Skip to main content

Spring break day trip to Fougères.

The other day I was told about how to use the bus system here in France. I kept thinking that it was something like the train system where one needed to find a ticket somehow beforehand, but I found that it is much simpler than that. A person goes to the station pays about €3 and then waits fof the bus, or else it is possible to pay for the bus on the bus.
Anyways, I went by the station early Monday morning to figure out times and prices and found that for only €3,40 I could get a ticket for Fougères. So I get the ticket and wait at the bus stop for the next few minutes for the bus to arrive.
A dull drive through the country side that has started showing the brown of winter. I kind of wish I had brought my mp3 player to have a sound track to the drive, but I hadn't planned on leaving town and sitting in a bus.
The bus comes in to the town from the side that has all the medieval buildings.
I wander off the bus at some random stop before the bus station to look at all the medieval buildings.
The town is built on a hill. It has been too long for me to not be walking around on hills in cities. Taking note of the interesting architecture that forms from trying to deal with a surface that is very much not flat.
The street that I walk down to get to the castle is full of store fronts that look like they have all recently been vacated.
The reality of the modern financial world, the reality of small town businesses, or a reason completely unseen?
I wander in circles. Distrated by small winding streets that take me back to where I had already been.

While wandering through the city trying to make my way to the castle I passed while on the bus I find that as I wander closer that old walls break up the elevations of the town. At one point I wander through a small parking lot for some apartments and a small patch of grass that it seems the locals take their dogs to shit. Muddy and full of shitty landmines. I climb up a small wall with old glass in the mortar. On the other side of the wall there is a small landing and a staircase that leads down to what looks like a small garden. I lean out on the landing and take a picture of the houses rising over the old stone wall. A small round table sits on a small field of grass. Perhaps someone's quiant spot for a Sunday brunch outdoors. At least that is what I would use it for.
This town appears to be full of parks. As I get closer to the castle there are parts of the old city wall that still stand and the area around becomes a collection of parks that are hard to tell when one stops and another begins. The first park I wander into has the remainder of some old buildings that had been bombed out. A spiral staircase made of stone has become a form of playground equipment. I see a group of students having a picnic at the base of the city wall, next to the moat. The parks themself seem to be collection of mazes. A few times I left not knowing how to make it to the next one and then when entering it from the street I would find the hidden passageway tucked under some tree branches.

While being in Fougères I kept thinking about the little trips the family would take to Red Lodge. A little town with not much going on, but everything just feels a bit slower than everywhere else. The streets only have a few people walking around. Because of this I kept thinking about how much Taryn enjoys Red Lodge. It is too bad she won't be able to make it over here while I am living in Rennes. Although I would have to say that Red Lodge doesn't have a castle and city walls. Sadly the only day that the castle is closed happens to be Mondays and the day that I was there. Something to go back to.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

New Birth.

Hey. C'est moi.  It has been a few years. Since I last discussed into the void here I attended grad school for architecture at the University of Washington, finished the Master's program by the skin of my teeth, graduated into a global pandemic (I would not recommend this), gave away most of my worldly possessions, and am now flâneur-ing around Europe on the slim budget of my life savings. Allow me to reintroduce myself : I am the artist, Gaston. My interests include ; architecture, sustainability, art, vintage fashions, antiques, and flâneries. All while consuming massive quantities of tea. “I know where I'm from, but I don't know where I'm going.” I recently heard this line at a video playing at the Tate Museum in Liverpool, and it rang strong in me. In the film Casablanca, when Rick is questioned on his nationality he responds that his is a “drunkard,” insinuating that he has renounced his American nationality for that of someone who owns and runs a bar. From ...
French underworld tattoos at the turn of the century. The man sports a tattooed mustache intended to foil the prohibition of facial hair in the Foreign Legion. The World of Tattoo by Maarten Hesselt van Dinter. I can only dream of being anywhere near that combination of badass and crazy. Though at that point the Foreign Legion was probably still the best place for criminals to get their record cleaned so perhaps he is as well quite legitimately scary upon all of that. I find myself flipping back to this page time and time again to romanticize the French underground from around 1900. Give him an accordion, a beret, and some braces. Prostitutes who could easily kill you if you ever come up short and tattoo the names of their ‘actual’ lovers between their breasts, close to their heart. Tattoo ‘Je mother fucking t’aime’ in a tattoo cursive along my collar bones.

The Toulousian Painting.

I sneak in a mirror reflected reference photo. While we were in Toulouse we ducked into a nice little salon de thé that to me felt like something out of a 1940s representation of Europeans in Africa. Probably just the French dealing with the heat of the south. While at this place I noticed a girl sitting alone at one of the tables reading on her phone. Perhaps surfing the internet, perhaps reading a book, I couldn't quite tell as it was in Asian characters. I would guess that it was either Chinese or Japanese. In such a beautifully intriguing place I found it to be somewhat odd that she would pass the time ignoring her surrounding to immerse herself in her phone. I remember they also had nice restrooms. The girl then left and we stayed a bit longer sipping on our drinks, which if I remember right were not actually tea but something cool to counter the heat of Toulouse. Taking a breather in the hectic nature of our vacation. It was one of those towns where I ...