Moved on the next day to a tiny place called Bailly -- doeesn't show-up on GPS and you need to go to the highest resolution on Googlemaps (and know where you're looking) to even find it (which made it real challenging to find the first day). It's a very pretty place out in the country -- old houses lined-up along a quai (river) in a valley with rushing water spilling over some small dams -- a flock of ducks swimming around lazily -- an ancient stone bridge crossing the river -- what you would call "picturesque".
Went for a drive the next morning, turned down a side lane that turned into a dirt road, then a grass and dirt path -- the road curved around the side of a heavily tree covered hill and as I rounded the curve -- there, a little below me and a couple hundred yards off to the side, was a partially completed stone castle with people dressed in Medieval clothes and using Medieval tools quietly working on completing the castle -- horses pulling wood carts carrying building stones, wood boards and what looked like baskets of mortar. Behind all of this, in the trees were huts with smoke coming out of rudimentary chimneys, sheep, goats, chickens and more horses in corrals and milling around the huts. More people in strange clothes were outside the huts, some packing clay into rectangular wooden frames making roof tiles, others weaving baskets, two people making what looked like rope, three men in an open stable-like area doing blacksmithing, another couple of people turning logs into beams -- thought for a minute that I was dreaming!
In actuality, I was at a place called Chantier Medieval de Guedelon where, since 1997, a team of skilled artisans have been building a fortified castle using only 13th century tools and techniques. Stones for the castle walls and buildings are quarried, cut and finished on-site -- any materials needed -- tools, mortar, baskets, paint, roof tiles, decorative tiles, clothes, dyes, baskets, dishware, wood beams and flooring, etc... are made by hand on site. With all of the castles I've visited on this journey in various states of repair and disrepair, I've always wondered and been awed by the question of how did they actually build the things! Here I had my answers.
By castle standards, the size of this one is relatively small but they're using the same techniques that were used in building the massive places I had seen, just on a different scale. Absolutely fascinating! Here probably a hundred workers have been working seven to eight months a year for almost twenty years and are maybe 75-80% done -- in Medieval times there would've been a couple thousand workers going year-round and finishing in four to five years -- the activity and commotion must have been unbelievable. Here the workers only speak French, back then there would've been workers from all over Europe working together and speaking in a dozen or more different languages. It just boggles the mind what that scene must have been like!
Spent probably three hours plus leisurely wandering around watching the different craftspeople go about doing their thing and exploring the completed parts of the castle. It was entertaining and educational! To the people working there, it was a "job", not Disneyland pretend -- they pretty much ignored the tourists and just went about their work, much like on a modern construction site -- in other words, it felt very authentic.
Having worked up a thirst visiting the castle, I decided to do a little wine-tasting on my way back to Bailly. This part of France is a major wine-producing area, just not very well-known -- they've focused on quanity, not quality over the years and are limited by the soil and weather as to the varietals of grapes they can grow. By chance, there just happened to be a wine cooperatve in Bailly offering both wine tasting and a tour -- the fact that it was located in a cave that used to be a huge underground limestone quarry made it all the more appealing.
Here, instead of parking in a surface parking lot, you actually drove into the mouth of the cave, through a dimly lit section of rough-hewn rock tunnel and parked underground -- then walked to the tasting area which was also underground (at that point you were probably a hundred feet down). The look and atmosphere of the tasting room was like the Napa Valley in California used to be thirty to forty years ago -- very laid back -- two guys pouring wine, casually chatting, in absolutely no hurry.
They only did about three tours a day -- when it was time for the tour to start, they'd ring a hand bell, turn and head off into the "cellars" (tunnels) with people scurrying behind. The tunnels were dimly lit (fortunately, the tour guide had a flashlight), and lined with huge rack after rack of bottled wine (they supposedly had over one million bottles in the caves).
Most of the wine they produce here is "cremant" or "sparkling" wine ("champagne" to us in the States) and the tour guide explained the wine-making process as we walked (the tours tend to be totally in French which meant I only understood about every fifth word -- weird thing was the tour guide kept asking me, in French, if I understood what she was saying -- duh, no -- but I just smiled and nodded my head -- at this point, I was pretty much just thinking about tasting the wine at the end of the tour so I wasn't about to slow her down!)
At the end, we got to sample some of their sparkling wine -- I'm not a big sparkling wine fan but it was pretty decent -- also learned that Trader Joe's in the States stocks a few of their wines -- with a place that small and out-of-the-way, that was a surprise. People there were buying the wine by the case (most were from France but some were from Italy and Germany) -- some even filled-up the trunks of their cars so guess they liked it!
Not a bad day -- started-off watching a castle being built and ended the day sipping champagne -- what more could you ask for?
