Traveling Again

Once again our troop went on an excursion to visit a very interesting church and museum in the village of Conques (Conch in English).  It is an amazing village that is built into the side of a mountain and was known for pilgramages in early Christian times.  Here is a picture from the opposite mountain. 

I knew it was going to be a rough trip from the beginning.  As I have mentioned in previous posts, the roads here are very different from the U.S. roads.  They are tighter and windier.  Both Lori (Dr. Woods) and I were driving one of the cars with 5 passengers each.  Half way down the hill from Ambialet, Ed noticed a smell of burning rubber.  I quickly checked my emergency brake and it was fine.  Joh then noticed that Lori's car was smoking in the back.  I beeped our horn, flashed my lights, but couldn't get Lori to stop until we were through Amialet.  Now what you should no is that the car I was driving has around 88000 km on it while Lori's has around 1000.  Its virually brand new.  After this start, I worried that it may be one of those days.
After a 2 hour and some odd minute drive, we arrived at the mountain from which the picture above was taken.  To get this view, we had to drive up a very tight (kind of a theme here) road.  I guessed it was only one lane up the hill and maybe would just continue back down on the other side.  I was wrong, of course.  So we very carefully drove back down this ridiculously tight road, with the valley and steep cliffs on one side and the mountain on the other.  But luckily we made it.

We went to the church first and looked at the facade in front.  That's it above.  In order to get there, the students took the final journey of the pilgrimage done by believers since the abbey and shrine to Saint Foy was opened in the 10th century.  This meant walking up a huge hill.  Being that I am so magnaminous, I did not walk this wonderful traail, but instead drove up the mountain and parked around 1/4 mile from the abbey and church.  Boy, am I a nice guy (volunteering to park the car was suggested by Tim, who runs the entire Ambialet project here).  The students arrived, exhausted, about 20 minutes later.  During the instructor's discussion of the facade, a priest came out of the church and requested he lower his voice because mass was occurring.  The priest went back in and Eric, the instructor, proceded to boom away again.  I half expected flying monks to come out of the abbey to attack us.  Luckily, that wasn't the case.

We also got a chance to see relics that were stored at the abbey, in a museum.  One was a statue of St. Foy herself (now a quick quiz "what city in the US is named after St. Foy?) whcih had been stolen by monks from Conques to try to attract pilgrims in the 10th century.  Sacred destinations.com has the following description that was given by a pilgrim in 1010....
"The crowd of people prostrating themselves on the ground was so dense it was impossible to kneel down... When they saw it for the first time, all in gold and sparkling with precious stones and looking like a human face, the majority of the peasants thought that the statue was really looking at them and answering their prayers with her eyes." 
Saint Foy's claim to fame was that she cured the blind and helped free captive Christians.  While we had no blind, I wondered if any students thought they could be considered "captives".

We also met a very nice barmaid at a local pub while we waited to leave.    As is a growing theme of bars in France, the barmaid was not a French women, but a Brazilian.  Seems that most barmaids we meet are from countries other than France.  Maybe we will meet some French barmaids when I travel to Ireland next month.

We made it home safe and sound.