So we jumped on the train out to the town of Nemours to see the Musee de Prehistoire D'Ile-de-France, located about 90 minutes south of Paris, in the southern fringes of the Forest of Fontainebleau. Upon arrival we jumped on a bus and headed into the town center to find a place for lunch. Where we got off seemed to be the town square where there was a small market just ending, with the vendors packing up. We walked through the market and down one of the side streets further into the area without much luck in our hunt. (Though interestingly I located a building I'd seen in Google Earth street view, that's no big deal but what was interesting was that this building was at an intersection where Google had stopped recording at one point and started it again quite some time later. In the first scan the building was decked out in Christmas decorations with holly wreaths at each side of the door with a low winter sun and in the later scan all the decorations were gone and it was quite sunny, but I digress.) 
With no immediate prospect for food we turned back and took another street and found ourselves at the edge of the Loing River, a tributary of the Seine. Here we got a better idea of why someone described it as a "Venice" of the area, the river runs both around and through the town. It was likely built here for defensive and waterpower purposes, but now it provides a pretty highlight.
We visited the town cathedral, built in the 17th century but looking quite gothic. To me it's interesting feature is the melding of different elements into a single structue. For instance the vaulting is all stone in the altar and ambulatory while it changes to plaster and wood in the nave. Additionally, the pillars in the nave are not mirror imaged on one side engaged columns with pointed arches and smooth round columns on the other with more rounded arches interesting.So we had lunch, pretty good,
Then we boarded a bus again for the trip out to the museum of Prehistory. About 10 minutes out on the east side of the town, we alighted from the bus and had a 5 minute walk further on to the museum. It's set the middle of a heavily forested area and the building was designed by an award-winning student of Corbusier, quite striking in varying elevation blocks of concrete and glass, almost like Frank Lloyd Wrights prairie houses. A basically horizontal front with with continuous windows, punctuated by a vertical entry counterpoint that echos the Menhirs that feature so distinctly in the archeology of prehistoric France. And being built on a slight hillside, internally it is on several levels as well with inclines that take one between rooms of artifacts and fossils. We were the only visitors in the museum today so it was a leisurely stroll between rooms. It was interesting to see skeletons, tool, utensils, etc from the early stone age up through the Gallo-Roman era. Neanderthal skulls, Wooly Mammoth bones, Bronze and Iron age weapons and tools, Roman glass, a little bit of everything. The docents mentioned that we were really lucky because tomorrow the place would be filled with school children on field trips and the place would be as noisy as the hollering vendors in the market. It was a fun visit and equally fun to see such a nice little town. I nearly forgot to mention that it was free as a result of our membership to the Louvre. A crowded train back into Paris and we were home by about 8:45pm, a long day. We plan other trips like this in future so stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment