wednesday & thursday

There's not too much to report for last Wednesday: we went to a stocked pond compound for the afternoon near Epernay. The weather was gorgeous, we introduced my sister to "une sandwich américaine," and she caught the only fish of the day: a grass carp that had to be thrown back. We picked up a couple of tarte flambée on the way home.

Thursday was our big travel day. Our first stop was Tonnerre, which was the departure for the 12th stage of the Tour de France. If you were watching that day, you may have seen a large yellow bicycle at the roundabout of the first turn, and that's where we were. We got there in plenty of time to see grown men diving over children to get cheap knick-knacks thrown from the publicity caravan (Stéph and I kept Fry well back and left them to it) and with the hour between the caravan and the start, we walked down the street to a cool bar (thanks to the ceiling fans) that served sandwiches. Since that bar was on the route they were doing a booming business, the lucky bastards!

Then it was back to our spot, where Fry got properly dirty...



and then suddenly it was all over in a flash.



Then it was back in the car to head to Guédelon. (I first posted about Guédelon in 2007, here.) It was a real pleasure to return to the construction site, even if it was boiling hot.



It's changed quite a bit in the last two years. The ground floor of the chateau is complete, the living quarters are coming along, and the walls are rising.



Because of the heat, we stayed long enough for Fry to meet some of the animals, to make sure my sister got to peek in at the artisans that were working that day, and the two of us climbed all over the chateau before we retreated to the air conditioning in the car for the long drive home.