9 oct

Finally left Autun and drove over to Cluny. Well,we’re not staying in Cluny but in St. Point; a few kilometres south. We could not stay in Cluny. Firstly, because the campground closed last week, but more importantly, because I am on the black list there.
Why? Well, it happened a few years ago, forget exactly when. We decided to go and see Cluny and look around a little. It was a clear summer but the day we arrived it was cloudy and there was a slow wind dwurreling down the hill over the campground.
It still was warm enough for a swim, so I went over to the pool together with Claire, a littlr kid still in those days. Just when I was about to jump in, I heard a scream. It was the French Pool Police. “How dared I go and swim with those pants on!” they yelled, while pointing to my swim trunks. “They’re not pants. These are my swimming trunks,” I said. Unfortunately, the last words were not french – because I didn’t know the word for swimming trnks and still don’t. The swim police pointed at all kinds of warning signs that did say indeed that these shorts like swim trunks could not be used. They only want you to use speedo like, hardly protecting, anything, trunks. I asked why they had this strange rule. They said it was because of hygiene, the word sounded very french. That was nonsense of course. I suspect they thought these shorts a foreign, even worse – american – influence where La Douce France should not be infected with.
It was crazy, I said, c’est fou, but I didn’t go in and just watched Claire rumple around in her nice fitting and even in France acceptable bath suit.
My revenge came that same evening. It was cloudy, and there was that slow wind. That didn’t prevent us from starting a nice barbecue, the only acceptable way to prepare les saucisses aux herbes that make up most of our vacation meals – even now, mom.
Maybe the briquettes were a little damp, but it took an awful long time for them to get hot. All this time though they were creating an enormous smokescreen, crawling down over most of the spots beneath us. This was embarrassing to say the least, but we wanted our sausages and we couldn’t really help these strange weather conditions that caused all this trouble. A few fellow campers, all dutch, came over to explain to us how antisocial our behaviour was. Which it really was. We left the next morning, early, but not before we heard there were some official complaints about our behaviour. Which is why we are on their black list, I suppose.
Well, Autun. We didn’t like the campground and we weren’t very impressed by our visit of the abbey. We almost decided we didn’t want to go and see it again. But that would have been a mistake. We both read a bit about its history, so we were better prepared, but the Abbey museum itself has also been improved incredibly. It was a most exciting visit.
Just to recapitulate. Cluny was a Benedictine monastery which had its height of power and influence in the 11th and 12th century. Hundreds of abbeys were founded in all different countries. They all adhered to the leadership of the abbot of Cluny, who was mightier than the pope, and also a lot richer, because this abbey was the biggest landowner in the world.
In Cluny they built the largest church of the western hemisphere, I think the Hagia Sophia is larger, which was consecrated in 1130. For more than five centuries it would remain the largest, till the new St Peter was built in Rome.
Driving down to Cluny this is hard to believe. It is a nice little province town, but has a population of hardly 5000 people. It is hard to believe it was the location of the largest church in the west.
One of the reasons it is hard to imagine is the fact that the church is gone. The monastery was closed after the French Revolution. A few years later the city council broke of part of the Apse, the back of the church, because that way it was easier to transport horses through Cluny. A few years later the church was sold, and incredibly enough, broken up and sold part after part until in 1820 there was as little left as what you see today, one part of the wall of the Ship, and one of side towers.
One of the new elements in the museum is a 3D film which gives un impression of what the church would have looked like. It was mouthdropping good. Julie and I kept looking at each other how unbelievable it would have been if that crazy French Revolution – with all its foolishness, its destruction and okay its sensible promotion of liberte, egalite and fraternite – would not have interfered.
Not that it would have been beautiful. Therefore it was too large, too showy, too big for its purpose, one would think. But it would have been impressive, and there would have been hundreds of capitals for us to admire and have fun with.
For anyone who hasn’t been there; go, and for anyone who’s been there; go again. It will be an amazing experience. And if you want a campground, don’t go the one in Autun, it is not a good place to be. Come to find out that Saint Point isn’t that marvelous either. But I remember we liked the campground in Aze, just a little west. I wonder if that hedgehog that always came visiting us in the evening, is til there.