Adieu to France

We are back in Manchester for a night before flying home tomorrow. We had a whirlwind wonderful three weeks in France. There is too much to cover in detail since Susan left you in Lyon, but some of the highlights were:

Two nights in Arles. On our way down we stopped to see the awesome remains of a giant Roman aqueduct system at Pont du Gard. We stayed in a hotel (with a pool) just outside town and the girls enjoyed that very much. We toured the Roman city of Arles with its coliseum, amphitheater and other sites. One of the best parts for us was attending a show in the coliseum. Arles is near the Camargue, a natural wetland and prairie home to some amazing flora and fauna. The people of the Camargue region have a tradition of raising beautiful white horses. Our show featured trained horses. Part two was the French version of a bullfight, not a fight at all, but a show of courage as young men try to run at the bull and snatch ribbons from its horns. The bull is eager to prevent this of course and chases the men as they leap out of the ring. Quite fun (and fans of David Sedaris may remember his story about this kind of show).

After Arles it was on to Carcassonne in the heart of Cathar country. The Cathars were heretics who were prevalent in France and southern Europe in the 12th century until they were suppressed by the Albigensian Crusade. There are lots of lovely castles, Carcassonne being the best preserved and most impressive. We stayed in a charming little Medieval village called Caunes-Minervois and also had time for a day at the beach on the Mediterranean.

From there we headed north into Limoges, first stopping to visit one of the caves where prehistoric people painted animals and human figures. From there we stopped by Poitiers and saw a 4th century baptistery that is one of the oldest Christian buildings in Europe.

Finally we reached the Loire valley where we had booked a five day bicycling stop. Our hosts provided us with food, a lovely suite with two bedrooms and a bathroom, and bikes for our daily treks. We cycled, visited the lovely chateaus of the region and tasted some of its famous wine.

After a stop at Chartres cathedral we reached Paris on Thursday night and flew to Manchester Friday. Hard as it is to believe, tomorrow we fly back home. This has been an absolutely incredible summer journey and it will take months to integrate what we have seen and done and learned.

--Eric

Latin Lover's Lyon: August 16

People thought I was strange for taking so much Latin in school. But I loved its structures, its predictability, and the way that prose and poetry in Latin were puzzles to be unscrambled by those who knew its grammar. Classmates and adults would marvel (then roll their eyes) as I could provide definitions to strange words like "pulchritudinous" by identifying the Latin root ("pulcher, pulchra" - beauty, beautiful). Yes, I was odd that way. But hey, I did well on the SAT-verbal...

Still, until last Saturday, Latin was a beautiful system of long-dead language. Then we went to the Gallo-Roman Museum in Lyon, built on (and into) a hill that includes the oldest parts of the city. Here we're talking really old: as in 40's BC - 200's AD , when the city was called Lugdunum and served as the capital of Roman Gaul. Just outside the museum was the well-preserved Roman amphitheatre, where we could imagine chariots racing... or Christians being martyred...

The museum held artifacts from Bronze Age pre-history through the Christian era of the 300's. And for the first time, right in front of me, were road signs, official proclamations and sarcophogae written in Latin. I could decipher many words (not as many as I'd hoped...) and still puzzle over the grammar. It was cool. Did you know the Romans painted those precisely chiseled letters red? Yep. The paint was still there. I couldn't help touching the stones, making them all the more real to my senses. Somehow those stones, some grand, others mundane, were more impressive to me than the major architectural wonders. This was real Gallo (French) - Roman life, 2000 years old, still painted.

Also incredibly impressive were the collection of mosaics taken from homes and shrines -- we even walked on a very large one, laid out like a quilt with geometric patterns interspersed with more pictorial sections. This pulchritudinous artwork was the floor of one of the galleries! How many sandalled feet at walked across it all those years ago?

