A French Medieval Village

In the afternoon, all of us drove about an hour to a medieval French village from the 13th century called Perouges. We got to drive near the river for much of the way, and then on various village roads through round abouts. These are the same roads as get used in the Tour de France and other famous bicycle races and I wondered if any of the cyclists we saw were from the pro peleton.  I have to say I was thoroughly disoriented by the time we arrived, since there was no direct path and one is never really sure the direction one is leaving a round about towards..

Entrance to the village

The medieval village was as a lot of fun and  all very beautiful.  The outer wall was dominated by this old fortress cathedral that had these fantastically brightly colored stained glass windows.

Inside the cathedral

All the streets were cobblestone, which turns out to be fairly tiring to walk on for a long time.  There were several beautiful gardens, both for herbs and flowers near the local noble's home/castle.  Since the whole city was walled and fortified, and the nobles resident was just one of many building within the compound, I guess you would simply called it his mansion.  There were many other smaller homes that were homes or workshops of the guilds and tradesman.  What was cool is that a lot of these were now used as either residences or as shops, so much of village still maintained its residential feel.  There were no re-enactors, just people living there.

Cathedral Tower and courtyard

The nobleman's home

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One of the gardens in nobleman's home

Another view of the garden

Tradesman shops

Inside the nobleman's home

I took this picture of an ancient clarinet for JPD

One very old bible

View from watch tower

David's daughter has no fear of heights. Kristan looks on.

David's daughters plot their strategy to take over the countryside

The rotund knight takes the tower

Overlooking the gardens from the watchtower

Bernard classifies some herbs

In the main square.

This lime tree is hundreds of years old.  Executions and auctions were held here.

One conclusion that while we have a very romantic notion of kings and queens and knights, etc... the reality is that even someone in the lower middle class today probably lives a thousand times better off than the royalty of that day.  Our homes have central heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. They had to have huge fire places to try to warm large rooms in the dead of winter. With electricity, we can see at all hours of the day.  They only had candle light. Our beds are clean and comfortable.  While servants clearly did the work for nobles, our machines do the same for us.  And we have modern medicine and antibiotics that consistently works against a wider spectrum of disease than apothecary potions.  So as beautiful as the place was, I don't think I would willing trade my life today for that in the 13th century, even if I got to be a noble. If I had to be a peasant rather than a tradesman, it would have been very miserable indeed.  On the other hand, the beauty that was build from stone and hand tools is very gratifying and frankly one wonders why with modern materials, we build such ugly and non-human scale sort of places.

A guest in the french countryside

After the conference was over, I stayed at Nathalie and David's house for the day and half.  They live about 30 min from Lyon.  If Villeurbanne was ugly, the little village they lived in was everything wonderful one imagines about the French country side.  Their home is very new, having been build about 3 years ago, and in a very modern style.  

Stair well

Dining table and chairs look out to the pool

When David was in Tennessee, he began to work for a local airplane aluminium manufacturing company that sold some to Europe.  David began to work as a salesman and after they went back to France, essentially become a one-man branch of the company in France. 

The fireplace opens to both the dining room on one side and the living room on the other.

He has done incredibly well ($4 million in sales last year) and they have been able to built a beautiful home.  Such a change from them from their time in Tennessee when money was so tight. Another great thing for them is that Nathalie parents live next door, in a home that is 300 years old.  A very different architectal style, but also very beautiful.  So the girls can go over to their grandparents everyday.

Although I had seen pictures of Celia and Franny, their daughters, I had not met them in person since they were born after Nathalie and David went back to France.  They were quite shy around me, because while they are learning English in school, they were nervous about actually using it in front of me.  They are beautiful girls and it is obvious that Nathalie and David are wonderful parents to them.  The next day, another family who had been post-docs (Bernard and Kristan) at the same time as we were, but were in a different lab, came to stay as well.  I felt bad that I got the big guest room with the shower, since they had their two kids as well, but I guess David and Nathalie figured that I needed my own room. There little boys were especially funny.  Poor Thomas, it frightened him when I spoke in English to his parents, and he got upset and covered his ears.  Even when his dad explained why he couldn't understand, he still had a hard time dealing with it.  I kind of knew the feeling.  It was awesome listening to the two families converse back and forth in French, sometimes stopping to translate, but it was hard also not being able to follow most of what was going on.  I really wish I remembered more French from way back in Jr. High when I took it.

