Hidden France, part two
Is it ever going to stop raining here?!
I was one of those girls growing up--I always loved France, I studied French throughout high school. Living there was definitely the fulfillment of a dream for me.
It was also a/an _______________ experience.
Fill in the blank with any of these and it would be a true statement:
hilarious awful enriching creepy fulfulling mind-bending lovely educational exhausting life-altering lonely sweet
eta: I guess what I wanted to say was this: travel is great and everyone should have to go to a foreign country for a time and feel like a bumbling idiot.
I guess I'll save my defense of France and the French for another post, eh?
Part Two:
I lived in Bordeaux for my last three months in France. Southern France doesn't get much snow but that winter it snowed twice. We took a bus near the city center and slogged in the snow to get... pastries! (And to see a cathedral too.) This large bell tower is called "La Grosse Cloche"--the fat bell. Nearby is a pastry shop that's world-famous for selling double-sized pastries at the normal price. I'm not kidding about world-famous--back in Oklahoma before I went to France another American told me about the shop and insisted that I go there if I made it to Bordeaux.
The bell tower is in the distance, in the center of the picture, the pastry shop is out of view, just to the right.
My mother has been with me to France twice--the first trip was just the two of us, the second time I was chaperoning a bunch of high-school students and she (bravely) tagged along. During the first trip we mostly stayed in Paris and did day trips. For one of those trips we rented a car and got slightly lost, ending up spending most of the afternoon in the delightful small town of La Roche-Guyon. It's along the Seine, not too far from Giverny (where Monet spent the last decades of his life). The castle of La Roche-Guyon was strategically important several times in history, including during World War II--Rommel had his headquarters there for a time.
In this photo you can see the donjon, the castle keep, on the hillside:
Here's a close view of the newer portion of the castle:
The original "building" (if it can be called that) was actually a set of caverns hollowed out of the cliff. (Word of the day: TROGLODYTE! which means rock or cave-dweller. Hee! And to round out that piece of information, France is full of limestone cliffs of varying heights and there are, in fact, many houses that were dug out of the cliffs; some are still occupied even now, so you heard it from me: France has troglodytes!)
While we were ambling around town we saw some postcards--prints of watercolor paintings of the castle. The shopkeeper told us that the artist was just down the street, and he gave us directions. The painter turned out to be a barber whose shop has an excellent view of the castle. When he wasn't busy with clients he would sketch the view, then painted it... he still cut hair but made a nice bit of money on the side from his paintings. He was sweet, telling us his missteps as he taught himself to paint. (I had to translate for my mother, who paints and was very interested, and he patiently waited while I did so.)
The first time I traveled to France with students was the summer of 2001. We visited Paris, the Loire valley and parts of Brittany and Normandy. Saw Omaha beach and the American servicemen cemetery there. Brittany (Bretagne) is the region in the northwest part of France that juts out into the Atlantic. It's the last bastion of celtic France. (Most of France was inhabited by Celtic tribes before the Romans invaded.) A few people still speak Breton, which is related to Welsh and the other Gaelic languages. The traditional music sounds a lot like Irish and Scottish music. Way back when the Celts made interesting stone monuments--Stonehenge in England, and fields upon fields of upended stones in France. The standing stones like the one in the photo are called menhir. Two squat stones with a flat stone on top are called dolmen. The dolmen may have been used for burial purposes. No one really knows the point of the menhir. It's actually a bit eerie, seeing fields full of extremely large, heavy stones that have been stood on end.
This particular field is near the town of Carnac. (I took the photo on the right with a disposable camera that had black & white film.)
We spent one night in the small town of Vitré in Brittany. Actually we were a kilometer outside of town; some of us hiked into town that evening to have a look around.
Cemetery in Vitré:
The cross near the left has a slight Celtic design; other crosses in the cemetery were very Celtic in appearance.
I took this picture near our hotel in Vitré. It's still one of my favorite photos ever. I love wildflowers.
June 2004 was my next trip with students--we saw Paris, southeastern France and parts of Italy (Rome, Florence, Capri, Pompeii). On the same day that we went to Monaco our guide organized a tour of a perfume factory. The factory was near a small hilltop village called Eze. After the factory (and its shop, where I spent quite a few euros on some heavenly perfume) we hiked up to the village. It overlooks the Mediterranean.
This is a small street in the village:
A tiny shop in this street had beautiful tee-shirts hand-painted with poppies. I bought one; the only problem is I love it so much that I'm scared to wear it for fear of messing it up. Heh.
Here are two photos of a gorgeous home in Eze and the view:
Last pic for now. I went to Chartres with my mother--it's about one hour away from Paris by train. We saw the gorgeous cathedral there, even walked up the 300 steps to the bell tower (Mom counted, hee!). As we were walking the side streets an elderly woman stepped to her window and looked outside. It was a very France moment--people-watching is a sport there and it's no shame to be caught staring. If I had a home with a view of the cathedral and the many tourists I'd watch too. Here's the moment:
Next time: er... I don't know. Not-so-hidden France or look up all those place names for the Italy photos?
