Cominac - L'Ariege

Homeschooling with Daddy via the internet:

The Caves at Niaux (Grotte de Niaux)

The Official site:

List of some of the things we learned and experienced in The Caves of Niaux

-Compiled by Lisa, Kaizen, Soleil and Barbara

1. The Niaux cave is in the heart of the Pyrenees Mountains.

2. Flashlights are required though they are not allowed in the dark room only LED flashflights as LED flashlights don’t create much heat and the heat can destroy the paintings by allowing algae or moss to grow.

3. The difference between the oldest and the youngest paintings in the caves

4. We most common animal depicted is the bison, which is specific to Niaux. Generally the horse is the most popular.

5. The paintings are made with oxide of manganese (black) or charcoal and hemiotyte (red) mixed with water and animal fat.

6. The prehistoric people went inside with fat lamps (or candles); the flickering of the candles made the paintings have the appearance of movement

7. The animals depicted in the l’ariage caves (beside one weasel) are bison, horse, mountain goat or ibex, and deer.

8. The paintings were done by a type of prehistoric man referred to as the Magdalen men named for the name of the first cave in which their paintings were found.

9. There is a lot of graffiti with names and dates. The oldest graffiti found in the cave is from 1602 and the oldest one we saw was from 1652.

10. In 1902 the cave was officially discovered and dated as “prehistoric” though it was visited by locals since the 1600 who were unaware of the importance of the cave drawings.

11. The entrance we used is an artificial entrance, which was built because the natural entrance is too small to comfortably enter and often floods.

12. The cave is 2 km deep though the primary room we visited was only 800 metres in and is named the Salon Noir (or the Black Room).

13. At the time of our visit, there was one bat living in the cave.

14. The prehistoric artists used the natural shape of the rocks to give life to the paintings.

15. It is not known why the prehistoric people went deep into the cave to paint but it’s definite that they painters came into the cave for the sole purpose of painting because there were no other signs of the caves having been lived in; It is possible that any such evidence could have taken them before the cave was protected.

16. Every single painting in the cave –there are approximately 80– is done by a different person, and they know this based on stylistic studies.

17. Many of the paintings have specific signs and symbols, which are found only on the paintings in the caves of the Pyrenees region. Some of the symbols look like dots and lines and little is known about their meaning.

18. Some of the depicted Bison are illustrated them as if they are dead while others appear to be living.Bison specialists have been brought in to see if there was any new information they could find and they were able to determine the gender of the animals. Distinctive gender difference may or may not have been intended by the painters.

19. About 30 years ago there was a water intrusion problem in the caves, which washed away some of the paintings in the Black Room. In order to remedy the problem, pipes were added to redirect the water.

Pictures were not allowed so this one is borrowed from the web:

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Florence Cooking Class

One of my personal learning goals for myself for this trip was to do a cooking class or two. I really had a French cooking class in mind, since I'm a fan of Julia Child and especially love her book, "My Life in France" which really inspires the French epicurean sensibility.

Since I didn't manage to get that together and Lila Brown did, Tuscan cooking it was. Lila organized a class for three of us with Sharon Oddson of La Cucina di Garga, the cooking school branch of Garga Trattoria.

I arrive with my cooking partners, Lila....
and Sandra at the Trattoria where we waited for Sharon...









Then we headed over to Sharon's home kitchen which was beautiful stocked with all the ingredients for our class.

First we prepared the pastry for dessert and then we roasted the tomatoes for the Primi Piatti.

We dice, sliced and sipped wine. We learned the proper way to butterfly and tie a lamb roast (prepared with mint).

Most excitingly, we learned how relatively simple it is to make fresh pasta.

By the way, watch out for these two and their new venture Divina Catering.

While I'm sure it's much easier to get it right with a pasta machine, I plan to try it at home.

(left) Pecorini, basil and mint, ready to be gound up and mixed with the home-made bow-ties.

(right) Artichokes steamed after a rinse in lemon water.

Here is the artichoke and mozarella salad, ready to eat...

...the chef, ready to eat it...

...the Bow-tie pasta..

The Roasted Lamb with mint...

....and finally to cap it all off, pastry with fresh fig, marscapone, with a touch of balsamic vinegar.

Paris Sewer System

...the great prodigality of Paris, her marvelous fête, her Beaujon folly, her orgy,

her full-handed outpouring of gold, her pageant, her luxury, her magnificence, is her sewer.

(Les Miserables; Jean Valjean, Book II, ch1)

The Paris Sewer tour was a “must-do” given our family’s collective fascination with engineering, Les Misérables and that which is generally unusual.

The Paris sewers date back to the beginning of the 13^thCentury, when open troughs contributed to the spread of the Black Plague and other diseases.

