The Road Goes Ever On

Sunday, October 9, 2016

Montpeyroux

One of the guides for our visits in France has been the book and website Les Beaux Villages. And so it came to pass that on August 18th, having had enough volcanoes and shopping in Clermont-Ferrand, and guided by Les Beaux Villages, we drove on to the pretty little village of Montpeyroux. An assortment of pix follow...

Temple Of Mercury

In the second century CE the Romans built a temple to the god Mercury atop Le Puy de Dome. For centuries it was thought to be the remains of a Roman fort, but in the 19th century was finally recognized as a temple. Clermont-Ferrand (Augustonemetum) even in Roman times was a major Gallo-Roman city, a crossroads in Gaul, of which Lyons was capital. The French have undertaken a reconstruction of the temple, and there is an excellent little museum also on the broad summit. Mercury is the god of travelers and is thus especially revered in our household (RV-hold?)

Love the old signs

Some of the extensive remains

More...the museum is behind, in a meteorological station

19th century conception of what it looked like

A bit of contemporary perspective

Roman road marker..says "Don't mess with Rome"; wait, no

OK, it's a mile marker

After the long tribute to Emperor Claudius, it says
Augustonemetum is 21,000 steps down the road; makes you
appreciate today's road signs

Some background

Statuette of the god Mercury, a votive offering found nearby

Patron saint, I mean god, of travelers, among other things

A bit of the reconstruction

Ultimate plan

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.