So much to be learned so little time 6-17-15

Many years ago while traveling in England we learned a little truth, almost anywhere you go there will be something of interest to be seen, no matter how small and insignificant the place may seem to be.  Today another case in point here in France.   We took a day trip about 90 minutes southeast by train to a little town called Provins.  It is literally at the end of the tracks on a one track spur off the mainline.  
But the interesting thing about Provins is that it has so much of the medieval town still intact, it was originally the seat of the Counts of Champagne and Brie (yes that Brie). It was a significant market town throughout Europe for couple hundred years beginning around 1300.  There is still a castle tower of sorts, called Cesar's Tower, on a hill next to a truncated cathedral and overlooking a delightfully ancient town center.  The town is criss-crossed with small streams flowing through which supplied power for the mills that were in operation then. We arrived around noon and walked into the center to find a bit of lunch, after which we climbed the hill to view the upper town.

 You walk up a hill on a narrow one lane street overlooked by old buildings with gated fronts and old wood doors.  Periodically there are stairways between buildings that allow you to take a steep shortcut up.

At the top there is a parvis (small square) in front of the church surrounded again by walled buildings, very medieval in feeling.  It has two rows of trees giving shade to benches where you can catch your breath and cool off after the climb.
Cesar's Tower was begun in the 14th century as a defensive castle but evidently was a poor design because instead it was turned into a prison for a while.   In the 18th century the church's bell tower was destroyed in a fire so Cesar's Tower was converted into a belfry which function it still serves, as well as being a monument you can visit.
I love to visit these places for their romantic associations but I absolutely would not choose to try and live in one, they are dark and dank and colder than a welldiggers ass in the winter, I'll bet.  This place has only one fireplace in the entire structure and it's in a small room off to one side on an outer wall. Lots of stone steps taking you up to the main vaulted room probably 30-40 feet in diameter and 30 feet tall with openings leading to small cell like rooms on the exterior walls.  This portion of the building is square but the next story up was built in an octagon so visually it's quite interesting.


To reach the upper story you have to climb a very narrow staircase built into the walls, it's so narrow that my shoulders were in constant contact with both sides as I climbed a steep set of stairs.   The belfry is lodged in the upper part which is roofed over with a large timbered "pepperpot" roof.  The views from the top are beautiful as you can see for probably 20 miles in any direction, it would have been a very good spot to keep track of the neighborhood during those times.

On a bit of a sombre note, there are many plaques in Paris denoting where various people were born, died, lived and worked to give a flavor to the area, well here the plaques are for residents that were captured, deported, or killed by the Nazis a sad note.





After our visit to the tower we visited the church, it is a truncated affair due to the count running out of money.  The lectern is mounted on a column that is behind all of the part of the nave where the congregation now sits and right next to the front doors, in order to use it they would have to turn all the seats away from the altar.  The church was originally designed to completely fill what is now the square in front but as I mentioned the count ran out of money.  The ambulatory has a mixed set of arches from the floor up to the gallery, with pointed gothic arches for the main floor and romanesque arches for the gallery above, actually a pretty combination of styles.
We decided to have a fairly short day today so after the church we headed back to the rail station for the trip back, but there are many other things to be seen here and we will make another trip back.