France s'il vous plaît: Troglodytes: Village

A long time ago in a land far far away the peasants of France were hired by noble men, kings, lords, etc. to build their glorious chateaux for them. (See previous posts for pictures and descriptions of chateaux) Well as hard as this is to believe back in the old days they couldn't just order the parts and ship in a bunch of stone from somewhere. No dump trucks, scoopy things, cranes, or other types of large machinery that I don't know the names for...they didn't exist back then. What?! No machines? How is this possible? My obvious conclusion is that they hired wizards to build the castles with magic because oh my goodness how in the world is it possible for people to build such large and intricate buildings? [Sarcastic tone] Well unfortunately my wizard conclusion is wrong, in fact the peasants really did excavate the stone out of the hills/mountains of France and built the castles with their own two hands. Well that in itself is extremely impressive to me and it makes the chateaux much more glamorous then before.

A magical thing did happen, however, when the peasants excavated the mountains for the stone - troglodytes! When they took the stone out of the mountains caves began to form; the peasants did what any practical person would do, they moved into the caves and created little cave villages. Houses, barns, dining rooms, bedrooms, stores, and churches were all carved right into the mountain. (Note of clarification: the term 'mountain' is a somewhat loose and relative term, in my mind these 'mountains' are actually little hills, but that is just the northwest in me talking)

We went to a charming little village that has been turned into a museum. The whole time I was thinking how cool it would be to live in a cave and how I wished I could buy one and fung shui the inside. It would embrace the past and the future all in one little place. Plus how cool would it be to be like "um yeah no big deal I live in a cave." I know I wouldn't have to ask Chris twice, that is like his biggest dream! Don't tell him but I am secretly plotting to use this incentive as a reason to move to France.

So we wandered through the caves, checking out all the cool nooks and crannys. It is hard to decide what part was my favorite - the flowers growing on the roofs with little tiny chimneys popping up, or the little windows letting in the natural light, or the little corners with a bed for a bedroom. I think my favorite was the chapel. You wander down a long stone stair case and through a small door and you step through and suddenly you find yourself in a very large open space. Looking up there is a dome with natural sunlight streaming through. It was fun to imagine what it must have sounded like to have all of the village people singing hymns on Sunday mornings with the melodies echoing off of the walls.