Latin may be "dead" but it lives on in Lyon and many other parts of France... Including our next stop, Arles, where we sat in the actual Roman Amphitheatre to watch a regional spectacle (see Margaret's blog on this!); and even the grand, medieval Carcassonne -- built atop an old Roman fort. This Latin lover is happy.

-Susan

Emily in Lyon

We are staying in a hotel in Lyon that has a very confusing garage. Today we went swimming in the pool. It was really cold, but really fun. Today we also went into town. I had a donut and tea for breakfast. I didn't like the donut, so dad got me another pastry that I liked better. After breakfast we went up the tram to a cathedral. It was all about Mary and was very detailed (ornate). The story is that a bishop prayed to Mary that when the Germans were about to attack she saved them and then they built this beautiful church. There was a wooden statue of Mary that was painted gold. It was very big. There was also a part about Joseph in the church. But they ran out of money so it was kind of plain.



There is another cathedral which had a big clock. The clock was very old (700 years) and we saw it play. First there was a rooster who sang. Then there was an angel who moved and it played a song and another man moved while the song was playing. That's it.


Then we went to a Roman museum. (Lyon used to be an important Roman city.) It was very interesting. And we also went to a miniature museum. For lunch we bought baguettes, salami, and strong cheese. We ate next to the river. For dinner I had chicken on a stick with a Thai sauce. It was very good. And I had chocolate fondue with fruit and some ice cream later.





We had to drop off Alex at the train station. I was very sad. But at least we got to see her an extra day.





Tomorrow we leave and go to another city called Arles. Our hotel there will also have a pool.





--Emily

Vive le France

As Margaret wrote in her blog, we are having a wonderful time in France. We have started our time with a visit to our French exhange student Alex and her family. We spent two days with her grandparents in Chatres in a lovely part of the rural Champagne region (though not the grape producing part). Susan and I had a great day on our own touring museums and churches (notably Saint Chappelle - the most stunning high gothic church in the world- and Musee de Cluny, a museum of Medieval art). Then we all came to Paris the next day for a whirlwind tour of Notre Dame, the Pantheon, the Eiffel tower and a boat ride on the Seine.

Then it was off to Lorraine in the East where Alex lives with her parents. They continued to wine and dine us and brought us to several of the most interesting places near them including: Verdun, a powerful and moving reminder of the horrors of WWI; Nancy, their home city, with Place Stanislas, the most gorgeous city square I have ever seen; and Thursday a whistle-stop tour of Alsace, beginning in Strasbourg and continuing to the fairy tale castle of Haut Konigsberg and the Route de Vin with a stop at the charming Medieval village of Riquewihr, with its lovely painted wood houses. We have had croissants and coffee for breakfast and have tasted food and wine from several regions of France.

Today we left the Swisteks (reluctantly) and headed south to Lyon, but brought Alex with us for one more day of touring before we send her home on the train. We had lunch in Dijon on the way down. Lyon is a very historic city. Named Lugdunum by the Romans, it was the birthplace of the emperor Claudius (and another emperor I think) and has some important Roman and Medieval sites. We also passed on the way down two important monasteries, Citeaux and Cluny, which played a pivotal role in the history of the Middle Ages. We didn't stop as it was pouring out and we weren't sure how far we would have to drive. Lyon is also known for wonderful little restaurants called "bouchons" and we had a lovely farewell dinner with Alex in one of them.

Tomorrow (Saturday) we tour Lyon and then it is off to Arles, Nimes and Avignon before we reach Carcassonne, our next major stop.

From Margaret: August in France!

