There really is nothing like being surrounded by centuries upon centuries of history to make a girl feel dumb. After every chateau visit or stroll through some new town, what I should be doing is rushing to my computer to conduct research into the significance of the onslaught of information indicating such-and-such happened or so-and-so was here. Instead, I tend to collapse in a heap, exhausted from the brutal trudging in high-heeled boots over cobblestone paths. (Hey, I'm in France and trying to blend in with the locals. The sneakers stay home, apparently so does the brain.)
The dim recognition of famous names during our recent trip to Fontevraud Abbey forced me to get educated. Lucky for you, I'm going to tell you all about what I've learned. Or you could just skip to the photos and experience France the way I typically do: "Who's that?"
"I dunno. But he musta been important."
"Why's that like that?"
"I dunno. But it's pretty cool, huh?"
"Were these the good guys or the bad guys?"
"Well, I guess that depends." And on goes the vague dialogue between me and my family members.
Fontevraud Abbey as seen from the central courtyard.
The interior of the chapel and naive. The tombs below are located at the foot of the naive.
A *Brief* History of Fontevraud Abbey:
A religious order was begun here in 1100 consisting of both nuns and monks (how was that
successful, I wonder?). It remained as such until the French Revolution
(in the late 1780's), when all monasteries and abbeys were shut down by order of the government. In 1806 it was converted into a prison which was
finally closed in 1963. It is now property of the state and functions as
a museum and cultural center as it undergoes major restoration construction.
The Cloister
The main entryway into the room used by the nuns for their governing sessions.
The walls of the governing room were covered in elaborate paintings depicting scenes from the life of Christ. They were all very beautiful and featured portraits of the nuns of the abbey from the 1500's, when the paintings were done. But this one, depicting the ascension of Christ had my mom, dad and me all in a fit of giggles. It looks like something straight out of Monty Python, does it not? "There he gooooooooes."
A Couple Key Historical Figures Associated with the Abbey:
The Tomb of Eleanor of Aquitaine. The book she holds is the Bible.
Eleanor of Aquitaine - She lived from 1122 to 1204. She was extremely wealthy and powerful and had a huge impact on the history of France and England. She was married twice - first to King Louis XII of France, then to Henry Plantagenet who later became King of England. She was mother to three successive kings of England. With her first husband she participated in the Crusades. After attempting to overthrow her second husband so as to place one of her sons on the throne, she was imprisoned for 16 years. Once Henry died, his successor, Richard the Lionheart, set his mom free so she could assist him in ruling the kingdom while he went to war. After his death, she went on to become a nun at Fontevraud. Upon her death in 1204, she was entombed at Fontevraud next to her husband, Henry and son, Richard. Based on what I've read about her thus far, I think she would be a great character to study further if for no other reason than the rarity of such powerful females from this historical era.
The Tomb of Richard the Lionheart
Richard the Lionheart - 1157-1199 - He was the 3rd son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was a key military leader in the Crusades. Although his name suggests a brave, courageous man, my research suggested he was not a good king. He is most famous for his appearance in the fictional tales of Robin Hood. True to these tales, he was an altogether absent king of England and it was actually his mother who served as leader in his stead. He fought many wars and was known as an incredibly brave soldier, but horrible son (probably due to his attempt to overthrow his dad), horrible father (most likely because he only fathered one illegitimate son who never lived with him), and horrible husband (there is question as to his -ahem- preferential treatment of men). Parts of him are buried next to his mother at Fontevraud Abbey. (His heart and entrails are in Rouen and Chalus.)
On the southwestern coast of France, near Rochefort, lies a gem of a town, Brouage - which is entirely surrounded by marshlands and is completely walled-in. It started out as a commercial port - with the principal trade being salt in the 15th century. Through the years it was home to Henry IV (before he was crowned king), ruled by Governor Cardinal Richelieu and saw the birth and childhood of Samuel de Champlain within it's walls. We visited this town last fall when our friend, Janell was staying with us and I am just now finally getting around to posting the photos! Enjoy!
The photo below shows the wall as the dark black lines and the streets, which are actually on grid (anyone familiar with towns in France, knows how rare this must be): The walls are wide enough to allow for a lovely path around the perimeter of the town, affording gorgeous views of the marshlands: Look-out posts occur every so often and originally would have allowed for pretty good shelter from the elements, while being able to still see a good distance. Based on the hurricane force winds (okay, maybe gale force), this must have been a pretty valued feature: In the next two shots, Bo and Vivi provide a good visual to judge the scale of this structure:
I have only one photo from inside the walls. That's probably because from inside, it looks like any other French town to me!
