Champagne, Paris (from the 15th)

We're currently in the Hotel Sophie Germain in Paris for the last days of our study. I have a paper to write, but fortunately I landed my own room here. The downside is that I have to write the paper by hand, as I have no computer (borrowing someone's right now).

Yesterday we visited my favorite town so far, Laon, in Northern France. Maybe I liked it because we went straight to the medieval part of town and it was early morning so nobody was there yet. The Cathedral was nice. The south transept had a tiny cloister and medieval layout still (terminology is becoming too familiar to me). I bought lunch at a little deli where everything was homemade by the owner. Pommes Dauphine (scalloped potatoes) and a tomato stuffed with mystery meat (probably lamb) over dirty rice. She heated it up and put it in a little to-go tinfoil thing, and I walked to the edge of the hill and sat on a park bench, overlooking the town and wheat fields/groves of trees beyond, with the 12th century Cathedral and medieval courthouses behind my back. Very nice.

Then today, our bus driver had made arrangements to visit some friends of his who own a vineyard in the Champagne region. We went out to the Champagne fields, into the warehouse (and learned about the process) and then had a generous champagne tasting. It was AMAZING champagne; I've never tasted anything like it. Champagne is only made in one valley in France; it's illegal to call it Champagne made anywhere else because part of the secret is the soil.This was the real deal; the family champagne has won gold and silver medals. They do most of the process by hand--30 pickers at harvest and just 5 workers in the warehouse: the dad, two sons, an apprentice, and a regular employee. They were generous with their time and we got an experience that most would never get an opportunity to even think of. It was an amazing experience.

We hit Paris today and walked over a mile to the river and Notre Dame Cathedral. It was so busy that we just filtered down a line in the courtyard and into one side aisle, out the other. I have to say, Notre Dame is very impressive and a lot of upkeep has gone into it, but I really enjoy the imperfect cathedrals and churches more. Imperfect cathedrals like Beauvois, which was never completed, so it has a Carolingen (10th century?) church sticking out of one end and a very short floor plan. Additionally, its original tower was astronomically huge, something like 45 storeys (in the 12th or early 13th century, for Pete's sake!), which was successful--but the foundations were weak, so it collapsed. (And then I built another castle, but it was still on the swamp, so it collapsed...sorry, poor Monty Python paraphrase). So the ambulatory--the front of the church which is round and full of chapels--has a different style of architecture than the transept. I like those flaws and combinations. In that same church they were doing some digging and had wooden structures up to support some arches as well, right near a 14th century clock still chiming. Today in the Basilica in Reims it was visible where Romanesque (a term used to describe Roman-like structures from a.d. 1100-1150) arches have been cut off and swallowed into later work, and arches that end abruptly in the side of a different, later style of Gothic arch. It's very charming.

P.s Today we also saw a little church (little! try huge but not enormous! church! try 800-year-old artifact!) in the square where a bishop first converted the the king of the Franks. (Francs?). There was a plaque that said that the church and town is where Victor Hugo met Esmeralda, a gypsy girl; as well as a man upon whom Hugo based Quasimoto.

P.p.s When I download and select some pictures, and after my paper is written, I'll be able to go back in and give an account of what the last two weeks were really like. For now, expect some logs while I'm in Italy. The photos will probably happen around the 5th of August.