Well, after leaving Britain we got on an hour and a half flight to France! Alex met us at the airport and we got a rental car and drove to her grandparent's house/farm. By the time we got there it was dinner time- 10:00 pm- which was really, really BIG! They have one dog, Ucla, (oo- claa) and Alex has a dog, Sydney. Her grandparents have a brown pony, a ton of rabbits, 2 cats, ducks, and chickens!
Our first full day in France Mom and Dad went to Paris to see the museums, and left Emily and I at the farm with Alex because we would have been bored. When they had left Alex took us for a ride...By attaching the pony to her cart! Alex knows how to drive the cart very well and we drove all around, looking at the beautiful French countryside.
When we got back to the farm we had a really good lunch of pasta and one of the ducks (roasted) with magnifique French bread. We planned afterwards that in an hour we would go to her great-aunts' house because they have a big pool. When it was time we walked over, said Bonjour and wow, was the pool big! It was a huge in ground pool with a cover over it, so you could swimeven when it was raining - it was very hot, though - and stayed there for about two hours before drying off and walking back home, where we hooked up the cart again, and this time took the dogs for a long walk.
When we got back Mom and Dad came home and we all had dinner.
Well, that's one of our really great days in France! The next day we all went to Paris.
I miss you all so much - see you soon!!

Last days in Britain

After a fantastic week up north in Northumberland, we have come back down south to Cheltenham (near Gloucester) to be near friends. Our time up north was another wonderful jaunt back in history. We explored the furthest Roman settlements on Hadrian's Wall. And we saw some of the earliest and most important sites for early Christianity in England, including Lindisfarne (Holy Isle) where St. Aidan established a monastery at the invitation of King (and St.) Oswald. Aidan brought the Irish tradition of Christianity from the island of Iona. We also visited Whitby Abbey where St. Hilda was abbess and hosted the important synod that brought harmony between Irish and Roman Christianity. And as Emily mentioned, we visited Jarrow (now part of greater Newcastle) where the Venerable Bede lived and wrote his famous history of the English people, and from whom we have most of our knowledge about that early period of Christianity.

We were also amazed at the beauty of the Pennines (very wild still and mostly uninhabited) and the Lake District where we visited my friend Adrian Barlow. He is in the midst of restoring a fabulous (and from our perspective) opulent country home back to its former glory. The property goes back to the 1500's under the name of Keen Ground and was formerly part of the grand estates of Furness Abbey. After the dissolution the property was separated and the house dates from the early 1700's. It was renovated several times, most recently in 1922 and a formal garden added by Thomas Mawson. The house has a view of the valley and sits above the charming village of Hawkshead. We toured the grammar school there which was established by the Archbishop of York and granted a royal charter by Elizabeth I in 1585. William Wordsworth was educated there and we have a photo of his name scratched into a desk.

Now we are visiting with Graham Donaldson and family in Cheltenham. The girls have really enjoyed playing with his four children. And tomorrow we will catch up with another friend, James Luckhurst and his family.

Despite all the wonderful places we have seen and the history we have learned, for me the best part of our trip has been the people. Meeting the parishioners in Brymbo and Southsea, catching up with Welsh relatives and seeing friends from high school, college and Jamestown. It has made the visit more personal, I guess. Sightseeing is fun, but it is entirely different to be with people you know and love and to establish or reestablish relationships.

From Emily! 8-4-08

Last Friday Dad, Sisey and I went to Bede's World. Bede lived in Jarrow. He lived there all his life. Sisey and I got to dress up as monks. We also saw a church with a monastery, where Bede had lived a long time ago. There was a fountain in the hall, and a museum with stuff about Bede. Bede was an author and they had copies of his books in cases. It was really cool to see something really, really old.

by Emily.

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From Mom: the story of Bede's Bones

There had been a shrine with Bede's remains at Jarrow for centuries. But Bede was most famous for telling the world about St. Cuthbert, whose shrine was in Durham Cathedral (the whole purpose it was built, actually). So a monk from Durham went to Jarrow and asked to pray at Bede's shrine overnight. He was given permission - after all, he was a monk, right? But this monk had brought a sack with him... and in the night he stole Bede's bones and hightailed it back to Durham! The monks at Jarrow were horrified of course and petitioned for the remains to be returned, but Durham outranked them and they had to just deal with it. Now Bede is in the Lady Chapel behind the narthex of Durham Cathedral, and Cuthbert's shrine is at the front end, just behind the high altar.