WALLED TOWNS
To really get the feeling of the Medieval Europe, there is
nothing like staying overnight in one.
Of course, we must realize that all towns of any consequence had a wall
around them as their neighbors (Dukes, Barons,) were always trying to rape and
pillage them. Nowadays, the old wall lines have been converted to Peripheral
Freeways that completed surround the urban core (Paris, Amsterdam, etc.), which
is really a modern miracle when it comes to getting around in these cities.
PARIS
 |
| THE LOUVRE |
About the only remnant left of the old walls , other than
the freeways are the terminal stations of the Metro, although some lines have
gone past these gates. They uncovered some of the old walls when they excavated
for the new underground mall of the architect
I.M. Pei.at the Louvre.
 |
| Between Walls |
 |
| Duke De Lamont |
CARCASSONNE
Just when you think you have figured out the easy ways to
and from Le Gare in a taxi you get to Carcassonne.,Since cars aren’t allowed
within the old city walls, and its quite a distance up the hill from the Gare
to the walled Old Town , you need to
take a taxi (or bus, when you’ve figured that out), as walking isn’t much of an
option we are dumped off at the drawbridge of the walled town. Inside, you drag
your bags up hills over cobblestones for a few short block to find our
hotel(Hotel de Ramparts).
Nice modern insides worked from a 12th century abbey. There are
only three hotels inside and we’re in one of them. We really enjoyed strolling
around the place and finding little outdoor cafes and such. Found a restaurant
that served Coq au vin, not easy to find, as it is considered a peasant dish.
It was very tasty, but a lot of work getting the meat off the odd cuts of
chicken. It could have used more mushrooms & onions. However, not to
complain as it was one of the best meals we had so far. A large downside to
stay in a cheaper hotel is the didn’t seem to understand the concept of venting
the plumbing fixtures to eliminate smell. Although, they invented the Studer
Vent, a gismo the you install in you fixture plumbing the take care of the
smell, it was something we had ran into in Bordeaux. Maybe they were still
using the original sewer container in the basement? That brought back
unpleasant memories of the out house used on the farms I worked in Eastern
Washington.
The fort, built by
the Romans and occupied by the Visigoths in the 5th centuries, came
under French control around 13th century. There are two major
concentric walls, both have more than
seventeen round towers in the walls. This is probably the largest extant castle
in France, it was restored by the French Architect Violet-le-Duc in the mid
eighteen hundred, who had a habit of adding pointy roofs on a lot of the round
towers here and elsewhere in France. King St. Louis built the walls in 13th
century. This was the last of the holdouts of the Cathers, A religios group
from Byzantium who didn’t agree with all the Catholic Dogma, therefor were
massacred, called the Albinasian Crusade, whereby the Knight Errant was given
the land of any Cathar he killed. A very tidy arrangement for the Catholics.
 |
| Aigues Morte |
 |
| ST. CHAPELLE |
AIGUES MORTES (Dead Waters)
This is one of the best preserved towns as it still has a
population of about 6,000 folks.
It was originally the only French port to the Mediterranean
sea as well as a source of salt due to
the manipulation of the ponds in the marshes. It looks like a smaller version
of the salt mounds in San Francisco Bay. Also, they are renowned for a type of
horse of smaller stature. The king, St. Louis IX (that’s the 9th)
figured large here as he left here to participate in the crusades of 1248 and
1272. He didn’t do much fighting but died of Dysentry near Jeruselum. I’ve
always wondered why a king became a saint, Well, the Catholic Pope was in
Avingnon at the time and King Louis was renowned for his “humility” and taking
care of the poor, but at the same time, was instrumental in expanding the
Inquisition, the bastard! While in the Outremer, (French for overseas) he was
suckered into buying the Crown of Thorns: and a sliver of the True Cross. He
paid enormous sums for these so called authentic relics, like twice as much as
he spent on building his fabulous chapel, “St. Chapelle” in Paris. Today, this
small church is in my estimation the best example of the art of the 13th
century. We stayed in a hotel St. Louis, in the town, just a block from the
Main Plaza, obviously a renovated house from a few hundred years back.
