Driving along the roads, or biking along the tracks the tractors use, around Maisons les Chaource is like finding oneself in the middle of a vast paint box. The fields are huge : one giant wedge of green or gold gives way simply to another. With no hedges to get in the way the colours come right down to the road or the track. At this time of year when everything has grown so tall it seems you are almost floating in colour. So when after the fields you arrive at a little wood each tree trunk seems special. The pink trunks of the pines stand out from afar, but on foot all the different shapes of the different trunks and the different leaves of the trees and bushes is marvellous. It's as if you had never seen anything so varied, minute and lovely. And the village, when you get back to it, is also charmingly little as if you had just flown into it, off a plane.