The television show "Rocky and Bullwinkle" used to have a segment in which a smart dog (Professor Peabody) and his pet kid (Sherman) would enter Professor Peabody's Wayback Machine and go back in time to learn a weekly lesson from history.
I feel like every day here allows us to do exactly that. Each site we visit carries us back to one or more periods in French history when epochal events were occuring, and important leaders were acting out their greatest moments. We are standing in their studies, bedrooms, libraries, battlegrounds, meeting rooms, colesium seats, and churches. And it helps us better understand both the characters and the history.
Today, we went looking for the hilltop location where Caesar fought Vercingetoris, the great Gaul general, defeated his army, and brought an end to Gaulist control of France in 52 BC. It was a wonderful and successful hike, which also netted a covered washing basis using a natural spring on the way up the mountain. Later, we walked through a Cistercian abbey containg an amazingly advanced waterwheel-powered forge, and a large but simple church with arches reminiscent of Middle eastern architecture.
We've two more days before we'll drop off the car and head for Paris. No clear idea where we'll be tomorrow or Sunday, but we're not concerned. We're having such a great time.
Gregory
To see the photos we took today, click on:
Fri, Oct 16th
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