According to Wiki, "Bernache is grape juice at the beginning of its fermentation process." Despite it being sour grapes, it is a very popular drink in this region of France, however it is only available from about October through November. I don't think it a coincidence that this coincides with the wrap-up of the grape harvest. My theory is wine producers were too excited to wait for their wine to be ready for celebrating a good crop, so they started drinking sour grape juice and found it had a certain hard cider-like appeal. Et voila, Bernache was born. Which of course eventually led to more celebrating (this is France after all) and now an annual event called the Bal de Bernache occurs around the end of every October here in Cravant. Signs appeared all over town (meaning the 5 or 6 light posts on the main thoroughfare and a sign posted randomly on a back road) and we even received a flyer in our mailbox one day. With promotion of that magnitude, how could we miss it?
But seeing how "promotion" does not equal "information," the only things we knew were that on Saturday, October 15th there was a dance of fermented grape juice with a DJ at the Salle de fete in Cravant. Not being entirely sure what to expect and whether we should really go, I asked the moms around the school yard if it was a "family-friendly" event. The assured me it was tres sympa for the kids, something they were sure to enjoy.
I think they define that differently than I do.
On the morning of the event we drove by Cravant's "party building" hoping for a sign with more info. Instead, we found some men working on setting up. So I asked what time the event started and one of them smiled oddly, shrugged and replied "some time around 8pm." For this information-hungry, planning-OCD freak, that just was not specific enough. But that's par for the course around here.
Despite our kids' bedtime also occurring "around 8pm," we gave all the French mom's the benefit of the doubt and piled into the car at said hour only to arrive to a virtually empty parking lot. Eyebrows raised, we sent David inside to scope it out, and to get a more accurate assessment of the guaranteed "kid-friendliness." He reported back that of the dozen or so people inside, none were children and most were older men who appeared to have spent the day taste-testing the Bernache.
After we drove the kids back home and settled them into their beds, Janell and I returned to the Bal in hopes the additional hour had livened things up a bit. It had started to. For the next hour and a half more and more people arrived (without children) and some great dance music was played - salsas and swing - but no one danced. I guess the Bernache hadn't taken affect yet. Around 10:30pm I drove Janell back to the house and it was David's turn. I anticipated we'd be able to get some good dancing in and was excited to have the floor to ourselves. But as luck would have it, when we got back, the party had taken on new energy. The terrific dance music had transformed to mindless pulsations and the floor was packed. The bigger surprise however was not the sudden shift in audience participation. It was in who made up this lively bunch. A half-dozen or so of Bo and Vivi's school mates, taking a break from running around like track stars, abruptly stopped in front of us to demand, "Ou sont Bohdan et Vivienne? Ils vont venir?" I politely shouted over the music that Bo and Vivi were in bed. They looked puzzled, shrugged and went back to their races. It was roughly 11pm.
The highlight of the evening was an event I am not certain I will successfully capture in text. It was perhaps one of the most hilarious scenes I've ever witnessed at a party, and is apparently, a "tradition" of sorts in this country. I've included a random video clip below which I found on You Tube - consider it a visual to aid in your understanding. After an announcement was made, people began to sit on the floor, one in front of the other, legs forming a "V" with their stomachs fairly close to the next person's back. A man stood at the front of one line, a shapely young woman at the other, both facing the centipede-like lines of inebriated people. Once the song began, the "leaders" (the two standing) began to direct their lines in waving their hands up in the air - first to the right, then to left, then back, then forward. It was very choreographed, going with the music just like steps in a line dance. To our complete and utter SHOCK, all of the sudden the woman lowered her hands, and while the line of bodies continued to wave their hands forward and back, she literally DOVE into the line and proceeded to be passed in a crowd-surfing like manner over the heads of the line. David's and my jaws dropped to the floor. By the time we got over the shock, the man followed suit down his line and we completely lost it. I had always thought crowd surfing was done on your back - so my surprise doubled as I watched teenage boys and men of all ages thoroughly enjoy handling the woman and all her glory as she made her way down the line.