I was one of those girls growing up--I always loved France, I studied French throughout high school. Living there was definitely the fulfillment of a dream for me.
It was also a/an _______________ experience.
Fill in the blank with any of these and it would be a true statement:
hilarious awful enriching creepy fulfulling mind-bending lovely educational exhausting life-altering lonely sweet
eta: I guess what I wanted to say was this: travel is great and everyone should have to go to a foreign country for a time and feel like a bumbling idiot.
I guess I'll save my defense of France and the French for another post, eh?
Part Two:
I lived in Bordeaux for my last three months in France. Southern France doesn't get much snow but that winter it snowed twice. We took a bus near the city center and slogged in the snow to get... pastries! (And to see a cathedral too.) This large bell tower is called "La Grosse Cloche"--the fat bell. Nearby is a pastry shop that's world-famous for selling double-sized pastries at the normal price. I'm not kidding about world-famous--back in Oklahoma before I went to France another American told me about the shop and insisted that I go there if I made it to Bordeaux.
The bell tower is in the distance, in the center of the picture, the pastry shop is out of view, just to the right.
My mother has been with me to France twice--the first trip was just the two of us, the second time I was chaperoning a bunch of high-school students and she (bravely) tagged along. During the first trip we mostly stayed in Paris and did day trips. For one of those trips we rented a car and got slightly lost, ending up spending most of the afternoon in the delightful small town of La Roche-Guyon. It's along the Seine, not too far from Giverny (where Monet spent the last decades of his life). The castle of La Roche-Guyon was strategically important several times in history, including during World War II--Rommel had his headquarters there for a time.
In this photo you can see the donjon, the castle keep, on the hillside:
Here's a close view of the newer portion of the castle:
The original "building" (if it can be called that) was actually a set of caverns hollowed out of the cliff. (Word of the day: TROGLODYTE! which means rock or cave-dweller. Hee! And to round out that piece of information, France is full of limestone cliffs of varying heights and there are, in fact, many houses that were dug out of the cliffs; some are still occupied even now, so you heard it from me: France has troglodytes!)
While we were ambling around town we saw some postcards--prints of watercolor paintings of the castle. The shopkeeper told us that the artist was just down the street, and he gave us directions. The painter turned out to be a barber whose shop has an excellent view of the castle. When he wasn't busy with clients he would sketch the view, then painted it... he still cut hair but made a nice bit of money on the side from his paintings. He was sweet, telling us his missteps as he taught himself to paint. (I had to translate for my mother, who paints and was very interested, and he patiently waited while I did so.)
The first time I traveled to France with students was the summer of 2001. We visited Paris, the Loire valley and parts of Brittany and Normandy. Saw Omaha beach and the American servicemen cemetery there. Brittany (Bretagne) is the region in the northwest part of France that juts out into the Atlantic. It's the last bastion of celtic France. (Most of France was inhabited by Celtic tribes before the Romans invaded.) A few people still speak Breton, which is related to Welsh and the other Gaelic languages. The traditional music sounds a lot like Irish and Scottish music. Way back when the Celts made interesting stone monuments--Stonehenge in England, and fields upon fields of upended stones in France. The standing stones like the one in the photo are called menhir. Two squat stones with a flat stone on top are called dolmen. The dolmen may have been used for burial purposes. No one really knows the point of the menhir. It's actually a bit eerie, seeing fields full of extremely large, heavy stones that have been stood on end.
This particular field is near the town of Carnac. (I took the photo on the right with a disposable camera that had black & white film.)
We spent one night in the small town of Vitré in Brittany. Actually we were a kilometer outside of town; some of us hiked into town that evening to have a look around.
Cemetery in Vitré:
The cross near the left has a slight Celtic design; other crosses in the cemetery were very Celtic in appearance.
I took this picture near our hotel in Vitré. It's still one of my favorite photos ever. I love wildflowers.
June 2004 was my next trip with students--we saw Paris, southeastern France and parts of Italy (Rome, Florence, Capri, Pompeii). On the same day that we went to Monaco our guide organized a tour of a perfume factory. The factory was near a small hilltop village called Eze. After the factory (and its shop, where I spent quite a few euros on some heavenly perfume) we hiked up to the village. It overlooks the Mediterranean.
This is a small street in the village:
A tiny shop in this street had beautiful tee-shirts hand-painted with poppies. I bought one; the only problem is I love it so much that I'm scared to wear it for fear of messing it up. Heh.
Here are two photos of a gorgeous home in Eze and the view:
Last pic for now. I went to Chartres with my mother--it's about one hour away from Paris by train. We saw the gorgeous cathedral there, even walked up the 300 steps to the bell tower (Mom counted, hee!). As we were walking the side streets an elderly woman stepped to her window and looked outside. It was a very France moment--people-watching is a sport there and it's no shame to be caught staring. If I had a home with a view of the cathedral and the many tourists I'd watch too. Here's the moment:
Next time: er... I don't know. Not-so-hidden France or look up all those place names for the Italy photos?