Guédelon, France –
“What are you lookin’ at?”
I know that’s what the goose was thinking as it eyed me after taking a drink from the bucket. I could see it in the way it looked at me. I could see it in his eyes.
Of course, if the goose really could speak, it’d probably be saying “Quels sont tu regardes?” After all, it was a French goose, living in a medieval village.
Well, technically, it wasn’t a medieval village, just a recreation of one. A self-sufficient recreation, complete with all of the craftsmen and vocations necessary for the undertaking of building a castle. Including the (under construction) castle.
We had rented a car for the day, driving down from Paris, and now were wandering the pathways of the village. It seemed that we had arrived while just about everyone was taking their lunch break, so we had the village to ourselves.
Well, ourselves and a couple of watch geese, one of whom was eyeing me suspiciously.
But soon the villagers began drifting back from their break, and began taking up their respective tasks.
It seemed a little out-of-place, villagers in a medieval village, still operating by a modern work-day schedule, but then again, I don’t set the rules here. And I’m sure that all of the various levels of governmental bureaucracy don’t care that this place is a step through a time-machine. Its here now, in their jurisdiction, so it has to operate by their rules.
For the most part.
After all, I didn’t see anyone from the French equivalent of OSHA running around, making the construction workers wear hard-hats, or use any other modern-day construction safety equipment. Or do anything else to comply with modern safety regulations.
But they might have just disguised it well, making it look old.
Begun in 1997, Guédelon is a 25 year archeological project where a team is building a 13th century-style castle using 13th century methods and technologies, learned from studying old paintings and illustrations.
This means that they have to create a lot of the building materials on site, also using 13th century methods.
You might see an occasional modern tool, as long as it works the same as its older cousin. After all, I did see a modern hatchet and saw, complete with the brightly-colored safe-usage sticker on the handle, looking like they had just come from the local hardware store.
There’s a lot to see. From rope-making to stone masonry, yarn-dying to rock quarrying, blacksmithing to tile making. Once the villagers started coming back from lunch, Dore had a long conversation with one about the various plants they were using to dye yarn the various colors that they were able to produce.
I wandered off. Unless the topic is something along the lines of the attack of the Giant Hogweed, most conversations involving plants tend to bore me rather quickly.
Of course, the main feature is the castle itself, and the construction crew working on it. And like any construction site, what you’re going to see is dependent on what work needs to be done on that particular day, so if you go hoping to see a specific construction activity, you might leave disappointed.
However, if you see something that piques your curiosity, the workers will do their best to answer questions. Although you might have to compete with a bunch of young students, on a field trip from school, shouting out all sorts of random questions. And in French.
At least we had to, when our wanderings led us to the same spot in the village simultaneously with the kids’ guided tour. Then again, if we had been on one of the guided tours, we would have been just another couple of individuals in the group, competing with everyone else to ask our questions, for the entire tour.
But we weren’t. We were wandering on our own, and so were free to ask at our leisure. Which, as is often the case, led to a few long, involved, conversations.
We got to hear all about how a couple of volunteers from England got to start their day in the nearby stream, harvesting the muddy clay to be used for making tiles, even though it was a cool, overcast day in mid-October.
What a way to spend your holiday, wet and cold, performing physical labor. If you have a hankering to spend your vacation toiling in a medieval village, this is the place to go. It would be kind of like fulfilling a fantasy of being a performer in one of the various Renaissance villages around, only with actual work involved.
I think I’ll pass on that particular fantasy…
For photos of Guédelon, click here.
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