Just when we thought it couldn't get funnier, a very large man - think Amazon - over 6 feet and at least 275 lbs, who could barely walk for the amount of Bernache in his system, decided he wanted to play, too. But of course, sitting in the line waving his hands around wasn't sufficient. He nosed his way in front of the leader. Expressions of terror swept through his line, which consisted of men and women of every age, size and strength. Before you can say "Sacre Bleu!" this man catapulted himself into the line with the grace of a rhinoceros. It was like watching someone jump on an inflated balloon. One minute there was a line of people sitting there, the next minute a little futon of flesh underneath a neanderthal. I almost peed myself from laughing so hard. I imagine a few people woke up the next day wondering how exactly they managed to acquire so many bruises.
David and I decided to call it quits shortly after that. I mean, really, what could top choreographed body-surfing? We waved goodbye to the bleary-eyed buddies of our own children and headed for home, so grateful Bo & Vivi were sound asleep. At 12:30am, I'm pretty sure we were the first ones to leave.
(Note: This took so long to post because it took me forever to figure out how to make the file small enough for it to load. I don't have similar excuses for other posts. Just this one.)
Back in February we enjoyed "Family Sunday" at church - which basically means Sunday School was cancelled for the day, everyone remained together and all the activities either included youth participation or were directed at a more multi-generational audience. It was essentially family-integrated church and exactly what this lady thinks Church should always be.
Pastor Vincent asked me to do another dance for the service. Originally, dancers who spanned the ages were going to participate, but as it turned out, it was just me and the girls. But it was a beautiful song, a beautiful message and a joy to do regardless. I think Vivi and I will miss this when we leave.
Here's the dance Vivi and I did for Easter. If you think it is good then we can only give credit to God, because for so many reasons it was so close to failing completely. It is a miracle people at church were moved by it. If you think it did fail, well then here's why:
I completely changed WHO was doing the dance three times within three weeks prior to performing.
I completely changed HOW the dance was going to be done two weeks before the date, adding the flags.
After a week of searching and not finding what I needed for flags, I went and made my own. I went through half the alphabet of "Plans" before finally and frantically rigging up window valences with rubber bands and dowel rods.
The week leading up to the show we had two B&B guests (friends of my mom and dad), and two different groups of friends/family visiting staying in the main house.
Vivi was sick two days before.
And lastly, I've never danced with flags before and had no access to a dance studio to see what I was doing, so I could only go by David, Bo and Vivi's input as to whether anything looked good or not.
Given all that, I personally am very happy with the end result. But I absolutely admit to being a nervous wreck over it.
Translation of the words:
On the way to Calvary To the Mount of Golgotha, The soldiers are trying to blaze a trail But the crowd gathers To see who dies on the cross.
He must suffer the insults, Blood flows from his back A crown of thorns on his brow, He faces at each step, The hatred of those who want his death.
On the way to Suffering Leading to Golgotha, Like a lamb, Jesus is the Messiah.
Because he chose to walk By Love for you, for me, On this path of suffering Until the end, until the cross.
His precious blood that cleanses us Flowing on the ground of Jerusalem!
On this path of Suffering Leading to Golgotha, Like a lamb, Jesus is the Messiah.
Because he chose to walk By Love for you, for me, On this path of suffering Until the end, until the cross.
Well, despite Vivi, Bo and I being sick off and on this past week with some evil stomach thing, we managed to thoroughly enjoy both having company and celebrating our resurrected Lord. Specifically for Easter we managed to dance at our Good Friday Service at church (video to be posted soon), enjoy local Easter gifts (see video below), dye eggs, and go to an Easter egg hunt at the tallest chateau in France, Chateau Brissac. Minus the vomiting episodes, it was some pretty good memory-making, I'd say!
Some shots from the Easter Egg Hunt:
This is Chateau Brissac. The hunt was in the forest on the castle grounds.
Here are Bo & Vivi hunting for eggs in the woods with all the other families. There were boatloads of people there. At first we thought we wouldn't find very many eggs - it was slow going. But then we discovered there were people disguised as hunters who were actually "replenishers" going around very stealthfully dropping new batches of eggs to be found! It got a lot easier after that!
We walked away with over 85 eggs. The official final count is under review because of unauthorized "taste-testing."
And finally, our annual egg-coloring tradition. We used a tarp on the floor because I was nervous we would stain the tiles. This year I learned I like coloring brown eggs better - they come out a gorgeous muted, earthy tone.
