Visiting Amiens Cathedral in Picardy, France with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Amiens Cathedral in Picardy, France with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 


On the way back from Arras (France), which we had visited during Memorial Day weekend, my husband and I stopped in Amiens to visit the Cathedral.

Notre Dame d’Amiens is twice as large as Notre Dame de Paris.  The Cathedral was built between 1220 and 1269.  Its architectural symmetry is pleasing to the eye.

You have to walk up to the Cathedral on steps with platforms at fifteen or so steps.  Each platform requires you to turn at a ninety-degree angle to a new set of steps before you reach the Cathedral plaza.

The platforms would be good places for jugglers, clowns, people who do handstands and walk on their hands, and Amiens’ own marionettes featuring Lafleur, who does not like to work.

The Cathedral’s interior nave features a six-sided labyrinth at its center. I have seen labyrinths at the cathedrals at Chartres (floor) and at Poitiers (wall), but the one at Amiens could be displayed while still making room for chairs at services.

Putting chairs around the labyrinth incorporates the labyrinth into the life of the people as a way to do a symbolic pilgrimage after mass.  Picardy is remote.  Expenses would have kept most parishioners from doing a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella, Rome, or Jerusalem.  The day that we visited a family was walking the labyrinth, keeping the tradition alive.

There are symmetrical geometric designs that run the length of the nave.  Geometry as is illustrated in the Carnet de Villard de Honnecourt XIII Siecle edited by Alain Erlande-Bendenburg et al formed the design foundation of the Gothic architecture and sculpture as it did in the Renaissance.  The difference between the Gothic and the Renaissance lies in the fact that the Renaissance artists knew about musculature and the skeleton and could render life-life images using perspective.  This knowledge especially affected the treatment of clothing in the two periods.

As we left the Cathedral, rain set in.  Everything became dark and dank.  It was easy to understand how a beautiful Cathedral could become the focal point of a agricultural-turned-industrial community.  Notre Dame d’Amiens will always be a draw for locals and tourists alike.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting the Chateau du Haut-Koenigsbourg in Alsace (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Chateau du Haut-Koenigsbourg in Alsace (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg in Alsace, France is a fort and not a palace, which requires much steep climbing to visit: be forewarned.

German rulers beginning with Frederick von Hohenstaufen in the 12^th  century have used this mountaintop location to survey the wheat and wine road (running north to south) and the salt and silver road (running west to east) on the plain outside the modern town of Kintzheim.

The masonry of the holding walls along the way up to the Château reflects German construction methods rather than English and French ones.  The stones on the holding wall did not have mortar between them to hold them up like the massive stonework masonry that you find in Incan construction.  Moss and plants have grown between the cracks to form a sort of mortar.

Germanic masonry here differs from English masonry in the way that stones are laid down upon one another.  The base row of stones is covered by stones that are placed at regular intervals that fall in what appears to be at 1/5 intervals of the stone below.

The effect of this mathematical scheme on the entire wall is to see diagonal, parallel lines in the wall of German masonry.  This type of construction is very solid and could hold one side of a tunnel wall in a mountainside.

The effect of English and French masonry when you can see it under stucco is to have a series of parallel lines perpendicular to the base row of stones or bricks.  The base row is covered by stones or bricks that fall upon the base at ½ intervals.  The pressure point on the bricks is on the center and may be easier to break down for this reason.

German masonry is found on all three levels of the Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg fort.  The view from this solid perch has been in peacetime as well as in war.  Jean Renoir filmed La Grande Illusion here and used the interior as well as the exterior for shots.

The day my husband and I visited, there were two busloads of Italian schoolchildren from the Veneto region of northern Italy doing a tour.  German rulers have been very influential in the politics of Italy, which probably explained the children’s educational tour before a visit to Kintzheim’s monkey zoo and the preserve for storks, the symbolic bird of Alsace.

I somewhat envied the children’s field trip.


By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting Nuremberg, Germany's National Museum with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Nuremberg, Germany's National Museum with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

You could spend a week or two just visiting each gallery once in Nuremberg’s German National Gallery.  With just a morning to devote to it, my husband and I decided to visit the Renaissance galleries.

What struck me the most was the presentation of tools such as sextants, protractors, pantographs, compasses, and globes before you could enter the painting collection. I thought this was a subtle way of explaining that technological advances set the foundation for the Renaissance style, particularly in the development of perspective painting.

Perspective painting is based on what is called the vanishing point, a point from which angles emanate to determine size in a painting.  Images are larger the further away they are from the vanishing point and smaller as they approach it.  The difference in size gives the illusion of depth or perspective in painting.  This approach differs from that of the Middle Ages where the most important person in paintings or sculpture is usually much larger than surrounding people and landscape elements like trees.

Mathematical precison was the element sought after in the Museum’s Behaim terrestrial globe (c. 1493), the oldest surviving globe in the world.  Hispaniola, where Columbus and crew landed, is very large with no North American and South America depicted.  