On Saturday morning, David took me with him when he and Ceclia went to buy bread and run errands.  They take their bread very seriously, and don't usually buy bread in their village but rather in the next larger village over because the local baker is not up to snuff.  (Can't argue with the results, the bread was fantastic and I have been searching in vain for equivalent bread since coming back home.)  We also stopped by the local superstore to buy some berets for much less than 50 euros and lots of chocolate.  When we went to check-out  David very generously paid for everything.  Again, if there is anything I have learned from my French trip, it is how generous host the French are. Eating around their dinner table was the highlight of the trip.

The alley in front of the museum. 

The bear symbol is from the village's famous story of a man who saved the noble's daughter from a fire by covering himself with a bearskin and climbing up a burning tower to rescue her.

The tower restored

The long stairs look out over the valley

David and daughter

Village Church

Original defensive tower for church

Wine cellar

A night in Lyon

After the afternoon session, there was to be a business session, and then everyone who wanted to would go by tram and subway over to historic Lyon for a guided historical tour and then the Grand Banquet.  I had my laptop with me at the sessions, and didn't want to cart it around all evening. So I headed back to the hotel, assuming that people would not leave for the tram station until the time designated.  Ah, but this is France and schedules and the French don't mix well.  Since the business session was much shorter than expected, they all left about 20 min early, so by the time I got back, everybody had left.

Since I thought I had a pretty good idea of how to get to the first stop, I tried to catch up.  Problem 1:  It turns out that the tram ticket I had in my pocket was not the 3 day all tram/subway/bus ticket the organizers had given us, but rather the used one way ticket that I had bought the day I came in.  I only figured this out after repeatedly having it rejected by the machine inside the tram. Fortunately, the tram are essentially on the honor system, so I just kept riding the short distance to the stop which was suppose to be for the subway station.  I got off and found a machine to purchase another 1 way ticket for the subway (still dealing with the coin vs credit card issue).  And then tried to figure out where the subway station was.  It is really confusing when you can't read much French, because little things throw you.  Symbol signs are helpful, of course, but you always feel like there is at least one piece of information that is missing.  But I was eventually able to find it and get on the right subway train.  But when I arrived at where the tour was to start (Place Belacour), I couldn't see our group.  The plaza was vast and there were lots and lots of people, so I pretty much realized I was doomed to miss the tour.

Fortunately, I did have a map with me, so I could at least wander around Place Belacour
where you could see the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere across the river and up the hill.
A spectacular looking old cathedral that I never had the chance to visit.

After walking down to the Rhone river

I wandered back along the Rue de Victor Hugo.
  It had gotten dark and most of the shops were beginning to close, but downtown Lyon was pretty and beautiful, in deep contrast to Villeurbanne.

For the first time I really felt like I was in the France I had imagined. I stopped into a bookstore and bought some children's books in French.  Since the girls wanted berets or French clothes, I also looked into some of the many clothing shops.  But I was shocked when cute little berets were selling for 50 euros. (Roughly 75 dollars).  Out of my price range.  By this time I reached the general area where the banquet was suppose to be (near the Perrache train station), I realized I had Problem #2.  I didn't actually know what the name of the restaurant was.

They had shown a picture of the front of the restaurant at the conference earlier in the day and given the name, but it was a fairly narrow photo, and I had forgotten the name. I turned out not to have the conference schedule on my iPod and needed wireless to search for it, which I didn't have.  I walked around to all of the restuarants on the main side of Perrache plaza, but I really didn't have any sense that I had gone by the right place.  So I tried to find my way over to the other side of the train station.  Still no luck, but then when I walked to a high point on the train station, I saw something that seemed to matched what I was looking for.