In 1370, the first underground sewer was built. During the reign of Napolean

Bonaparte, in 1805, Emmanuel Bruneseau oversaw the building of 182 new miles of sewer. Bruneseau and Hugo were good friends, and since Hugo’s description of the sewers was based on information he received from his friend, the 50 pages of Les Mis that are set in the sewers, are considered to be historically accurate.

Also, during Victor Hugo’s lifetime, in 1850, Baron Haussmann developed a

technique for separating the drinking water and sewage system and by 1878 the system was 600 km in length.

At that time, tours of parts of the sewer system were already offered and sewer tourism was very popular, so some speculate that this fact may have been the primary reason Hugo included the sewers in Les Mis. Personally I like to think it more of a pure literary choice to have Valjean carry Marius through the sewers.

According to Prof. 
Robert Schwartz who maintains the fantastic site France in the Age of Les Miserables, "Victor Hugo saw the sewers of Paris as the 'conscience of the city'; a place where there were no secrets, where class distinctions became insignificant and society could be observed in a clear light” so it’s a brilliant symbol of true justice that Valjean, in attempt to escape Javert and save Marius, by carrying him through the sewers to safety.

...

"Crime, intelligence, social protest, liberty of conscience, thought, theft,

all that human laws pursue or have pursued, have hidden in this hole..."

(Les Miserables; Jean Valjean, Book II, ch 2).

...

Today’s tunnels are more than 2100 km. The tour used to be done by boat or cart but now the Musée des egouts de Paris (the Paris Sewers Museum) is self-guided walk through a section of the sewer located beneath the Quay d’Orsay on the Left Bank. The smell is not great but we all found it fascinating.

Related info

Paris Sewers- Exploring the Dark Underbelly of the City

Paris in the Age of Les Mis – The Sewers, a Brief History

Wikipedia – Paris Sewers

Official Paris Sewers with logistical information

To get there take the Metro to the Alma-Marceau stop, cross the bridge, and look for the large blue sign on your left. Purchase your ticket at the small kiosk and walk down the adjacent stairs into the museum.

Couch Surfing!

I love Couch Surfing! What is it? "A worldwide network for making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit". The mission? "To create a better world one couch at a time." I first heard about Couch Surfing from Julianne one of the awesome counselors at the utterly fabulous Camp Augusta and thought it sounded like a great idea so I signed up as soon as I got back from camp. So far my experience is similar to this expressed by another Canadian couchsurfer: "I expected to meet interesting people and to hear the non-tourist version of the cities I stayed in. What nobody warned me about was the genuine hospitality of my hosts."

My personal goal is to be the best CS host possible. When I’ve hosted sometimes that has meant cooking a meal and sharing time together, like when Christophe and Vanessa come through San Mateo enroute to Hawaii. Another time that meant opening our house to David and Siri who just got married and were traveling around the US before returning to their teaching jobs in Minnesota. I warned them that I couldn’t socialize much because I was preparing to leave for France for three months but gave them a key and the freedom to come and go as they wished so they could explore the bay area for the three days they were in town.

We also try to be good CS guests but have been charmed and amazed by the generosity and kindness we’ve been offered. Veronique and Sebastien and their beautiful girls were wonderfully hospitable to us! I cooked them a meal which I think they enjoyed and our kids played together joyfully in spite of having no shared language. The girls got the biggest kick out of dressing Kaizen in a flamenco dress and lots of laughs were shared.

Francoise and her son made us a delicious meal Chicken Provencale and offered us comfortable rooms in their unique and interesting house. We really enjoyed our day with them in their beautiful space and bucolic town.

Between Oct 5 and 6 we had two great CS'ing experience in Lyon, which is, apparently quite filled with musicians.

Amine Matani generously hosted us and Soleil loved on his roommate's cat while Amine and Joe talked musci, science and other geek-stuff.

Then we headed over to Rusty Stegeman's place where I made dinner for the troupe (lentils, chicken and roasted potatoes) which was followed by a fun night with Rusty, Sam and their friends. By a wild strange coincidence, while in Paris, right after checking out Rusty's profile, Soleil and I happened to meet Charles and Anais the day before they moved to Lyon to become the new roommates.

A great night with some really awesome young people! They let Kaizen teach them to play Werewolf which was followed by a great jam session. Joe was pretty happy to stay up drumming with some great musicians until 4am.

The next morning Rusty cooked up some American-style pancakes for everyone.

Joe and the kids enjoyed a dinner with Jean and Laurence in Aix-en-Provence which I had to miss as a result of a road trip to Florence for April's birthday celebration.

Then on our way back through Toulouse, enroute to L'ariege, we stopped off again at Sebastien and Veronique's house. Sebastien had just run a race so the house was filled with his colleagues and race teammates. Kaizen gave the girls a mini-tour through Spore.

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I can’t wait to share more of our cs’ing pictures and memories here as we travel around.

And when we get home I’ll be sure to pay it forward!