I'm baaack! and Poitiers.

So if none of you noticed, blogger is dumb, and flagged this thing as spam. Which is pretty funny. But anyway! Now I'm a week behind and need to actually write stuff down before I forget it all. SO. Poitiers. I went here a week ago now, but let's see what I can remember.

SO. The trip to Poitiers was one of 3 or 4 big group excursions we make to various places outside of Paris. So far we've done 2 excursions, and they're a pretty good deal - excellent tours in French (which is some of the best practice I've gotten since I've been here, trying to understand a guide talking about architecture). The program also feeds us very, very excellent, fairly expensive lunches at local restaurants, I think out of fear that our diets consist entirely of bread, cheese, wine, and the occasional ham sandwich. Both meals have been out of this world good, and a lot of fun.

But so! Poitiers is one of the most historic towns in France. And, see, in America, we would classify something like Colonial Williamsburg as historic. The French put us to shame. The oldest thing in Poitiers is a Roman Wall from the 200's. Old. And they apologize when there have been modifications made to churches in the 18th century. I want to shake them and say THAT'S STILL OLD. But that would be a strange thing to do.

So Poitiers was, for me, essentially "let's retake Ms. Eliot's 7th grade cathedral architecture course". Which was actually very cool, as I knew what things were called and what the different styles were.

The important history of the town is mostly that it was the seat for about 10 years of Eleanor of Aquitaine (otherwise known as single coolest female figure in history)


These pictures are of Notre Dame le Grande, which dates from the 11th and 12th centuries. The detailing on the facade is very detailed, although all the heads of the statues were broken in the Wars of Religion. So that was church #1. There are actually 7 churches in Poitiers (and this is a walled city where you can walk from one side to the other in about 20 minutes). At various times in History, there have been as many as 50 churches in that space. We saw 5 churches of 7 on the tour, and then I saw the other two walking around. I'll not subject you to pictures of all of them.

Poitiers is also a very cool narrow windy street town. The houses like the one on the left are the same ones built in the middle ages (although obviously, they've been fixed over and over through the centuries). Pretty cool. Also, notice the drain in the middle of the streets. Just think of all the wonderful things that was filled with in the middle ages!

This is the Cathedral built by Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry Plantaganet. It's sort of entertainingly haphazard - the facade isn't symetrical at all, for example. However, it also contains the oldest stained glass window in Europe, which somehow survived multiple wars and cannon fire. Supposedly, you can identify reall really old windows, as opposed to just sort of old windows, by the color blue; blue dye was very expensive, and so lighter blue windows are often the older ones, made before trade routes became more established and lapis lazuli became cheaper.
And lastly, the church of St. Radegonde, otherwise known as Saint-with-the-best-name-ever. She was the founder of one of the first nunneries in France, which was in Poitiers and still exists today. Her tomb is right in the middle of the church, which is a little freaky.

Alright, given that I actually go to school here (gasp! school!), I'm going to do the rest of the posts of cool french castles later. And write that paper I have that's due monday. Sweet.