Guedelon Castle

Guedelon

We have been in France for three days and the main reason we came to France was to see Guedelon castle.  Guedelon castle is a 25 year project to see how castles were built in the middle ages.

The first thing we saw was the rope making. First they get 4 strands of string and loop them over four hooks. They may use more string if they are making thick rope.

They turn the handle which spins all the strings in the same direction until they are tightly wound, then they add a wooden cross that separates the 4 strings and turn the string the other way.  The separater moves along the strings as they get wound together in to a thicker rope. When it gets to the end it falls into a basket that the basket makers would have made.

The basket makers made some really cool baskets. Holly thought they were really cool spent a lot of time watching them. They were made from will. First you make the  base. This is done by getting 8 strips of willow putting  them into 2 groups of 4. Then you slit a hole through 4 of the willow sticks  and put the other 4 through the slit and then start to weave other sticks of willow around them.

Next we saw the black smith but we don’t know what he was making. He only spoke French so we couldn’t ask him, but Aidan thinks they were making a door hinge. The carpenter and the black smith have to put the door on.

Sometimes they need two people to hit the metal.  One has a big hammer, the other has a small hammer, the person  that has the small hammer hits softly and the person with the big hammer hits harder than the one with the small one.

We also saw the stone masons. The stone masons shape the stone to fit in the wall of the castle.They have to shape the rock with a hammer and a chisel once that is done they send it to the castle on a hand cart.  When they are ready to put it in the castle wall it has to be listed up with a lifting wheel.  Two men would put it on a block of wood then one of the men got into the wheel and started walking.  The wheel is attached by a rope to a pulley on the castle wall and the rock is slowly lifted up until it reaches the top.  There is a trap door in the scaffolding that can be opened so the stones can go in and they are able to be put in as  part of the wall.

The stones came from the quarry next to the castle, The quarrymen are hard at work all day cutting rocks for the stone masons to shape for the castle wall.

There were also tile makers to make the tiles for each room in the castle and for the roof of the towers and other buildings. To make the tiles they get some clay which they dig out of the ground.  One person kneads the clay, two other people put the kneaded clay in moulds flatting it with a mallet. Then they take it out and put out side to dry. Sometimes they make patterns in the tiles, or colour them with different types of powders.

Once they are dry they put them in the tile kiln to fire them.  This is a big job as they have to light a fire under the kiln and it takes a long time to get hot enough.  Once the tile are done they get them out of the kiln and tap two together to see if they had been fired well enough we did not get to see the tiles being fired but we saw it happen on a tv show called Secrets of the Castle.

While we were at the castle we saw a man try to split wood with wooden wedges. The man doing it was not that good though because he was just starting at the castle. It is quicker to split a log using wedges than it is to saw it in half.

We also saw the lime pit where they get the lime to make the lime mortar to use to keep the walls together.

The castle also had some pigs they were very fat but small one was sleeping in the mud that was in their pen.  The were some men making the pig sty with the lime mortar.

Going to the castle was really interesting because you could see how castles used to be build before they had machines.   We have seen lots of castles on our trip, but most of them are falling down. This is the only castle in the world that is being built this way so it was like going back in a time machine to see how things really worked 800 years ago.  It was really cool.  We would like to go back again when the castle is nearly finished. 

This is a video of some of the things we saw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bLVhDdellA

Cinque Terre

We have just left Monterosso in Italy on our way to Lucerne in Switzerland. 

We have been staying in Italy for the last 10 days. That means we have had 10 gelatos.  Monterosso is one of the 5 villages of the Cinque Terre.  Cinque Terre means 5 lands.  There are 5 villages along the coast in a part of Italy called Liguria.  They are built on the cliffs.  Four of them are near the water.  These are Monterosso, Vernazza, Manarola and Riomaggiore.  The other one if called Corniglia and it is built high on a cliff.

We stayed in Monterosso for 10 days which means we ate 10 gelatos!  They were really yummy.  Aidan’s favourite flavours are stratiatella and crema. Holly likes strawberry and lemon. 

 Monterosso is the biggest of the 5 villages. It has beaches and we swum there every day.  The beaches are mostly made of pebbles and rocks and the water is really clear.  There were lots of little fish in the water. Most of the beaches are private which means you have to pay to get on to them. If you pay you get a sunbed and an umbrella for the day and there are little sheds where you can get changed. On the private beach you can hire pedal boats to take out into the water. They have a little slide on them so you can climb up and slide into the water. 