It was still about 15 minutes before the banquet was suppose to start, so I figured I would stand outside the restaurant (Brassieres Georges) and wait for the group to come in.  I waited and waited, but it reached the appointed time and no group had arrived. I wondered if I had the wrong place, but had no better candidates.  Finally, I saw one guy who looked like one of the organizers of the conference and I stopped him.  He said this was the place, and just to go in.  I did, but sat all by myself in the large section of the restaurants set aside for large groups.  I think the waiters were very uncomfortable with me sitting there all by myself, or maybe I just felt uncomfortable.  Finally, people began filtering in.

The meal made up for all the disappointment of missing the tour and the uncomfortable wait.  It was fantastic and the conversation was great as well.  If there was anything I came to appreciate on my trip to France, it was that of a slow, drawn out meal with lots of talk and excellent food.  Rather than the sort of quickly stuff my face and then lets move on to what needs to be done sort of affair that seems to mark most of my eating. The final course was written on the menu as an omelet, but bore no resemblance to an egg and cheese dish.  Instead it was an omelette à la norvégienne which is a flambe, baked Alaska, sort of dish with little nuggets of something like ice cream in a convection of some sort. They would dim the lights slightly when they would bring it out to each table, with the sparklers sizzling. (See les desserts pull down menu of la cartes at the Brassiere Georges website for a nice picture of this. At the end of the evening, I rode back on the tram with the whole group, and they rehearsed some of the interesting sites they had seen on the tour.  I really wish I had not missed it.

Parles-vous francais-part deux

I have to say that I was really disappointed by how ugly Villeurbanne looked.  Unlike the quaint country side, it was mostly 70s looking concrete Soviet looking architecture.  Ugly.  Having a few hours before the conference started, I checked into my hotel room, FaceTimed home and then went for a walk out to the Parc de la Tete de 'Or.

 

This park had a free zoo and botanical garden.  It was overcast and cold, and kept threatening to rain, but the park was nice enough. 

At this point, I was pretty hungry, having not eaten since the breakfast served on the airplane and it was 7 o'clock, so I decided to head back and attend the opening reception of the conference.
It started pouring rain on my way back (which took about 35 minutes) and by the time I reached where the conference was, I was soaking wet.  I went inside to the reception, pretty embarassed by how wet I was and discovered that the reception had started at 5:30.  (The program had said 17:30 and when I was trying to remember it in my head, I didn't make the translation from 24 hr time.)  So there wasn't much left over besides wine and cheese and Nathalie, the person who had invited me to speak at the conference, had already gone home. Since I don't drink, I had a few nibbles of cheese and went back towards my hotel, feeling very hungry and kind of worried that this whole trip might turn out to be a disaster. The only place I found open was the little restuarant next to my hotel that served Gyros and fries.  So here I am in France, (and Lyon in particular which is apparently considered the culinary capital of France,) and I am having what is essentailly a greek sandwhich...not really what I had hoped for. However, I will say that the gyro tasted better than pretty much any other Gyro I have ever had.



The next day got up early (time shifting is hard, but taking melatonin the night before really helped) and went to the conference, where I finally had the chance to talk with Nathalie.  We were both post-docs in the same lab nearly 10 years before, and she was one of the organizers of the conference, which is likely why I was invited to speak.  It was nice to know at least one person at the conference, because to begin with I felt very isolated.  Although the conference was officially in English, probably 2/3rd of the people were French, so they quickly reverted to French and that made it hard to join in conversations.

