Vouziers
In the afternoon, I was taken out to be a tourist in the region.
Vouziers is an hour and a half (when the highway isn't closed) outside of Paris, halfway between Paris and Belgium. I'm told there are only two reasons that tourists would ever be in the area: 1. it was directly in the path of the full solar eclipse that went across Europe a few years ago, and 2. Rimbaud grew up a few villages away. More on that later. It is also near Champagne. I'm told all the rich families in Reims are in the champagne business.
I, of course, was perfectly happy to wander around and take pictures of scenic French countryside and adorable little villages. I mean, really. Flat-fronted stone buildings right against a narrow road petering off into farmland. Dearest American readers, wouldn't you take the same pictures?
And look, crumbling stone farmhouses on the side of the road, totally scenic, totally calendar-worthy.
And yet without fail, the people who grew up in these villages find absolutely nothing special about it at all, and are shocked that I'm taking pictures of such boring stuff. Then they try to direct me to the local tourist traps and gigantic new stores. Hilarious.
A village on top of a small hill offered a scenic outlook on the region, with a circular map of points of interest. Behind us was a monument to soldiers from Bordeaux who came to defend the village in WWI or WWII.
Renaud and Clement were telling me, "C'est completement pourri ici. Ils ont fait un sondage il y a quelques ans pour voir ce qui etait le departement le plus interessant en France. Les Ardennes etait l'avant-dernier." [It sucks around here. They did a poll a few years ago to see which was the most interesting department in France. Les Ardennes came in next to last.] To which their mother immediately responded: "Mais il faut arreter avec ca! 'Les Ardennes j'y crois.'" [You've gotta stop all that. 'I believe in les Ardennes'] Renaud had already told me the story of how after a previous visit he was totally alarmed to discover that his mother had stuck a 'Les Ardennes j'y crois' sticker on his car, because, you know, nobody in Paris would ever take you seriously again if they saw that. It appears to be a whole marketing campaign approximately on the coolness level of "Oklahoma is OK!"
We went to the village where Rimbaud grew up. There were little Rimbaud drawing cut-out statues all over. Apparently he returned as an adult to spend a summer there, during which time he wrote some of his best poetry, collected in a book entitled "Une saison en enfer" [A season in hell]. Renaud apparently feels about the same about the area, and taunts his mom constantly about the title. His mom gave me a CD of Rimbaud poems that have been put to music. By the side of the road a little outside of the village is the site of the farmhouse where he spent most of his time. Do you feel inspired?
In any case, the sky was quite lovely.
Unfortunately, I missed just about everything else there was to do tourist-wise on the way there and back because of the traffic jam and that it was late when we left, including the tour of a champagne cave and the cathedral at Reims. Well, I saw the outside of the cathedral, anyways. It is immense, and incredible. Way more intricate than Notre Dame in Paris. And it was built in the 13th century. Amazing.