Our apartment was near a school and every morning we could hear the kids rushing up the hill to school which started at 8 o’clock.  They finished at 1.30.

There was a church that rang its bell 36 times at 7.30 in the morning.  This is a tradition because the bell used to ring to tell the workers to start work.  The bells also rang during the day and on Saturdays and Sundays they played a nice tune at 6 o’clock.

The villages are very old and were started as fishing villages.  The other thing that the villages are famous for is wine and the hills have been terraced which means they are a bit like really big steps so the grapes can be grown on them.  

There is a metal track a bit like a monorail that runs around the vineyards because the hills are so steep. There is a little engine with a seat on it for a driver, and a train of platforms so that the grapes can be picked and put into tubs to be taken back up the hills.

We ate lots of pasta with pesto because this is special things they make here.  The special pasta they eat the pesto with is called Trofie and it is like the dough has been rolled and then twirled into little short sticks.  It was really yum.  They also make really good pizza and we ate a lot of that too.

We went on a big hike from Monterosso to Vernazza and then to Corniglia.  We had to hike across the hillside and the cliffs.  It was very high and there were lots of steps and narrow paths. 

We got very hot and sweaty but when we got to Vernazza we had a swim in the bay near the harbour. 

The villages are very pretty because the houses are painted in different colours and the harbours with the fishing boats in them are really nice. 

Riomaggiore

  Because the villages are so small the only cars allowed in them for deliveries.  In Monterosso they had lot of tiny trucks on only 3 wheels.

We also went on a boat one day to Riomaggiore that stopped at the other villages on the way. We sat out the front and we got a bit wet because the boat was going fast and we also went over a speed boat’s wake and there was lots of spray coming over the bows.  When you go by boat you can see all the villages from the water.

Today we are going to Switzerland on the train and hopefully we will be able to go up a Swiss Mountain.

Aidan & Holly - Santorini

We have had a week in Santorini in a Greek hotel. When we got off the plane we got a taxi to the hotel, the taxi driver was waiting in the airport with my Dad’s name on a piece of paper.

When we got to the hotel the lady that owns it came to show us to the hotel because the taxi would not fit through the narrow road. We had to walk down some little laneways with walls on each side.

When we got to the hotel she opened a door in the wall and I thought it would be the inside of the hotel, but when I got in I looked up and we were still outside. 

The hotel is like a little the owners live in. Each room had a little outside area to sit in and there was a pool. village of its own. There were 4 different rooms plus the house the owners live in.

The first thing Holly and I did was put our swimmers on and jump into the pool. That’s when we first met the two dogs. They were very friendly one of them was only a puppy. Their names were Kirki and Raoulu.  I don’t know how to write them properly in Greek.

The hotel was in a village called Karterados. There was a church across the laneway. On Wednesday morning they rang the bells at 7am.  They did it again on Sunday, which was good because we had to get up to catch our plane.  About a kilometre from our hotel was a really awesome bakery.   At the bakery every day we bought breakfast and coffee for Mum and Dad. In Greece they eat Bougatsa for breakfast. This is a pastry filled with custard and you eat it warm. It was really, really good. They also sold really big doughnuts like pretzels and big croissants filled with Nutella.

this is breakfast at the bakery. Mum and Dad had big cappucino freddos which are cold coffees.

While we were in Santorini, we went to lots of beaches to swim because it was very hot. Most of beaches did not have sand, they were made of rocks.  The rocks were mostly black because they are volcanic rock. This is because the island was once part of a volcano. Thousands of years ago the volcano erupted and the island was broken up. Now you can see the volcano island of Nea Kameni from the caldera on Santorini.

One of the beaches was called Perissa beach. We had to catch a bus to get there. On the beach there were lots of umbrellas and sunbeds that you could hire for the day. There were lots of restaurants along the beaches and if you ate there you could use their sunbeds

. They also would bring your food to the beach for you. They have little sheds where you can get into your swimmers.

Another beach was called Kamari. A little way out from the shore was a big pile of rocks that you could swim out to.  When Holly and I first got there we found little nooks and crannies filled with sea salt. As we were climbing up to the top of the rocks I saw lots of little fish in the pools. 

