Sources of the Seine - Wednesday 5/16/2007

Some fields just beg to be frolicked in. Who am I to answer "no?"

We decided we'd be better off in Paris if it was going to be cold and damp, so I called the owner of the apartment we were going to rent and asked if we could arrive a day early (on Thursday rather than Friday). Yes! So we started our slow loop back toward Paris, catching part of the wine road of Burgundy.


Yay! The rabbit-cam is a go!



Apparently, if you were bad in France in the 13th century, you might end up like this. Which begs the question, is there a link between the words gargoyle and gargle?


Looking back at the village of Saint Seine l'Abbaye which sprung up around the abbey (home of the gargoyle above) whose bell tower sticks up at the right side of the photo. Wonderful church with a man in knickers and stockings playing the organ inside.


So glad we decided to cut across toward Dijon on small roads. We'd have missed the amazing little park at the Sources of the Seine. One of the Napoleons (forgive me my lax note-taking, I thought this would be easy to look up) built this grotto and installed this lovely lady to capture and pool the first waters of the Seine in a small valley in Burgundy.
Here's the Seine, narrow enough to step across. It had rained that day, and you could feel the water seeping out of the surrounding landscape. The Seine played a big role in this trip, from our encounter with the end of it when we accidentally drove to the port at LeHavre, right through to the end when we stay in an apartment just yards from it in the heart of Paris. (We even take a ride on it our last day!)


All through our drives, we saw cows of various types scattered picturesquely across hillsides. Making the milk for the 265 varieties of cheese France is famed for. This one could have posed for the sign at the B&B!


These cherries fell into my camera bag as I got out of the car after parking it under a tree behind the Auberge le Rabelais in Malay-le-Petit (dinky town!) where we stayed in that night. Loved the big old room key. Nice place, with each room decorated differently and pleasantly.

I took a bunch of photos of the cherries, but I'm hording the best for other uses.

Overheard in the restaurant over an amazing meal of pork with a lardon (chunky bacon) creme sauce: that the bright yellow in stained glass windows at some church was achieved by a monk who ate nothing but pigeons for a month in order to get the bright color in his urine. Those monks. They'll do anything for their art.