A few weeks ago we traveled to France to celebrate the 90th birthday of Raphael's grandmother, Nelly.
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| Aaron, Henry, Nelly & Alena |
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Ten years ago, we took a similar trip for her 80th birthday, which was my first time meeting Raphael's whole family. (Come to think of it, it was around that time that Raphael was getting into photography... I should create an album and upload it here!) This time the whole Cohen clan traveled from near and far and descended upon
Provins, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which is a medieval walled city.It is located about an hour and half East of Paris.
The town is extremely small and has a handful of fabulous medieval reenactment type shows. For instance, we attended one show where "real knights" demonstrated the various weapons of the time. Many of these weapons had German sounding names, which Annie informed me was because Germany introduced these weapons to France (I leave you to draw your own conclusions about that tidbit).
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| Our own knight in shining armor..... this helmet was just the beginning. |
Another show we attended also had "real knights," damsels in distress, and monster-like bad knights who all battled. The story line, from what I followed in French, seemed to me a cross between something from JRR Tolkien, Harry Potter and Star Wars. The costumes of the bad guys looked like they were right out of one of Johnny Depp's Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Also, if I'm not mistaken, I believe the bad guy was named "Champagne." All in all, it was quite a scene and the kids loved it. Henry even got to meet and greet the "REAL knight"!!!!
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| This picture only begins to capture the essence of these shows. |
In addition to being known for it's medieval aspects, the town is also renowned for its roses. Interstingly, the color of the roses planted had strong political implications, and I think demonstrated one's allegiance to a particular monarch or the like. Pink roses were the official rose of so-and-so, while white roses represented so-and-so, so you better be careful which roses you decided to plant. (I think I got the gist of this correctly- the tour was all in french).
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| Me with some ubiquitous pink roses |
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Finally, my favorite part of the visit was the "Live Spectacle of Eagles." It sounds silly but it was really cool. It was essentially a falconer show, where these falconers presented and handled a wide variety of birds of prey. There were all types of hawks, falcons, eagles, vultures.... all swooping right overhead. To Henry and Raphael's great amusement, more than once I reflexively ducked and shrieked as these huge creatures swooped a little too close for comfort. While I declined to do so, Henry and Raphael held one of these lovely birds on their arms. Alena was set to do so next, but instead, the darn thing jumped onto her head, causing much panic and nervous laughter in both her and me.
In sum, we had a wonderful time gathering with family from France and Israel to celebrate an extremely happy occasion. A huge thank you to my father-in-law for organizing the entire trip. If he ever truly retires, he should be a travel agent planning family vacations. I think he has a real calling.
Here is a link to all our pictures from Provins.
