On perhaps the last beautiful day of our été indien we headed for the hills this week and returned to one of our favorite perches, the twelfth century donjon overlooking a meander of the Seine at the village of La Roche-Guyon. From a lookout window in the donjon, above, we captured a river barge. The tower's 250-step chiseled spiral stairway leads up a steep, ancient tunnel excavated in the chalk cliff. From the top is a commanding view--even though the fortified tower today is only half it's original 38-meter height. Below, a view from a road stop on the same plateau.
Vocabulary
un méandre: a meander, an oxbow
un colimaçon: a spiral staircase
un donjon: a donjon, i.e. a massive inner tower in a medieval castle
©2014 P.B. Lecron
No comments:
Post a Comment