Under the Earth

Two posts in two days--I'm even impressed with myself! Anyway, the CIDEF organized another excursion for today and I signed up. Two excursions in as many days may seem a little like overkill, but after all, I only have four months to see as much of France as possible!

So the excursion today, like yesterday, included two destinations, the first to Anjou Troglodytique and the second was an exploration of the caves. So basically, I was underground for the majority of the day--which was kind of unfortunate, as the temperature dropped at least ten degrees underground. It wasn't really a warm day today, so a coat and gloves were especially necessary.

Troglodytique is a small French town that was essentially carved out of the earth. Nearly everything--the chapel, the homes, the stables--are in caves under the earth. The town has become a museum of sorts, where old-fashioned supplies and pictures are on display to be toured--which is exactly what we did today. It was rather nostalgic for me, as a lot of the items reminded me of reenactments with Civil War club.

The second part of the excursion was a tour of the caves of Anjou. These caves are used primarily for the preparation and creation of wine. I have to admit that this didn't really interest me very much, but even so, the carvings and decorations of the underground caves were beautiful in and of themselves.

Only in France would a school-sanctioned trip offer a wine tasting. After the tour of the caves, we were all shown into a big (warm) room and served small samples of two kinds of wine, one a white and the other a red. This was my first time ever trying alcohol of any kind. Thank God they only provided a few sips of each. I now understand why people sometimes throw up from drinking. I felt like doing the same after one sip!