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Chapter 3: La Thoronet et Aix en Provence
In the morning we got on the road towards La Thoronet, when the powers that be at google maps pulled a fast one and led us astray. After a little projectile carsickness plagued the professor’s car that morning (don’t worry I dodged it), it was not too great a start. Lucky for us, we had a spare GPS laying around in our dash and set the course no problem.
When we arrived at the Abbey of Thoronet, it was a bright sun shiny day, and Corbusier was in the air. He learned a few things from this site during his travels, and for those that saw La Tourette, it was easy to draw connections between his work there and a few elements in the abbey. I unfortunately screwed the pooch on that one, but got by with a little help from my friends.
Karl told me a little bit about Corbusier’s “Sugarlumps”, planted in a long band of windows that break up views outward in a procession, like the windows of the cloister at the Abbey. I was happy to pick up on a connection between the steeple at La Thoronet and Corbusier’s oratory from our history class. After walking around for a while we made our way to the top of the cloister, where you can view the courtyard from among the rooftops. It was a pretty neat place to sketch and take it all in.
The next stop was Aix en Provence. It’s a beautiful city in the south of France that is so full of people, you’d think you’re in a district of Paris. The main streets of the downtown area shoot off from a huge fountain and branch into a maze of side streets and open plaza’s.
I remember Kyle asking “what town would you compare this to in the States?” Off the top of my head there’s really no place like it. It’s sad to think that some people back home go their whole lives without seeing what a place like this has to offer. In the walk from the hotel, I enjoyed passing through the long street corridors lined and capped with fountains and flora, gaping at the canopy of trees acting as a tunnel over one of the main roads, and curiously wandering into pedestrian streets and squares. It hurts a little knowing that unless I strike gold, it’ll be years before I get to see it again. The same goes for several other cities I’ve seen here, but I seem to be drooling excessively over this one.
We got back to the hotel, where internet was again free, wine was again in my hand, and the Hokies were again scheduled to win. It was a good night, and the Tarheels can suck it.
