today we meet our bus
Our terrific team--Our Captain, Teacher, Historian, Diplomate and Friend Rebecca--Navigators, Great Drivers and all around good people Math and Arnie--Our fine Heart Of France Rolling Home Heidebloem--together our team planned and created a daily delight of inspirational and interesting experiences with many "back doors" being opened for each of us members of the April tour group--often opportunities provided to choose from for exploring and enjoying our "free time"
"au revoir" Paris
early start for the day along the sidewalks of Paris
Guedelon Château
Guedelon Castle--What is this?--Even if a person is not into castles or construction this concept has real appeal to walk about watching the hand work of creating from raw materials a working wonderful live action Castle--a concept pushed into reality to build a medieval 12th to 13th century castle today while using that time from 800 years ago period clothing for workers, the construction tools, materials and building techniques--what did it take to start?--a site suitable required a search to find a castle setting that was not too close to a town--had access to a forest for lumber--close supply of fresh water--rock that would be quarried--many techniques had to be learned sense the were no blue prints and instructions from the period--example, how to quarry then shape the rock for walls--experimented with blasting to quarry that failed and resulted with obliterated rocks--ended up with hammers and chisels to quarry and shape the stone--creation of a castle style would be controled by money available--so decided the castle would be that of mid level noble rather than high end royalty with unlimited funds--result this castle is not a defensive fort with moat and draw bridge and outter surrounding defensive walls--the goal is four tours with a walled court yard--the projected time to finsh is a total of about 25 years--over 50 people are employed on the project--plus 300,000 visitors a year who provide a major portion of the funding--our local guide work on the construction and related her experince with many of her first hand building projects--farm animals are raised on site for feeding the workers--Rebecca provided a nice tour group picnic lunch at the construction site outdoor dinning area--very interesting visit--
at the center of France--Bourges--
lots of cool medieval timbers houses--history as early Celtic City--accepted as an early Christian town--home of the King who drove out the English occupiers--capital of France
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Cathedral of St. Etienne where Christian church have since third century (this one from the 1100's)--style is High Gothic-flying buttresses--king sized--a football field length nave--
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headed for the Arch Bishop's Garden for Rebecca's tour group meeting--However the skys opened up--rain deluged our group--it was a sprint for cover and off to Restaurant Le Sénat for "traditional cuisine"
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