Adventures Part 9: France--Seeing the Sights

Freezing my ass off in Chartres.

At last, I'm putting up another blog post from DSL's and my grand adventure in France in November/December. I still have one more to go to share all of the adventures I had after DSL went back home. Of course, it is now only a few weeks away from my next trip to France! No more lame excuses!

I have no intention of giving a day-by-day listing of our doings in France. That's boring! Instead, I'm going to highlight the places that were most memorable to me.

I have to start this post about the "seeing the sights" with the Roman Antiquities museum in Trier where DSL and I spent an afternoon. Of course, the Germans call it something completely incomprehensible (Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier) but that doesn't alter the fact that it's a jaw-dropping collection of Roman items that are for the most part from that area of Germany. Trier was one of the most northern Roman outposts--I'm amazed they made it this far north at all, much less established such a major trade, religious, and political/civic center. With no central heat.

 

Me and a giant Roman marble foot outside the museum in Trier. 

The museum is huge--we spent hours wandering around looking at antiquities large and small (they even have parts of buildings in the museum and some incredible tile mosaics). I highly recommend it.

I mentioned in the first "adventure" post that our hotel in Trier was just a few yards from the Porta Nigra.

The Porta Nigra in Trier, Germany lit at night.

Originally a very large gate in the original wall surrounding Trier, built at the end of the 2nd century BC, the structure was repurposed repeatedly through the centuries, even to the point that later construction almost entirely obscured the original structure (all of that has been removed now). The Porta Nigra is a magnificent remnant of the former glory of Treverorum, the original name for Trier based on the name of the local Celtic tribes who lived there before being subsumed by the Romans.

The villages of Aixe-sur-Vienne, Sereilhac, St-Laurent-sur-Gorre, and La Cote formed the nucleus of our little world in the wilds of south-central France. Even though it was just a few miles from the hovel to the Carre Foure market in Aixe-sur-Vienne, it felt like mounting an expedition for every trip there.

 

Here is another map zooming in on St-Laurent-sur-Gorre showing the route to the hovel in La Cote. Sigh. If only the owner had provided us with something like this...Bonjour, Gendarmerie!

One cold, grey afternoon, we drove into Limoges to visit the Porcelain Museum. They were doing some major renovations and it was our horrible luck that the entire place was unheated. But they were nice enough to let us in free of charge. The museum was packed to the rafters with glazed, painted, molded, encrusted, and gilded fired clay objects. But even more memorable was the utter hell we went through to find the damned place, and the outdoor port-a-potty-like toilet--that in addition to a flush toilet had a sink, a mirror, towels and toilet paper, and was heated. I peed in it three times during the afternoon just because it was so warm in there. We got home just before it started snowing.

 

Aubusson. I have no pictures of Limoges so this will have to substitute. The tapestry museum in Aubusson is a big yawn. The Louvre in Paris had many more, and more magnificent, tapestries on display.

The next day, despite the light rain and temps hovering near freezing, we made our way to the Marche Noel in Aixe-sur-Vienne. I had some very entertaining conversations in my fractured, idiot French with some of the vendors. They seemed fairly bemused by both of us. And I discovered that the phrase "J'habite en Arabie Saoudite" had a lot of mileage in it. One of the fun things we did while at the market was indulge in some hot wine (vin chaud)--nothing like the super sweet "glowein" we had in Germany--and grilled sausages tucked into crusty rolls. We continued the foodie theme by dropping in on the Salon Gourmand in Sereilhac. I continued to practice my French on the surprisingly patient vendors while we tasted and nibbled and bought yummy food and wine (in fact, that's where I purchased the free range pork that I made for our dinner that evening). The French don't have a reputation for being patient with tourists, so I like to think that it was my enthusiastic attempts at French that helped us along.

 

Window shopping in Aubusson. It was bitter cold but we needed to walk around after the long drive up from the hovel.

 

DSL and a stream somewhere in south-central France.

Out of all of the cool places we visited during our time in France, I was by far most impressed by our road trip to the Perigeaux region, located in the Dordogne departement to the southwest of Limoges. Remote, hilly, thick trees, and deep, steep-sided rivers and streams, all made more mystical by the grey weather we encountered on our way there. Magically, we were treated to an hour or two of sunshine in the middle of the day.

 

Looking up at the Prehistory Museum in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac.

Our main destination was not the town of Perigeaux but Les Eyzies-de-Tayac. Here in the valley of the Vezere river are more than a dozen paleolithic archeological sites, both neanderthal and early human, some of which date back more than 500,000 years.

