Le Mans, forests and medieval towns...

Prisca, Eli, Luka, Lu and I explored Bellemé the next day - very quaint little village.

Some weird wall decoration outside someone's door.

The map of the surrounding area. SO MUCH HISTORY..!!!

The next day Prisca and Luka stayed home while Eli took Lu and I to la Cathédrale de Saint-Julien in Le Mans, about 45 minutes drive from Igé. Yes, the Le Mans where the infamously gruelling 24 hour endurance race is held. They were holding some festival so half the roads were closed off which made trying to work out how the hell to get AROUND half the city to try and get an easy park pretty much impossible. Roughly an hour later we managed to end up pretty much where we started from and totally gave up - French people, for such a proud civilisation are absolute idiots when it comes to road signs and directions. More on that gripe later.
Despite being retarded at directions, they know how to build cathedrals, that's for sure. Especially the Cathédrale St-Julien du Mans.

Amazing, no?

Inside, I found the models demonstrating the different phases taken over the centuries until it was completed:

This took over 400 years...

The cathedral was ENORMOUS. If you look, you'll see that it is built in the traditional cross formation.

Information about the cathedral

Staggering outside feeling a bit blown away I was presented with a medieval town. The cathedral has a wall around it and a fair bit of the surrounding estate. Here are some pictures of the visible parts left:

What can I say? The scale and enormity of the whole thing was absolutely staggering. Words just can't do it justice. What an amazing example of what man can do.

The next day I went for a walk in an old forest with Eli, Prisca and Noemie. France has GREEN forests. I know, I know, you all probably are protesting that rainforests are just as green in Australia and NZ and all but in all honesty, there's just something special about the utter greenness of France's forests. The photos are from HDR Pro so yes, they're over saturated but not THAT much, really.

 After this beautiful walk we went back, picked up Lu and went to a medieval festival in a castle in Nogent-le-Rotrou. People were dressed up in armour and all that, there were even cannons going off (which was damn loud, I nearly had an heart attack and needed to change my pants when the first one went off) and spit roasts cooking various animals. It was awesome. A old whitebeard was showing how you forged metal and banging on a red-hot stick of metal - presumably a dagger-thing - and there was heaps of medieval weapons and armour on display and for sale. Awesome as I said. I was sad to have just missed the battles between the soldiers and stuff, they started 'training' the kids and then it started raining so by the end of the afternoon when we were all ready to leave I had to give up and go without seeing some fighting. Secretly, I was hoping there would be some blood, maybe an accidental dismemberment and all that. Oh well. (Yeah, I was born in the wrong century it seems.)

 Eli and I walked up in the tower where there were exhibitions showcasing the history of the region and the castle. There was an entire floor pretty much devoted to the subject of horses and how they created children's toys and games with that theme. There was even an awesome "bike" which was like a chariot, you sat on the back seat with two wheels and the horse in front of you had one wheel with a band that you held from your seat as you pedalled and pulled on to steer to your left or right. Such a brilliant idea. There was even an old version (which is basically exactly the same as the modern version just not plastic) of the classic game:

Also presented was a model replica of the building stages:

Apologies for the awful quality - it was encased in a glass box and the room was almost pitch black...!!!

So, apparently, the French call their castles slightly differently - we call the basement or underground part of the castle a dungeon but they use this word for the highest tower of the castle.
The word dungeon comes from the French word "Donjon" which means tower. So they call the walls and grounds the castle and the tower the dungeon.
This place is Le Chateau Saint-Jean and the dungeon was built in the XIth century, then the walls built around the XII and XIIIth and the whole place was finished by the XVth century. They built things with long term vision and goals that's for sure!

Next, I go to the Salt Mines of Guerard and stay in a medieval town. And more!

Paris, La Ville-Lumiére (The City of Light)

Paris. What a crazily endearing city.

I stumbled out of the Orly airport but this time I was surprisingly confident. It was really easy to get to the bus to Gare du Montparnasse (train station) - once you know what is what and where is where, it really is remarkably like Melbourne metro - and got myself to Abbessess station. After finding the place where Adrian lives, I found out that he was working till midnight so I just went down the road to the pizzeria which was literally three shops/apartments down and ordered a salami and beer. That was superb.

Two hours later, a few minutes after the pizzeria had closed, a very nice car swerved around the corner on the cobbles, pulled to a halt and out popped Adrian's grinning head.
He took me to this little restaurant a few streets away - Braisenville - at 36 Rue Condorcet, 75009. I met his mates and got the keys to his apartment and ended up being given a beer by one of the boys, it was AMAZING. I don't like dark beer but this was... I have no idea how to explain. We all stood around on the street watching some yobbo start a fight which was amusing.
Around 1.30am I got back to the apartment, climbed what seemed to be a thousand stairs and Adrian made sure I was fine then made to leave.
"What? Aren't you staying here?"
"No, I work tomorrow so I'm going to stay at my grandmothers, she lives an hour away and way closer to work."
"Er... So you're just GIVING me the flat?"
"Yeah. Is that cool?"
"Dude.... What can I say?"
I collapsed onto the mezzanine bed happily and passed out grinning.

