The medieval city of Provins is located in the Champagne region. The city seems to have existed since before the first century AD, but it was not until the 9th century that Charlemagne sent his missi dominici (his royal representatives: the Count of Paris and the Abbé of Saint-Denis) to strengthen it as a military stronghold. That’s when they built the wall.
Provins is pronounced without the ns at the end. You say pro-veh and the eh part is as if you’re saying something’s only so-so. You know – it’s eh. With a shrug of the shoulders. Pro-veh.
In Provins, you can participate in medieval festivals. There’s the eagle and falcon show, an equestrian performance, a medieval banquet, and one on waging war in the Middle Ages (only more fun).
We, however, went on a quiet day. Not particularly sunny and warm. No festivals planned. No medieval shows. In fact, at times, it seemed as if no one was there at all.
You see these walls?
I’m going to try and give you a glimpse as to how thick they are (only it doesn’t do it justice) because you can actually climb through the wall!
which is just what we did. It’s thick, right?
Or you can just walk through the gate like normal people do.
This (photo above)is called the Jouy gate and it’s from the 13th century. It used to have a drawbridge. Easy to imagine it with one, isn’t it?
Provins is surrounded by fields
and there is even a farm within the walls that supposedly tends to all those fields on the outside.
Though there’s no big city nearby, you can still access Provins by train. Information here is in English.
The buildings and houses are old. This one, for instance, used to be a hospital in 1177: The Hospital of the Holy Ghost, founded by Henry the Liberal, Count of Champagne. This former 3-story building allowed three days’ accommodation to the pilgrims, elderly, and children. In 1241 it was run by a hospital order founded by Guy de Montpellier, and was placed under the protection of the Holy Spirit. A fire in the 17th century destroyed everything but the underground vault. It was restored in 1970.
Some of these old houses look their age with sagging roofs.
and moss growing on the roof tiles.
And some of them are quite stately and inviting.
The streets were quiet enough that Juliet was able to have some fun.
And the boys had their fun too.
Gabriel, get out of the middle of the road!
(William is showing how low the doors were because people were so much shorter when the city was built.)
Besides lunch and gelato, you can visit the church (Saint-Quiriace Collegiate Church), built in the 12th century and which once boasted the presence of Jeanne d’Arc. (Joan of Arc) It was never finished due to the financial difficulties the French kingdom faced under Phillipe le Bel.
There’s also The Caesar Tower, which served as a watchtower and prison.
and the Romanesque House (Museum of Provins), the Tithe Barn, the Underground Galleries … none of which we saw. In fact we didn’t go inside a single exhibit or see a single show. We’re such bad tourists.
We just ate lunch and walked around the residential and commercial parts of the city …
and visited Picturesque medieval Provins.
Hey friends, first of all, I wanted to tell you that should you go to Provins, I highly urge you to take part in at least one of the performances that are ongoing if you can’t actually get there on a medieval festival itself. Here is the website with all the information in English. We loved our visit, but I do think it would have been enhanced with a falcon show at the very least.
I also want to take a sec to address my email subscribers. (And if you’re not one yet, you can do so by signing up on the right sidebar where it says, “Sign up Here!”). I’ll be sending out a newsletter soon to make sure I’m compliant with the new European Data Privacy Regulations, so look out for that. I also realised there has been a problem with my blog feed in my email service provider, and you haven’t received the last four posts. I’ll have links to the ones you missed in the newsletter as well. I’ve been working on having that fixed, which is also why there hasn’t been a new post in a couple weeks, but hopefully now everything is in working order.
