chinese, oriental or ancient styles. Today the park displays the fully grown trees which were planted all those years ago from other countries which are labelled “remarkable”.

The original Chinese House is no longer in existence but there were a couple of very interesting buildings. The Icehouse Pyramid is one.

A first for me. There is a deep well under the pyramid. In winter ice and snow are placed in the deep pit on a bed of straw. Water was added to make blocks of ice which were used to store food and cool drinks in the summer.

The Tartar Tent which was built to keep all the bows and arrows for archery competitions. It is built on the edge of a little lake in the park.

And then a very strange building called the Destroyed Colonne. We found this building most bizarre as it appears to have been built with destroyed features.

The Desert de Retz was owned at one time by Frederic Passy who won the Nobel Prize for his contributions to the European Peace Movement. Throughout the years it has had numerous illustrious visitors like Marie Antoinette, Madame Du Barry,Thomas Jefferson, perhaps Benjamin Franklin and King Gustav of Sweden.

We walked for miles in beech and oak woods, moss growing on old fallen logs, bumble bees and beetles everywhere, enjoying the wild roses and lynden trees in flower.