My Trip to France
BOURGES: WHERE HISTORY MEETS TECHNOLOGY
Benoit picked us up early I the morning and we had to pick up the son of the robotics competition organizer a little later and so had time to tour the city again. We drove through the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs Elysee and the place de la Concorde and to the Louvre. We had about 30 minutes to explore the outside of the Louvre and we walked through the courtyard into the square where the old Louvre had originally stood. This is the palace of all palaces, only outshone by Versailles (which we were to visit on Friday). We had time to explore under the new I.M. Pei Pyramid where all of the shops have been built underground in a style that is really quite compatible with the Louvre. Near the entrance is the small arch that Napoleon built to commemorate his victories with the pink marble pillars. I was excited to return and see the foundations of the original Louvre, which were discovered during the excavation.
Bourges is located 200 km south of Paris in the "heart of France". Napoleon kept his arsenal here and those buildings have become the military base and now also the ENSIB - the engineering school. It is a very old city, having been on the way to Lyons and thence to Rome. The cathedral is famous worldwide and is the only cathedral with five doors. It is larger than Notre Dame is though similar, but the stained glass windows are a particularly incredible blue and red glass...and there are many many windows.The Heart of France
The drive to Bourges was through flat plains of yellow flowers, canola, I did not recognize the French name used for oil. The Mercedes van raced along the highway - the speed limit was 130 km - but we went 180 and arrived in no time! Our American style hotel was outside of the town but we could see the cathedral. It had a nice restaurant where I had marvelous pasta with salmon and crème for lunch…and Bordeaux. We were to attend the opening ceremonies of the Robotics Competition at 5pm and drove with the organizer, Maurice Ugeun to the event. The NASA contingency comprised of Frank (who was back for his second year), one of his employees Regina North who works with the crews, and Maynard Holiday a robotics engineer from Lawrence Livermore Laboratories (Dept. of Energy), who had interviewed to be an astronaut was another special guest. The ceremony was presided over by Maurice and the President of the region of Cher, Alain Pete, officiated. Many officials spoke and warmly introduced Regina, Maynard and Frank 'avec his jolie amie' (moi). There was a small reception with champagne and hors d'hoevres (including caviar!) afterwards. Then we went to a great party at the school/military base that the kids threw. There was wine, beer, cheeses, breads, pates, salamis, cakes and a fun time was had by all. We got to meet lots of the students from ENSIB and from all of the competing countries including two fine teams from Moscow. We had a nice drive through the city back to the hotel stopping at the cathedral which was all lit up at night and just took your breath away. I couldn't wait to return the next day.
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