2 days ago we "convoyed" out of Paris - quite a challenge taking 25 people and keeping them together through the twists and turns and traffic lights of Paris (and the broken glass - 2 flats just getting out of town). Then on through some very uninteresting suburbs and on to a campsite at Chenoise. A small enough town that the only thing that Wikipedia has to say about it is that it's "inhabitants are called Chenoisiens."
OK - 'nuff said.
Rode yesterday through the town Provins - it has an old medieval (as opposed to a young medieval??) walled city, moats, drawbridges and towers. And, people still living in the old houses - including a woman sitting in her open window smoking. How very French.
The big church in town was started in the 1100's but by 1400 only had the front half finished, so they just bricked over the big arches, put in a door and called it good. I wonder if the contractor had any late completion penalties to pay.
In the category of looking for stuff we don't see at home: there are signs - especially in the cities that basically lay out "hand-holding" zones for little kids - a blue sign with an adult and child walking along without hands held denotes areas where there aren't traffic or other objective dangers. The same sign with a red diagonal line through it denotes the areas where holding your kid's hand is a good idea.
OK - 'nuff said.
Rode yesterday through the town Provins - it has an old medieval (as opposed to a young medieval??) walled city, moats, drawbridges and towers. And, people still living in the old houses - including a woman sitting in her open window smoking. How very French.
The big church in town was started in the 1100's but by 1400 only had the front half finished, so they just bricked over the big arches, put in a door and called it good. I wonder if the contractor had any late completion penalties to pay.
In the category of looking for stuff we don't see at home: there are signs - especially in the cities that basically lay out "hand-holding" zones for little kids - a blue sign with an adult and child walking along without hands held denotes areas where there aren't traffic or other objective dangers. The same sign with a red diagonal line through it denotes the areas where holding your kid's hand is a good idea.
Riding yesterday was through pretty flat terrain - I guess you could call it rolling, but the rollers were nothing like we think of - just barely perceptible rises and fall in the terrain. Though, I accumulated 500 or so meters of climbing during the day, it would be hard to tell where the vertical gain came from.
Fields of wheat, barley, corn, sunflowers (flowers not out yet), sugar beets, and hemp (no Maui Zowie that I could see - all grown for textile fiber. Such a waste).
Today was a rest day, so I did what I usually do on a day off and went for a ride and found CHAMPAGNE. We're in the Champagne-Ardennes region, but hadn't found any vineyards yesterday. On today's ride, I found a ridge of low hills (500 foot climb up to the high point, and on all the southerly facing slopes were vineyards - including on remarkably steep slopes with machines that looked like big bugs going up and down over the vines on slopes that were steep enough that they'd be good blue slopes at a Colorado ski resort. I was really surprised that the machinery could be used on something that steep - especially since the machines have to be quite high to fit over the vines, and yet pretty short wheelbases to make the sharp turns at the end of the rows. The machines look like something out of a bad science fiction movie.
The local cathedral here in Troyes (pronounced TWAH - not sure how you get there) is dedicated to some saint who got tortured by the world's largest nipple clips.
I presume that by the end of this tour you'll be tired of seeing pictures of us riding through narrow winding streets with old buildings, often tilting precariously, and large old chateaus and churches in various states of disrepair. Here's today's batch:
We see lots of old buildings (one in Troyes from the 900's) with "Normandy style" or "half-timbered" style construction. I found a wall that was partly deteriorated so that you can see what's inside the wall.
If you just made a square out of wood, it would be easily deformed from 90 degree angles - but, if you add a diagonal timber, it's harder to knock it out of alignment (last time I helped build Habitat for Humanity houses, we did the same thing but used a steel angle iron as the diagonal - slotted into grooves cut into the 2x4's of the main framing). Then, between the parallel upright timbers are short crosspieces that are cut a bit longer than the space into which they fit - so that they can be wedged into place - presumably with no nails to hold them in position. Then, fill all the spaces with mud and you have a Normandy style home that you would pay extra for the decorations in an American Suburb.
Housing prices: Looks like a fairly run-of-the-mill small house - 100 square meters = 900 square feet for about 700,000 Euros - roughly $800,000 at current rates. Wow.
More later on Gothic construction techniques.
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