One of the wonderful surprises was that pretty much all the meals were included as part of the registration for the conference, which ensured that I got a chance to be totally immersed in French cuisine..  Breakfast was always things like chocolate croissant and other pastries and the lunches were extraordinary.  The first lunch, we sat down to a plate of pate and bread.  We when I was done, I felt fairly full.  And then they brought a plate of roast beef and other delicious sides.  Whoops, I guess the pate was just the appetizer! So by the time I had finished the second course, I was feeling stuffed.  And then they brought out a delicious dessert. 

So by then, I was super-stuffed, but quite satisfied that I had a least had finally experienced French cusine. It was a good thing that dinner was suppose to be on your own that day, because I wasn't the least bit hungry.  My talk went well, and I ended the second day in a very different mood.
The next day we once again had a nice breakfast and a wonderful lunch. The talks were perhaps less interesting to me, but that was alright. I had a nice conversation at lunch with several young French assistant professors who taught me a lot about the food and about French scientifiic culture and about their methods for measuring membrane properties, which is one of the things I found highly useful from the conference.

Parlez-vous français?

So every once in a while, a career in science has some benefits. 
Recently a the benefit was a week in France.

Some random thoughts and pictures

So I was happy that I had empty seat on the plane on the way over.  Still it was hard to really get good sleep, just no way to get comfortable even with the extra seat, a travel pillow, and such. 

After landing at Charles de Gaulle airport (which is huge), I found the TGV (bullet train) station alright, but felt like it was a bit confusing where I was to go to catch my train.  The problem is that my ticket said Lyon, and had the train number, but the big board which told you which platform to be on only listed a Lyon train that was suppose to be 45 min before my train.  The info person gave me bad information and had me stand in a line that probably was to buy a ticket and I might have missed it except there was someone walking through the line to answer questions and they were able to direct me back out to the platforms.  The problem, as I eventually discovered, was that the final destination of the train was Marseilles, so that is what was listed on the big display board.  When the train arrived, it did mention the intermediate destinations.

So I hopped on, couldn't find any place to put my luggage and ended up leaving it in the aisle where others pieces of luggage were as well.  Then I walked through the coach, trying to find my seat number.  When I did, a dignified older French woman was sitting in it.  I looked down and my ticket several times to make sure I was reading it right.  The french women started screaming and gesturing at me in French.  I was looking at here rather blankly, she suddenly grabbed her suitcase, stood up and walked to the other end of the car talking loudly to the other passengers and gesturing.  Finally one of the other passengers said something to me in French, and I said in English, I don't understand French.  They said something to the others that made them all nod and I quickly sat down in my seat.  My guess is that old lady was saying something like just sit anywhere and don't bother me.  Talking with my French host later on, they attributed her manner to her being a Parisian, which they viewed as rude and intolerant compared to the fine folks in Southern France.

By bullet train Lyon is 2 h from CDG airport because the train goes about 120 mph.  From my window I had a good view most of the time and was surprised by how much was simply open country side of farms and forest.  For some reason, I expected there to be many large cities, but it was mostly rolling hills, with extremely oddly shaped parcels of land, bordered by hedges or other vegetative boundary markers.  The villages looked beautiful, typically stone with slate roofs.

I arrived in Lyon, found my luggage gone, but that it had accidentallly been unloaded by a French family who thought it was one of theirs.  The apologized and all was well.  I then had to figure out how to get from the TGV train station to the tram, which is how I was getting to my hotel.  I exchanged some US dollars for Euros, but ended up mostly with bill for 10 and 20 euro with only a few coins, which proved problematic when I tried to buy a tram ticket.  One huge problem with being an American in Europe is that American credit cards lack the security chip of European credit cards, so essentially no train or public ticket machines will accept them.  ATMs will, and most stores with a person who can get a signature or the PIN number will, but the tram station machine only accepted coins or credit cards. Luckily, I had just enough coins to buy a one trip ticket.  It took awhile for me to figure out which direction of tram I needed to take, and ended up needing to cross to the other side, but eventually end up on the tram headed the right way.  It took about 15 minutes to get over to the INSA Lyon station in Villeurbanne, which is where the conference was at.