Charlemagne erected a watch tower in 790, while most of the walls were put up
in 1270.
Evenings in these
towns are pretty magical, as the tourists are gone around 06h00 and the
restaurants and plazas are nice and quiet.
Leaving one day
from Auges Morte to SantMarie De Le Mer to see the annual gathering of Gypsies
(Yes, they still exist!) As well of a
flock of pink flamingos in the marshes, we took a back road which had a free
ferry across a small river. Well, we arrived at the ferry at 12:01 and the
ferryman was at lunch till 1:30(Promptly!). So we all waited around while about
20 cars cued up. Spent time conversing with a Canadian bicyclist who had two
wooden legs.(Don’t ask me how). He and his two kids were cycling
from there to Avignon, about 30 miles! His kids were put in a French school
that helps foreigners learn French while still studying.
 |
| Street Lamp, Coke bottles |
 |
| Soccer Team |
DELFT
Trained down to
Delft, put up at a the small Museum Hotel
that had large contemporary ceramic sculptures all over the place. This
is another ancient town that still has a
few canals through it. It’s hard to believe this to be a walled town as it is
very alive with churches, commerce and plain living places. Of course we took a boat tour in order to see
the canal life, they only recently cleaned them out and retrieved one
thousand bicycles. The young bucks in Holland have a penchant for stealing
bikes and throwing them in canals while drunk.
There are two major churches here, the Oude Kirk and the Nieuwe
Kirk. The old church was built in 1100's
while the new one was finished in 1350. New & old arerelative terms here.
They have a wonderful large square with the old City Hall on one side. This was
filled with a market one of the days, selling everything from flowers to tee
shirts. Needing to do our laundry we asked the young woman concierge where we
could find a Wash & Dry. She said that “We don’t do that here”. That was a
big help but so we finally ran across one later on the main square that day. The sign said “Rein-Tex”. Never did
know what it meant, but it worked.
Took a couple of day
trips on the train, one to Haarlem (Yes, New York’s was named after this). We
found a fantastic old church (Grote Kerk) from the 1300's with great slabs of
basalt on the floor where the well known are buried, including Mozart. A very
unusual roof structure of stone ribs and timber infill. But best of all, there was a fantastic ornate
organ on one end wall and best of all they were playing Bach or Buxtahude. We
were almost the only ones there except for this incredible SOUND! It was truly,
a religious experience.
Another day tripped
to Keukenhof Gardens, which has a huge
flower show at this time of year (Spring). It consists of many acres of ground
that contain giant tulip area, creeks, and several pavilions, each one
containing a type of flower, orchids, daisies, etc. Each pavilion has a snack
bar for food and of course beer & wine. This eased my pain a little. An
original restored operating windmill was fun to climb up on but the best thing
was watching a guy hand carved wooden shoes on a sawhorse with a clever tool
that is jointed and attached to the saw-horse that enables him to quickly shape
the shoe and actually make pairs that fit.
Back at Delft we
found a great little restaurant overlooking a canal. What intrigued us was the
lantern over their door. It was made up of spoons and coke bottles! The
atmosphere and food was on a par with their lantern.
We moved on to our
favorite place of all, the Chateau de la Flocelliere, an ancient castle partly reconstructed after the revolution.
Not exactly a walled town, it felt like one as several of the original walls
were still standing, all around the main Chateau. Operated (and owned) by the Vicomte &
Vicomtesse Vignial, we occupied the second floor of he tower. The old oak
floors were not sealed but merely waxed over the centuries. They had a wonderful
sheen to them. We were invited to an aperitif in the drawing room one evening,
declining a Cuban cigar but yes on a couple of drinks poured by the Vicomte
himself. We met some of the other guests, a German builder of thrill rides,
like at Marine World. We booked a dinner for one of the evenings and sat down
to a very tasty chicken, potatoes, & haricot vert. We shared dinner at the
chateau with an old French couple, he
being an old retired army parachutist. Unfortunately, they had no words of
English. But our hosts were fluent in about ten languages so we had a good
time. The Vicomte kept us up to our ears in good wine, the Vicomtesse kept
filling us up with her great food, prepared by her and a kitchen helper. The
kitchen was a marvel of 18th century stuff, including a rough square
granite sink. Throughout our stay, Joy kept asking for ice (She’s incorrigible,
like Bill and his Martinis) and who would bring it? Why the Comtesse. I was
kind of embarrassed. Didn’t bother Joy any, she had to have her Coke with ice.
