Saumur

Carrousel de Saumur 2013 - Spectacle Equestre et Militaire

The French have always taken their cavalry seriously. For several hundred years they had some of the best cavalry in Europe. No less than Napoleon Bonaparte established the cavalry school in 1814 in Saumur, a medium sized city east of Angers in western France. Saumur is a now a thriving city, and the annual Carrousel was packed with locals and tourists, some from far afield.

The first thing to observe is that this is not Bovington. It has a different purpose. Bovington is about tanks, tanks of all countries. The Carrousel is about cavalry, which includes the horsed kind, the motorcycle kind, and the tank kind. Saumur is a big military base and is also responsible for nuclear, biological and chemical warfare research for the French Army.

The cavalry school and the Musee de Blinde are physically separate. I'm not sure of the exact relationship between the school and the museum: it is obviously close. But unlike Bovington where you get tanks all day, at the Carrousel they only occupy one third of the three hour program.

I don't have time tonight to write captions for all these photos - it is nearly 2300 as I write and I have a plane to catch tomorrow and promised myself an early night.

We only had a couple of hours in the tank museum. I as worried there would be a huge rush at the Carrousel. In retrospect we could have given ourselves 30 minutes more.

But here are what you really want.