Provins

The weather has a been a real bummer lately - although I shouldn't complain, considering my parents are getting dumped with snow right now - and last weekend found me depressed and moody.

Finally on Sunday I asked Dave to take another mini road trip with me and he relented. I recently discovered the chapter in my France guidebook that covers the region just outside Paris, and chose the city of Provins, "a coherent vision of the medieval world".

The drive was only an hour and a half, but you know how we never leave the apartment early on the weekends, and by the time we got there we only had a few hours of daylight left. The medieval part of town, enclosed within tall ramparts, was on one side of the city, but we drawn to the tower in the center of town first.

We drove up the hill and walked up to the César tower, then paid a few euros each to climb to the top. Some of the passages we had to pass through were extremely tight, and as I scrambled up the worn stone steps I wondered how anyone bigger than me could make it without any discomfort. And then I watched David repeatedly try to pass through a doorway without turning his shoulders and nearly fell apart laughing.
At the top of the tower we had a beautiful view of the city and the fields beyond. I can only imagine how much nicer it would have been on a sunny day.

We spent so much time exploring the tower (although never thought to find out what it's original purpose was), by the time we scrambled back town to ground level the sun was making its exit. We hopped back in the car and got lost on the winding roads for a while before finally finding our way to the walled part of town. But the oncoming dark had pretty much shut everything down and we didn't have a chance to see anything. So I guess I'll add Provins to our list of places to visit next year when the weather is favorable and we have a bit more daylight.

Anyway, it was a day better spent than moping around the apartment.