The Depths of France!!!
I meant to update over the weekend, but there was no real internet. I’m actually back in New York and everything, but I’ve still got a backlog of stuff to put up, so I’ll, you know, put it up.
Last week, I took a trip into La France Profonde — The Deepest Darkest Depths of France. A full 2 hours from Paris by train.
Here’s a train station on the way there:
This is only notable because it is the town of Vierzon, which I kept thinking was Verizon.
I took the train to Bourges:
Which is a perfectly charming little town.
I proceeded thence on to La Borne, an incredibly charming little village full of potters. There’s a pottery museum there and all, though I didn’t get a chance to see it.
Me. In La Borne.
A building. Also in La Borne.
Totem pole. This is what you get when you cross a sock monkey, an Easter egg, and Godzilla.
Another building, all castle-y like.
Building that in the middle ages had pigeons and stuff. Still does, kinda. Also, people. With whom I was staying.
Snail!
Approach to the Feu de St Jean in a nearby town. This translates literally as “St John’s Fire,” no relation to St Elmo’s Fire. St John’s Fire has to do with the day of Saint John the Baptist, and involves that timeless expression of rural celebration and latent pyromania, the bonfire.
This celebration, on Friday night, was rather subdued compared to what was to come; there was a great big stack hay and whatnot, but that wouldn’t be lit till Saturday night. There were musicians, first a duo of an accordion and an electric hurdy-gurdy. I took video of them playing, and the locals engaging in some sort of traditional dance or other, but the files have somehow vanished in between the taking and the uploading to my computer.
About half an hour into this, I noticed a flickering red glow in my peripheral vision, and turned to see flames licking up from behind a rise on the other side of the stage. My thought process was as follows:
1: Hey, there’s the bonfire!
2: Wait, the bonfire’s in another place, and it’s not supposed to happen till tomorrow.
3: So maybe that fire’s not supposed to be happening– but if it was an accident, someone would have noticed, right?
4: Okay, I should be prepared in case it is an emergency. How do you say, “I assumed the fire was intentional?” in French?
Of course, the fire turned out to be just a smaller bonfire they were lighting on Friday. Perfectly contained and so on. The musical duo was replaced by a French Cajun band, which was nice.
And that was the Deepest Depths of France. Perfectly thrilling, no?
