Van Gogh and a Walk in the Woods
Van Gogh and a Walk in the Woods
We are at the place on our trip to Paris where were rushing to do all the things we’ve missed and to do our favorites before we leave. It’s like sitting on your luggage to get it closed. We’ve only had 6 weeks to get it all in the suitcase. If we had skipped eating and drinking we would still have 2 weeks left!
Our last two days included a trip to the small town where Vincent Van Gogh painted his last 70 paintings and yesterday to two chateaus complete with woodland creekside walks. The Van Gogh town started out inauspiciously with a four-way argument between Rick Steve’s guidbook, the train ticket seller, Gayle, and Myself. Basically the ticket seller didn’t want to sell us a ticket on the route that Steve’s recommended. We finally gave in and did it the sellers way, and steamed all the way to the small town, on the slowest, poorest connected train so far.
Once we got into town, we found a realtors dream, house after house, of charming homes, restful courtyards, and friendly people. The famous church that was depicted in Vincent’s last works was foreboding, when you consider the context for Van Gogh. His first love in life was God and the ministry. He was extremely devout, gave to the poor all his belongings, living meagerly as he ministered to the poor miners and factory workers. Unfortunately, the church thought his devoution and interpersonal skill lacking, and asked him to leave.
Thus we see a church with no entry, on a crooked path, a sky whose clouds look ready to pluck one up into the darkness. All this, while a poor working woman walks to her fate taking the broken path to the left. I hope she makes it to the welcoming town that peeks out on the left and not the church that turned it’s back on poor Vincent.
The one fun quirk of this town is the “Dogs on the Wall” phenomenon. As we walked beside these rough rocked walls and homes, we kept running into chens (dogs) peering at us from above. At one location, we were getting ready to film two dogs, when a car drove up. A lady got out and the dogs went crazy. One dog pacing 12’ skyward had a half deflated soccer ball that it kept swinging toward the woman below.
Walk in the Woods
Yesterday we went to two Chateau’s, got lost and found, and walked in our own private creekside woodland. As I write this, I am soaking my tired feet on what must have been our longest day thus far. After stocking up at a farmers market, we searched out the entrance to the Chateau. We began to wonder if we were going to find the little path described in our book, when we overtook a French lady walking her chien (dog). Gayle asked for instructions, and the delightful madame, turned around and walked us ½ mile in the other direction to the Chateau. Later we learned that if we would have walked another three very bleak blocks we would have seen the trail that leads directly to the Chateau. Our delightful guide chatted in French the entire way, describing the deficiencies of the young and taking us up the prettiest street in Malesherbes.
Later in the day, our guide instructed us to walk up to the other Chateau, knock on the window and the caretaker would take you on a tour. We paced, torn about whether or not we should bother the caretaker. Finally a head popped out the window and asked us if we needed help. Gayle started out in kids level French to say yes, then Severine said would you prefer we talk in English? Voila, the communication gap was filled! It turns out that Severine is visiting her mother from England where she works for Amazon.com. It’s just a bit weird that I just bought a book and a CD online from Amazon (while in Paris), to be shipped home to Sequim!
Severine and her non-English speaking mother took us on our best guided tour so far while in France. We saw slits in the castle that were used to fire arrows at invaders. There were spigot holes to drop hot oil on the unwanted visitors and even a pigeon roost where thousands of birds were raised to eat, send discreet P-mails, fertilize the fields, and as a bragging point to neighboring chateaus. “I have a Dell Pentium 300 blacked striped pigeon capable of delivering P-mail up to 50 KM away!”
We completed our walk along tree-tunneled paths, peasant like fields of crops, and tiny hamlets now housing the rich and famous. It was so beautiful that a crew was set up to take modeling pictures, with our forest and homes as the background. En route to the train station, we came to another confusing junction and asked the assistance of portly man wearing a beret who had just fixed his gate. We started talking but had trouble communicating through the gate bars. The man started to open the gate but it wouldn’t open. He had to run into the garage and get a tool to finally get to us. In rapid fire French he told us which direction to take. Amazingly, I understood more of his instructions than Gayle! As we left, I looked back and the home mechanic was looking very disapprovingly of his errant handiwork.
We ended our journey to the train station by making our way through a child-size underpass and magically appearing across the street from the “gare”. Imaginez donc! (Imagine That)
Picture Set
Picture Set
Picture Set
Picture Set
Picture Set
posted by Bob and Gayle @ 7:00 PM
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