On one of our day
trips from the to a nearby town with a swell creperie we got caught up in a
high school marathon on some hilly town. They just told us to drive careful so
we threaded our way thru the runners and check points, finally getting free to
proceed on our way. Also drove down to nearby La Porte de Rochelle , where most
of the early ships left to deliver settlers to the Americas. Had a lot of great
old forts guarding the port. We found a Pizzeria on a canal for a nice lunch.
 |
| THRU THE WALL |
 |
| HELLO - CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? |
VILLANUEVA SUR YONNE
 |
| Caron's Hotel-Restuarant |
The wall and towers
were built in 12th century as one of eight residences of the French
kings. The main west gate is still standing, renovated by Viollet-le-Duc, but
with the unfortunate narrow width, only one car at a time can negotiate the
gate which straddles the main street at the end of the business district. I
guess the inmates of the town are just used to it after several centuries and
what option do they have? The whole townon one side is open onto the river, I
don’t know if there was a wall on that side during the hard times.
Joy found us a
wonderful B&B owned and run by Mde Leslie Caron, the actress. She had
bought and renovated an old boat repair shop on the River Yonne, complete with
four rooms and a very elegant restaurant, which she runs. She’s not as gorgeous
now days as she was in “An America in Paris” but has a classy view of life.
 |
| CHURCH FACADE |
 |
| DEVILS BRIDGE |
LUCCA
We didn’t overnight here but have haunted their streets a
couple of times. Totally surrounded by huge walls and breast works of te Renaissance
times when cannons could chew you up if you didn’t have lots of dirt and stone
in front of you., Again, cars only allowed in peripheral parking lots. An
obvious oval void of the Piazza Antiteatro is the result of all the 3 and 4
story buildings surrounding it reflecting the remnants of a Roman Theatre. As
usual, the Romans founded the place about 200 BC. The composer
Puccini was born here. At one time , there were many stone
towers here but only a couple left today. An word of warning; there is a huge,
fast round-about at the main entry. Just relax and drive around it a few times
until you can catch sight of the turn-off to Lucca town. However, once when we
left, we entered a one way street, but we were going against traffic. A
fabulous old stone bridge , The “Devils Bridge” is a short distance into the
hills from Lucca. The Ponte dei Diablo was commissioned by the Countess
Matilida in 1100. It has a span of 37.8 meters (look it up!). This is the spot
where we understood that Roundabouts are great for cars but deadly for
pedestrians, a concept not understood yet by American Planners.
SAN GIMIGNANO
 |
| FRESH PIG! |
 |
| BASE OF TOWER |
This is one of the great walled towns as it has not spread
from the old walls like so many other cities. We have been here several times
but always find it interesting. For instance, we had never seen a pigs head
that you can cut chunks of meat from in a
shop.
 |
| The Duke of Verona |
PADUA
Only a short distance from Venice, I had to see the old
walled city of Padua, whose crumbling walls still surround most of the town.
This was a setting for Shakespeares’ “Romeo & Juliet”. Since I had played
The Duke of Verona ack in Santa Rosa (I
guess the Duke owned Padua at the time).
I couldn’t help standing an the
actual Town Hall where the Duke had
espoused his monologue so I could reprise my role on the actual steps . The
square was filled with some market vans plus a group of workmen who enjoyed my
discourse immensely (Not understanding any of it) but gave me a rounding
applause when I had finished. Those are the moments we cherish, traveling
around and doing re-enacting of old parts.
