Day 3 in France: Excusion to Folleville and Amiens

On our third day, we hopped on the tour bus bright and early in the morning to head out to Folleville & Amiens.

En route to Folleville, we made a side stop to stretch our legs and see some ancient Roman ruins in the middle of wheat fields.

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As you can probably tell, this is an amphitheater.  We all climbed up to the top and there was still perfect acoustics from where our tour guide, Fr. Ed was all the way down in the middle below.

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Another adjacent area being excavated:

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From there we headed to the church at Folleville.

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We saw the remnants of the castle first. Pieces of it look as if they’re trying to restore the tower.

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Upon going into the church:

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You can see where there looks to be two different styles – mixed together.

The old medieval section in the rear combined with a new Gothic front.  As they were renovating the church they realized half way through that they couldn’t redo the rest as they had planned- so they just left the rear as is.

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The wood ceiling would have been ornately painted.

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This is quite possibly the last example of marble carving done in the Gothic style – at the same time this was being completed, Michelangelo was reinventing marble statuary, kicking off the Renaissance.

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Outside the church once again:

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I got a fellow-traveler to snap this of me in front of this amazing hydrangea shrub:

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From here we hopped back on the bus and headed to Amiens for lunch & church #2, the Notre Dame of Amiens – which dwarfs the Notre Dame of Paris.

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The Notre Dame of Amiens is so large, I couldn’t capture it in any one single photo:

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Not even in portrait:

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Fr. Ed was speaking to this floor tile.  In short it signified the path we take in life – that it is never straight, we keep winding our way through life, making mistakes and redirecting ourselves as we aspire to god/greatness.

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Every bit of this church was covered in design – which all holds a meaning or message.

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After this we got back on the bus and headed back to Paris, in time to have an independent dinner.  I was pretty pooped and couldn’t even say where I had dinner… I’m pretty sure it was tasty though.  :D

In: Miscellaneous

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