The water was very clear because there was no sand to get pushed around by the waves and there were also not very many waves. The water was very salty so it was easy to float.  The beach was also very steep so it got deep very quickly and it was hard to get out. It was also hard because of the pebbles that sunk under your feet.

For lunch and dinner most days we had gyros pitas which is a pita bread with some chicken, chips and some salad and tzatziki. They were really yummy.  One day we tried a pork one but the chicken ones were better.

Another place we went to was called Amoudi Bay. At the top of the island is a village called Oia.  It is very pretty with lots of houses all painted white. There are also some old windmills.

  To get to the bay you have to walk down the cliff. There is a path with a lot of steps. Once you get to the bottom, you have to follow a path until you reach the swimming area in the bay.  The water is very clear and very deep.  You have to jump off the rocks to get in. There was a huge rock sticking out of the water and some people were climbing up it and jumping off it from high up. Swimming there was fun, but afterwards we had to climb the steps again to get back to the village. It was very hot and it was a long way.

There are donkeys at the bottom that you can ride to the top but it is recommended that you don’t ride them because they are not looked after properly and they have to stand all day in the hot sun. When they take the donkeys home for the day they tie each donkey to anther donkey the first donkey has the man riding it to lead the donkeys single file.

In Santorini there are a lot of stray cats that you find eating out of the bins at night. One of the cats was friendly so we fed it some ham the we were given for breakfast. We visited her twice a day.

In Greece they drive on the other side of the road than we do at home and sit on the other side of the car. That’s why dad did not drive.

Most of the people ride motor bikes and quad bikes but they don’t have to wear helmets. Most of the people with quad bikes are the tourists.  

We also went to see the sunset up at Fira that is about 15 or 20-minute walk from where we are staying.

On our last night there was a firework display on the volcano for the volcano festival.They had made it look like it was coming out of the volcano. My favourite part was where they made it look like the lava was flowing out of the volcano.   

Aidan 23, Mary Arden's farm

Today we went to Mary Arden’s farm which is where Shakespeare’s mother lived and worked.

One of the things we did was watch the Tudor’s eat dinner. the first thing they did was take off their hats but the head of the household did not.  It was considered polite to take off your hat and rude not to.  In Tudor times it was very important to be polite.

But he did when they said grace because they were talking to someone more important – God,  then he would put his hat back on.  When you say grace you put your hands together with your fingers pointing up because you want your prayer to go up to God.

They flicked their napkins over their left shoulder to get rid of the devil that might be sitting there.

Whenever they eat they use the spoon they got when they were Christened.  Everybody got given a spoon by their Godparents when they were Christened.  They kept that spoon forever.  The poor got wooden spoons, the people that had more money had pewter spoons and the people with much more money had silver spoons. They could not start eating till the master had a spoon full.

They sat at a board, not a table.  This was a flat board sitting on trestles, so you were not allowed to put your elbows on the board, otherwise the board would tip.  The master sat on a chair at the head of the table.  Other people sat on stools or benches.  This meant that the master was the Chairman of the board.

The servants sat at the board for dinner too.  This was how the master found out about what was happening on the farm, so it was a board meeting.  The servants often didn’t have much food at home, so they were given a hearty meal at the farm as part of their pay.  If there wasn’t much food, the Mistress had to make sure the workers still had a hearty meal so the family would get less to eat.

The women always had to have their hair covered and also their ears.  Children had to serve the food.  They were not given a seat at the table until they had learnt manners. 

Other things at the farm were falconry displays, donkeys,

blacksmithing and geese herding.  This is where they would have herded the geese to market.  Sometimes they might have taken 500 geese.  I got to have a try at herding and blocking.  Herding was easy because they follow each other and you walk behind them with a pole to push them along.  If you don’t want them to go somewhere, you stand in front of them with a pole and they will go a different way.

There was the house that Mary Arden lived. It had very small doors.  The beds the kids slept on had logs for pillows but with a blanket over it.

We saw a man milk a cow and a man that was making things out of leather.  He told us about swords and scabbards and he was making a water bottle.

One of the falconry displays was a barn owl named Millie. I got to have a turn at flying Millie, because the man wanted to show how people would have learned the skill of falconry.  I got to wear the glove and he let the bird fly to me. then the man said your fired but I did not do anything the bird just flew off my arm.  The bird was very light, I could hardly feel her on my hand.  She was missing one of her talons.  I liked it because it is something I would like to do when I am older.