The Road Goes Ever On

Friday, October 7, 2016

Ascent Of Le Puy De Dome

The major feature of France's Central Massif are its volcanoes. Yes, volcanoes. In France. They are all dormant now, all 80 of them, but the last eruptions were a mere 10,000 years ago, nothing in geological time, and certainly witnessed by some of our more recent paleolithic ancestors. The largest is Le Puy de Dome, six miles west of the city of Clermont-Ferrand. We've skirted the Central Massif on several occasions, but this time wanted to take it on directly. And so first we undertook an ascent, on foot, of Le Puy de Dome.

And there it is, from the parking lot; a couple thousand feet
above sea level, I guess; like many high points in Europe, there's
a TV transmitter on top

The car park includes a score of spots for RVs; we took the
Muletiers route up the mountain; essentially the old Roman
road to the Temple of Mercury they built on the summit in
the 2nd century; on foot

On the trail

Track of the rack railway not taken (up)

Remains of the Roman road, we thought

A bit of the Chaine de Puys (chain of little extinct volcanoes)

The city of Clermont-Ferrand, six miles away

Nearing the summit

On the summit, a take-off field for parapentes

Looking another direction in the Chaine de Puys; some of them
really look like volcanoes

OK, I am not sure what's going on with Blogger...in any case,
it was on Le Puy de Dome that the philosopher/mathematician
Blaise Pascal (a resident of Clermont-Ferrand) established
that variations in mercury readings were due to air pressure,
that is, that the atmosphere had weight

And on Le Puy de Dome that early aviators
answered a challenge from the Michelin
brothers, to fly from Paris and land on Le Puy
de Dome; this they did in 1911

It is the Romans' Temple of Mercury on the summit that
commands most interest and respect (next post)

Looking north, more volcanic domes

We took the train back down

Bourges, 2016

We strolled about the old city the evening before and the day of our visit to the cathedral (August 14-15). Bourges is filled with interesting late Medieval and Renaissance architecture; and history. And I posted on it in 2013 as well: http://roadeveron.blogspot.ca/2013/09/bourges-old-town.html.

Bourges' very large aire de camping-cars is located next to two
large city parks, which adjoin the cathedral and old city; it's
Sunday evening, and hundreds of people are at the park, listening
to the band, dancing, dining, etc.

In one of the gardens adjoining St. Etienne's

Not all the architecture is Medieval or
Renaissance

La Poste in Art Nouveau

The great cathedral ablaze as the sun sets

Street scene next morning

Ate lunch here; prices not at all bad

Door hardware

Ivy League

Hotel Lallamante, 15th-16th centuries

All over one of the parks were a series of photos
evidently taken by residents of humorous scenes

Gotta like this place!

Bourges Cathedral, 2016

We visited Bourges and its Cathedral of St. Etienne twice in 2013, and I posted several items on this, one of our favorite churches: http://roadeveron.blogspot.ca/2013/09/bourges-cathedral-again.html, http://roadeveron.blogspot.ca/2013/05/bourges-cathedral-of-st-etienne-1.html, and http://roadeveron.blogspot.ca/2013/05/bourges-cathedral-of-st-etienne-2.html. So I won't do the whole thing again, much as I like looking at it all again. Here are just a few pix, hopefully not (much) duplicating previous posts.

Standard view from the garden, starboard bow

There is a good deal of Medieval sculpture at Bourges; this
the least of it, but interesting

Play of stained light

One among the many reasons to like Bourges is the very ample
signage all over the great building; and in English, too

Thus; see below

Bourges' meridian, as explained above, a device
for ascertaining the precisely right time to
celebrate whatever you're celebrating; it's the
straight line under the chairs

Speaking of which, this was the Feast of the Assumption, a
national holiday in France; they made all us pagan tourists
leave, but I got this one shot; not pictured, a handful of gendarmes
in and about the church, full body armor and automatic weapons
(another terrorist incident recently, the radicals evidently trying
to provoke a religious war)

Thus

St. Ursin window; I can't resist posting just a few...

"Double, double, toil and trouble"...wait, no

Nice jaws of Hell

Christian graffiti

More play of stained light

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Sully Sur Loire

The Loire is a big river, even here, hundreds of miles from where it issues into the Atlantic. Our crossing en route to Bourges passed right by the attractive chateau at Sully sur Loire...and its plage.

The chateau

The chateaux of the Loire are all World
Heritage sites

Better view

And the historic plage just outside the walls of the chateau

Closer up

Beach volleyball, of course

Great river

Yevre Le Chatel

Our reservation at Camping Indigo Paris was up, and it was time for us to move on anyway. And so we left Paris again, resolving, as always, to return. Our plan was to wander generally south and west, in the direction of Spain's Costa Brava, but with explorations along the way of France's Central Massif, of the Ardeche Canyon, and the newly opened cave paintings at the Caverne Pont D'Arc. And a stop at the Cathedral of St. Etienne in Bourges, our favorite. Our first stop, on the way to Bourges, was the village of Yevre Le Chatel, which boasts a real 14th century chateau. This was the first of several "pretty little villages," on this part of our summer travels.