Starecase

7th July 2014

By Ruth Turner

I recently returned from a wonderful motorcycle tour of France – we stayed at twelve different places in fourteen nights and I found that I spent a lot of my time simply staring at my new surroundings, soaking up the atmosphere (and possibly a little wine).  I spent all winter planning, scouring the internet, trying to find curious and quirky places to stay, then exploring the best biking routes from town to town, as well as taking in points of interest on the way.  I enjoy planning.  A lot.

The great thing about researching online is that you’re never truly prepared for the treasures you discover once you are at a place in person.  As you can see from our website, at Floors of Stone we have an amazing limestone spiral staircase, but until you see it in person you can’t truly appreciate how it makes you gasp as you walk into our showroom:

I think our ‘stonecase’ may have inspired me to take a closer look at all the stairs I came across whilst on holiday and I was amazed at the beauty of the many different styles and materials I saw  – this slender, self-supporting, sweet chestnut staircase in Aubin toned beautifully with the bare plaster walls:

These sweeping limestone stairs and chequerboard quarry tiles were totally in keeping with a grand old house down on the Canal du Midi:

The stairs to our cave suite in Doué-la-Fontaine seemed like a natural extension of the cave itself – soft, sculpted tufa (a type of limestone) hewn by hand in the middle ages, the marks from the pick-axes are still easy to see in the walls that are full of fossils and shells:

But my very favourite staircase was this simple, utilitarian, white plastic affair to the south of Bordeaux.  These stairs took us to the very top of the great Dune du Pilat – the highest sand dune in Europe – both the climb and the view from the top are utterly breath taking.  You can enjoy the stunning panorama of the Atlantic Ocean on one side, a huge pine forest on the other and, on a clear day, the Pyrenees mountains way off in the distance:

I’ve definitely turned into a starecase.