The next day after connecting to the wifi and doing some proper research I could NOT believe my location. Two blocks from the Sacre Coeur? Well, indeed. That was my first destination of the day. But important things first. FOOD. COFFEE.
I got me a crepe with ham and cheese, folded into a triangle and wandered down the infamous Rue de Steinkerque, finding an espresso and then battled my way back up through the endless throng of idiots, trinket shops and illegal Three Disc Monte gambling going on.
An example of what I saw
Entertainingly, I watched and I could see that the "dealer" had a stooge in the crowd who would "find" the disc, grab 50 euros from the guy and stand back and watch the fools think they could win too. It was SO obvious what was being done then all of a sudden the dealer grabbed the boxes he was using and threw them onto the side of the road (the road is completely closed off) and ran off into the crowd and a few seconds a cop on a bike pulled up. Walking up towards the Sacre Coeur, I saw that the two other stalls had done the same. Really interesting.

 I was also accosted by some of those blastedly perennial finger people (that's what I call them anyway) - they run up to you and try to make you put your finger out. They then whip out some cheap shitty wool string or whatever and start plaiting a kind of bracelet on your finger whilst chatting away to you and reassuring you. After it is done they then tie it on your wrist and demand stupid amounts of money like 10-20 euros.
I got sucked in once in Rome when I was 17 with Eli, never again.
Anyway, I was amazed at how aggressively the big black dude rushed in, he practically tried to grab my hand while I was walking along and I had to jerk my hand away and give him a death stare. After that, I was fine and made it to the top.

WHAT A SPECTACULAR VIEW!

CAR PHOTOS BELOW

I decided to hell with these vultures and got off the hill on one of the side paths, making my way to the nearest metro (that's what they call the city underground train system - the ubahn is the "international" train that connects all of Europe and England) and got myself to Notre Dame. No, there was no Quasimodo stalking the rooftops there but there were, as per usual, a thousand or so tourists gawking around the courtyard. Getting back in there was lovely, it's just such an unique cathedral. I do have to admit it IS kind of overrated though, there are many far more incredible cathedrals and churches all over Europe. But the legend is what makes the place I guess. And it does have a certain je ne sais quoi. The Treasury had been updated which was nice, a bit more to see of the fabulous wealth these greedy bastards must have had back in the day.
Photos from the last time I visited the Notre Dame Treasury

 Joan of Arc

CAR PHOTOS BELOW

 I got out of there eventually and strolled around the building hoping to get up to the top but the line was stupidly huge as it was last time I was there so I decided to move on and make my way to the Eiffel. A little church, the metro and a walk later I got there, paid the five euro to get up and walked the stairs to the first level. The view was once again, stunning. You could see Sacre Coeur in the distance and pretty much all of Paris. Unfortunately there was only one lift to the very top running and again, the queue was stupid. So I gave up and made my tentative way down feeling exhausted but happy.

Once I got back to the apartment I collapsed and had a beer, Adrian came and visited with a friend and we chatted for a few hours then I passed out.

Happily, George and Agnes, two very old friends of mine had arrived in Paris for a few days so we caught up on the Sacre Coeur in the afternoon after wandering around the back streets and finding a nice cafe right next to the exit of the Abbessess metro, finding a Carrefors (Woolies) and grabbing some baguettes and supplies for the picnic and getting there to lie in the grass and enjoying the brilliantly blue sky and warm sun.

After that, Adrian came and picked me up in his car, took me to a friends house and hung out then he asked me if I wanted an express tour through the city. Why not.

Before we go any further, I need to explain to you the insanity of the roads in Paris. Most of them are extremely narrow one way roads made out of cobblestones. Everyone seems to have a disregard of any kind of rules except the traffic lights. So I simply sat there and watched the scenery rocket past as Adrian flung his very nice car (he works as a chauffeur) with superb skill around hair raising turns and curves to pop out into the most amazing locations.
I saw the miniature Statue of Liberty, the Arc du Truimph, the obelisk... You name it, I saw it. Several hair-whitening hours later, Adrian decided it was time for some food so we went back to Braisenville and ordered some of the most amazing food I've eaten. Super rare strip of beef with a kind of spinach wrapped mix of truffle and onion and a side of baby potatoes in a creamy garlic sauce topped with some tomato (I think?) chutney. I was in food heaven. The same dude who got me that lovely dark beer that first night also made me one mean moscow mule which I happily slurped down.

CAR PHOTOS BELOW 

:The next day, I had planned to go to Versailles. Unfortunately it was rainy and generally awful so I just used that morning to recuperate and finish off Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robbinson. I highly recommend that stunning first novel of a trilogy - it deals with the concept of colonising Mars and all the different perspectives and arguments that would come with doing that.
Red Mars won the BSFA in 1992, Nebula Awards in 1993, and was nominated for the Hugo, Clarke, and Locus Awards in 1993.

That afternoon, I got back to Gare du Montparnasse and got the train back to Igé where Eli and his mother, Lu were waiting to pick me up.

What a week. And heaps more to go. Today I booked my plane ticket to Verona on the 28th (my birthday incidentally) - which is the city of Romeo and Guiletta, a la Shakespeare. Camilla, another very old friend, is going to meet me there on her way home from a weekend in Venice and explore for a bit then head on to hers in the back of Italy, near the Austrian border. That will be interesting!

Au revoir for now.