Of course the big draw in this area is Lascaux. But I had done research on the paleolithic sites before I left and learned that the original Lascaux caves have been closed to view for decades. What people visit now are reproductions of the drawings in another nearby cave. That was simply not acceptable to me so I decided that we should visit two sites where we could see things up close: Les Combarelles and Font-de-Gaume. We managed to find the ticket office (despite the heavy tourist traffic this area must get in the spring and summer, it isn't Disneyland) and purchase tickets for back-to-back tours of the two sites, which were along the same road about 1/2 mile apart. We headed back into Les Eyzies for a leisurely lunch. The three-star place recommended by my guide book was shut for winter so we ate in the no-star cafe in the center of town.

Yes, the Hotel Cro-Magnon is located in Les Eyzies! It was closed for the winter. I took this photo; all other France photos are from DSL's flickr stream.

Our first tour was for Font-de-Gaume. The cave contains over 200 polychrome drawings, mostly of animals. Some are located high on the walls, some are visible only if the light is angled a certain direction. I am left in awe when I realize that the artists scrambled into this cave with only torches or perhaps small oil (animal fat) lamps (basically small dishes with wicks hanging out). Was it for a religious ceremony? To celebrate or pray for a successful hunt? A rite associated with becoming an adult? Did women and men both make the drawings? 

On the tour there were two French women besides DSL and I. And the tour guide was French...so the tour was in French. I did a pretty good job of keeping up for a while but I began to get overwhelmed with the entire thing and sort of lost the thread of what he was saying. That's okay, because just being able to see those drawings was enough of an experience.

We shook ourselves out a bit then headed for Les Combarelles. In this very narrow cave are hundreds of engraved figures, again mostly animals but with quite a few large human figures, nearly all female. This time it was just DSL and I. The guide spoke fairly good English but you could tell she would have preferred not to. It was another overwhelming experience. Stepping from the warm, moist cave out into the cold, grey, wet field at the entrance was a big shock. 

We finished our day of paleolithic adventures with a trip to the Musee National de Prehistoire in Les Eyzies. Perched high above the town on a ledge eroded into a limestone cliff, the museum is quite an architectural piece. It is crammed with all sorts of artifacts spanning hundreds of thousands of years. DSL and I were tired after our long day, and we arrived with barely an hour to spare, but we made the most of our time.

I would highly recommend these sites and would definitely visit them again if given the chance. If you do a bit of research, you'll quickly find notes about the necessity to reserve tickets in advance. Well, DSL and I found the solution to that: go in the off season. Just make sure your hotel has heat!

As for tourist goods, I spent very little money on items like that. Most of my money went to food and wine, and in some ways, that made me happier than lugging some trinket home would have.

But when DSL and I were in the Marche Noel in Aixe-sur-Vienne, we ran into this enamel artist whose work was incredible. Her shop was in the town--we wanted to see all of her available work, not just the bits she carted to her stall in the christmas market, so we told her we'd come to her shop. We passed through Aixe nearly every day, hoping to find her shop open (it was on the main drag and easy to find). At last, on a day when we had planned something else, we drove by and saw all the lights on! We jammed the Renault up on to the sidewalk around the corner (a very French way of parking) and hurried to her shop.

As it turned out, Madame Pradeau's shop was also her workshop. It was almost a museum itself. She had dozens of pieces of all sizes beautifully lit and displayed. She specializes in birds and nature and many of her pieces are tiny enamel paintings on square or rectangular pieces of copper which are then mounted on another material: wood, stone, etc.

It was here that DSL and I spent some serious money indeed. I purchased four of her bird panels mounted on slate (would have purchased all five but DSL wanted one). Madame Pradeau lovingly wrapped each piece up in paper, tied with ribbon, and tucked them into bags. She actually teared up a bit when she realized that we were going to clear entire sections of the walls of her shop. I'd put a link to her shop here in this post if she had one. You'll just have to content yourself with pictures of my bird panels.

When we finally decided to abandon the hovel, my plan was to drive close to Paris, say, within an hour or so of the airport, sightsee, get a hotel, then the next morning drive DSL to the airport in time to catch her flight (it didn't work out quite that neatly but she did make her flight). I selected Chartres as our destination. (The iPad was invaluable in helping me find a hotel and reserve rooms for us without having to navigate French over the telephone.) We had some rather bad weather on our drive up but finally made it to Chartres and headed straight for the cathedral (after driving in circles trying to figure out where to park; we did this no matter where we were so it wasn't like it was a surprise or anything.)

 

View of Chartres cathedral from the river. It literally looms over the town.

Unfortunately, the stained glass windows were not at their most magnificent because we arrived too late in the day and the winter sun, already pretty weak and low, gave it up behind more clouds.

 

Inside Chartres cathedral. This is one of the famous round stained glass windows. 

Pretty gloomy in the wintertime. We did see some ... interesting... relics and shrines scattered around the periphery.

Apparently overwhelmed by the prospect of a clean, warm bathroom and a clean, warm bed with clean, fluffy sheets in a toasty warm room, DSL took this picture of her hotel room in Chartres.