WARNING: I took a lot of pictures...
Vineyards! We saw a lot of them out the bus window.
Our first stop was the town of Beaune (pronounced like "bone"), where we toured Les Hospices de Beaune, a medieval hospital built for the poor by Nicolas Rolin, the Prime Minister to the Duke of Burgundy, as a way to gurantee his spot in heaven.
The hospital opened in January of 1452 and remained in operation until the 20th century. In the picture below, beds lined the left and right side of the room (the red canopies) and there was 2 people per bed, which was quite the luxury since other hospitals usually had 4 or 6 people per bed.
The kitchen where the nuns would cook for the sick. Most of the time they served soup.
The pharmacy with every imaginable animal part ground up into some sort of paste, powder, or other potion. You can't see the rest of the room, but every wall was covered with these same cabinets.
This is the altarpiece depicting the Last Judgment and was created by Roger van der Weyden, a highly renowned Flemish painter. It used to be over the altar at the end of the room with all the bed in it, where they kept the sick, but has since been moved to a light and temperature controlled room.
This was in the same room as the altarpiece and is a tapestry from the same collection as the famous the Lady and the Unicorn tapestry.
This was a really cool restaurant that we ate lunch in. We got to eat in their cellar amongst all the bottles of wine. Sorry about the size of this picture and the other one of the hospital, but I stole them from a friend.
Next stop was the Grottes d'Arcy-sur-Cure, an ensemble of caves with traces of prehistoric human occupation.
So, here is the only picture I got to take before the guide told us that we were absolutely not under any circumstances allowed to take pictures of any kind and if he saw a camera he would stop the tour. Anyways, this was one of the coolest things I have ever seen because we got to see cave paintings that are over 33,000 years old (33,000 years!!), making this the second oldest painted cave in the world that has been discovered. Our tour guide was really awesome and an incredibly enthusiastic archeology student. We saw humongous stalactites and stalagmites, some of which are broken because people used to take them for souvenirs. We also save a couple of cave paintings, including a buffalo, a deer, a cave bear, and a child's hand print. At one point in time, someone decided that it would be a really good idea to power wash the paintings in the cave, subsequently destroying about 80% of the discovered paintings in that particular cave. Once every year, archaeologists come in and look for/hopefully uncover more cave paintings. Turns out that cave people didn't actually live in these caves, but just used drew in them. Also, we saw 2 lakes in the caves and one of them was completely still, which until you see it, is incredibly weird and cool. Because of this, the calcium deposits that form on the top of the lake (and are also all over the rest of the cave) creates a white layer, kind of like how milk forms a skin when boiled.
After our tour of the cave, we got the chance to walk around a little bit and we discovered all of these little tiny caves hidden in the side of the hills.
Me, in the cave.
View from our hotel window at Vézelay, a cute little medieval village perched on a hill and surrounded by fields and vineyards.
There's the town.
And the fields.
We took a pre-dinner walk of the town. And then we went back and had some escargot! (By the way, it was delicious and I highly recommend it)
This is la Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine. The church is the focal point of the town and as you can see it's built at the very top of the hill. During the Middle Ages, it was highly frequented and a favorite place to take pilgrimages to thanks to its possession of relics of Mary Magdalene (though the Pope later discovered that those weren't real relics). The church is really cool because it was built in three different parts and looks very distinctly like 3 different pieces. Part of it is Romanesque, while another part of it is Gothic architecture and the inside has really cool striped arches that were reminiscent of the famous Mosque in Cordoba (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Mosque_Cordoba.jpg) which I visited when I went to Europe with People to People. I wanted to post a picture of the inside of the church but my camera died.
We walked behind the church and good thing we did...
...because it was one of the prettiest views that I have ever seen.
The next morning we got a tour of the city, but it was so incredibly foggy that when you looked out at the same view behind the church, all you could see was clouds.
I'm so glad we got to see the view the night before!
Vézelay was a fortified city and you can still see most of the wall that surrounds it. Here is a picture, albeit foggy, of one of the entrances to the city. Ever hear stories of how people in the Middle Ages would throw boiling oil on their approaching enemies? Well, in Vézelay, at least it wasn't true. Instead, they would throw down calcium oxide powder, which when mixed with water created a great plaster, but when without, sucks out all the water in your skin if you come in contact with it. Ouch.
Our last stop of the day was Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, where we ate lunch at a restaurant that only uses local products. I think we saw our lunch clucking out back. More importantly though, it is where the movie Chocolat with Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche, was filmed. Unfortunately though, this town was a major disappointment because it was literally deserted. I don't think that I saw any actual townspeople, and we only found 1 store and a restaurant.
The view was pretty nice though. And there were a lot of cows in the valley.
Overall, it was a really great trip and I'm so glad I got to go on it. If you ever get the chance to stop in and see the cave paintings or the view from behind the church at Vézelay, DO IT!
Whew, my fingers are tired...
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1 comment:
Pretty sweet, yo.
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