Trip to Provins

Last Friday I went on a day trip to Provins with my school. Provins is a little commune town about an hour south-east of Paris. It attracts tourists because it's famous for being an old medieval town. Most of the buildings in it look super old - like straight out of a movie, except that they're authentic. I thought that the town was cool because it has so much history, and they've done a good job of preserving everything to look much as it did back in the days.. But the downside was that a lot of it DID look preserved - I mean, the plaster on some of the walls was bright white and sparkly new! But it gave us a feel of what the town was like in the Middle Ages.

The town is entirely surrounded by a huge wall, which they built for protection from the hostile neighbors and all. The entrance used to have a draw bridge too, but not anymore. Also, the wall is filled with halls and passageways that the guards used to keep a watch on the outside. We went inside and walked through some of the tunnels where ancient guards kept watch. The walls have long slits through them, which allowed the guards to see out, but no one can see in. Also, all of the stairs going up and down are REALLY steep. Our tour guide said that this was in case of an attack from enemies - in a battle, the enemies would have trouble chasing the guards up and down the stairs. Also, most of the soldiers back then were pretty hefty, and would have had trouble on the tiny stairs.

We also went up to the top of Cesar's Tower. I forget some of the details about it, but from what I remember, it was a huge guard tower to scout out the land from up high. It also represented the highest point in the town and was very decorated for its time. It has some historic value too, because it was one of the oldest buildings in the original town (built sometime around the 1100's, I think..). The top had a great view of the countryside, but it was very windy and cold up there.

Another cool part of the trip was going into the underground tunnels in the lower part of town (Provins has two parts: upper and lower. Upper is on the top of the hill, and Lower is obviously on the bottom part). Back in the 17/1800's the citizens realized that they had a huge talc (?) deposit underground, and started digging it up. Supposedly there are some other underground tunnels and catacombs at Provins, but I don't know if we saw them, or if they're connected to the ones we saw.

Inside the town itself, we walked up and down the cute streets. The town was pretty quiet and empty, but my host mother told me that on weekends the have huge medieval fairs and festivals there. We just happened to go on a dead day..

Provins kind of reminded me of Santa Fe and New Mexico. The town is filled with all this ancient history (Provins was a location for the Knights Templar, where a king lived, and tons of other stuff..) and you can tell it just by walking down the street. There are little reminders all over the place that the town has outlived eras. But at the same time, it was a very artsy craftsy place. There are local artisans and shops along the street, and cute restaurants on the corners. It seemed to be a locale for families and the arts. Looking at my pictures might help a bit:

Provins (and some other things)

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