You could predict sea voyage lengths with an accurate globe.  Knowing this helped control lucrative trade routes that made nations rich and able to control other countries.  Globes were almost proprietary knowledge for this reason: information sharing was not an asset during this period in history.

The German Renaissance paintings in the galleries displayed a sobriety that you do not find in Italian Renaissance art.  Flemish painting was more of an influence on German Renaissance art with brown backgrounds and interiors and emphasis on detailed lacework.  Nudes by Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. 1472 – 1553) and portraits by Albrecht Dürer (1471 -1528) reflect the influence of Flanders.

This short visit whetted my desire for return visits to the German National Museum to see suits of armor, tea sets, doll houses, and German furniture, which are all in the collection.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting the Zwinger Palace in Dresden, Germany with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Zwinger Palace in Dresden, Germany with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The porcelain collection at the Staatliche Kunst Ammlungen Dresden encourages visitors to reflect upon the fragile beauty of civilization. Works from Asia and Meissen, outside Dresden, make up the collection.

Japanese and Chinese porcelain glimmers in the sunshine from the palace museum’s windows. The true treasures of this collection are the characteristic blue and white Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644) vases from China.

The Asian porcelain is displayed in Western fashion: symmetrical arrangements that cover walls with smaller pieces displayed on gold-colored shelves.  In Asia, one or two of these shimmering beauties would be displayed to fully appreciate them.  The German display method made me think of the Russian czar-like wealth of the Saxon rulers with serfs working the land and one hundred ruling families living in voluptuous luxury.

The Meissen porcelain collection equally reminded me of wealth and privilege, but more in the style of an Iranian shah with its monumental peacock porcelains along with other animals commanded for a zoo collection by Augustus the Strong (1670 – 1733).  An entire wall in this collection is covered with porcelain birds in various turning poses depicting self grooming.  My favorite piece in this collection was a large splay of porcelain flowers in a porcelain vase.

Meissen vases and dishes have luminous colors that make you want to caress them as if they were satin.  The Meissen yellows and light blues are the characteristic colors of the manufacture.  Meissen vases in these colors would look wonderful in a curvy Rococo drawing room with François Boucher (1703 – 1770) paintings of ladies being pushed on swings in lush gardens.

When I left the porcelain collection at Dresden, I felt as if I had understood Saxony’s history and how it might affect the cultural and political outlook of its citizens.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Laurent Paget Photography

Laurent Paget Photography

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Visiting Sauternes, the Bordeaux (France) village of honey-like wine with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Sauternes, the Bordeaux Region (France) village of honey-like wine with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 


The petite village of Sauternes belies the legendary acclaim of its dessert wine.

This white wine made from semillon, sauvignon, and muscadelle grapes is harvested late, allowing a beneficent mold to grow on the grapes and concentrate the sugars. When aged, Sauternes becomes amber colored and pours viscously from the bottle.  It tastes of honey and gives a French meal a grand finale, letting the wines that preceded it build up to it.

The French consider Sauternes to be the best wine produced in the Bordeaux region.  Château d’Yquem is the most renowned producer, but d’Yquem receives much competition for the market from Château Rieussec and Château Guiraud among others. In the village on the day we visited, the Maison de Sauternes was closed. This meant no tasting, purchasing, or receiving the crucial map of the châteaux.

We struck out on our own on the châteaux route and were struck by the differences between Sauternes and the Médoc regions of Bordeaux. Towns abound in the Médoc with many outlets for purchasing wine.  The châteaux road in the Médoc sports gussied-up architectural gems with room for parking and taking photos.  In Sauternes, the châteaux road features walled in vineyards in places and châteaux hidden by forests.

I thought the people making this honey-like wine resembled honeybees themselves.  They hid in their secluded châteaux and cellars and made wine just like bees hide their hives and make honey.  The châteaux that were visible reminded me of well-tended manor houses that would surround a castle like the one portrayed in the book Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (circa 1412 – 1416). 

This book illustrates the life of everyone for its era from peasant to prince and how nature and its rhythms regulated life.  On a sultry day like the day we visited, everyone was absent from the vineyards. They were no doubt checking the advance of an impending hail storm.

My husband asked me if I would like a photo a château as a souvenir.  (There was no place to buy postcards in the village.)  I smiled and asked for photos of the well-manicured vineyards.  The leaves covered the grapes in the canopy and appeared to obtain the greatest surface area for photosynthesis.  The heightened level of photosynthesis allows sugar to develop in the grape, making it a prime target for late harvest, noble rot.

We did not buy any Sauternes wine, because no place to do so was open. This just drove home the fact for me that Sauternes is a wine for holidays and special events; an item to be savored and cherished.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Marrying France and Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting France's Biscarosse Lake and Landes Region Museum outside Bordeaux with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the France's Biscarosse Lake and Landes Region Museum outside Bordeaux with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget



Biscarrosse attracts tourists for its three lakes that are just inside the Atlantic oceanfront below Bordeaux in the Landes region.

The three lakes named Cazaux-Sanguinet, Biscarrosse, and Parentis feature sailboating and swimming as their main watersports.  Our destination was next to Lac Parentis and offered a glimpse into the life of the region; the Musée des Traditions et de l’Histoire de Biscarrosse (Museum of the Traditions and History of the Biscarosse) is small yet very informative.

My husband and I began our tour by watching a video in French about forest industries and hunting, which are traditional activities in the Landes.  Paper manufacturing and resin collecting are modern and traditional ways of making a living from wood. The little resin collectors’ cabins were made available to everyone in the past and are at the origin of Landais hospitality according to the video.

The hunters of the Landes region walked on six-foot stilts called échasses.  A better vantage point for shooting and perhaps surer footing in the underbrush might explain the use of échasses.

The museum itself housed a reproduction of a resin collector’s cabin, lacework, a dinner table set with dishes, and a pair of échasses among other traditional items. We bought a Landais beret at the exit, which my husband noted was softer than a Basque beret.

Out by Lac Parentis, there was a small summer camp for children. They were dressed as knights and were fighting with collapsible swords.  They were probably learning how to sail in calmer moments as well; there were smaller sailboats alongside larger ones lined up on the lakefront.

Our lunch reflected the oceanfront location of the region. We ate boiled whelks and shrimp followed by duck kebabs and cheese.  It was a delicious finale to a lovely day in Biscarrosse.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Marrying France and Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting the Dame de Brassempouy Museum with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Dame de Brassempouy Museum with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Driving southwest from Bordeaux, my husband and I went through the flat Landes region full of pine forests until we met the road towards Pau, leading to the foothills of the Pyrenées Mountains.

Our tourist destination was the village of Brassempouy, which houses a small yet very informative archaeological museum.  We arrived after the formal tours were given, but were still given a mini tour in French to orient us to the museum.

I asked our guide if we were still in Gascony after our long drive through the Landes.  The guide pointed to a detailed map on the wall and indicated that Gascony comprised a good deal of the Eastern Pyrénees Mountains and the area south of Bordeaux, which included the French and Spanish Basque regions.  I wondered if “Gascon” was the French word for “Basque.”  Many of homes we passed in the Pyrénees foothills did resemble Basque houses with their asymmetrical, sloping roofs.

We admired the collection of prehistoric rock tools, which are distinguishable from rocks by the smooth grooves cut into them that come to a point.  The tools fit in the hand and the weight of the rock would make it a powerful tool for breaking things like the skull or bones of an animal I thought.  The cave where these tools had been found was recreated in the museum with scattered bones on the cave floor.

One of the most important finds in this cave was the Dame de Brassempouy (Lady of Brassempouy).  The original sculpture is housed in the Musée des Antiquités Nationales in Saint-Germain-en-Laye outside Paris for security reasons. A replica of the sculpture of the Dame de Brassempouy is in the village museum.  The original sculpture is 25,000 years old and is unique in that it portrays the hair, face, and neck of a woman.  It is one of the oldest representations of a human face.

Bangs and shoulder-length hair that looks like it is crimped surround the face that sits on a very long neck. The sculpture’s usage is unclear and would probably be conjecture in any case as this item comes from a pre-literate and pre-historical society.  However, I did remark to my husband, “She looks just like the young woman we saw at breakfast.”

In the museum store, I bought a copy of Connaître la Préhistoire de Pyrénees (1996, Editions Sud Ouest), because Brassempouy was in it and to plan any future outings if we were in the area.  I love good reference books.

On the way back to Bordeaux, we drove through the end of the “Running of the Cows” in Mont de Marsan.  Everyone is town was wearing white shirts and trousers with red bandanas around their necks.  Several people wore berets.  Barricades were removed as we drove through town; I hoped the cows had all been corralled.

Dinner that night was a typical Gascon dish – magret de canard, or duck breast of a duck raised for the foie gras industry.  According to Connaître la Cuisine Gasconne (1990, Editions Sud Ouest), the French traditionally only eat foie gras on Christmas and New Year’s Eve.  I have always thought foie gras was a symbolic food to condemn gluttony.

If you eat too much foie gras, especially goose foie gras whose fat is extremely rich, you can become so ill that you will never eat it again.  For those who eat reasonable amounts of foie gras, it is a reminder that we were put here to have dominion, or responsibility, for the earth and should avoid gluttony not only of rich foods, but also gluttony of dairy products, fish, vegetables, grains, fruits, and wine as well.

The best wine that goes with the magret de canard that I ordered, especially when it is grilled, is a Gascon wine called Madiran.  It is made from cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and tannant grapes. It resembles a red Bordeaux, but has more tannins, which makes it slightly bitter. Tannins are anti-oxidants and seem to help digest magret de canard with its thick lining of fat that helps protect and baste it during grilling.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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