Fetish
I have always wanted a castle.
When I was kid, I loved the Lego castle sets. I spent many a summer vacation building, laying siege to, and rebuilding castle after castle. David Macaulay’s book Castle just fanned the flames.
This fetish eased its way into the background as I got older. However, working on houses has reawakened this old demon. And then I found this.
[The second picture is what it should look like when they finally finish]
The very short version of the story is: a Frenchman always wanted to build a medieval castle so he started to in 1996. They are building it by hand with period (c. 1263 I think) construction techniques. There are about 49-50 full-time employees and it ought to be finished in 2023. So many tourist have started coming to see it that the project became self-sufficent after the first two years.
The AP wire and some other news source have been running stories about this place the last two days. Here are some links to them if you are interested:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
And, here is Guedelon Castle’s official website (in English).
Maybe I need to sell everything and move to France to become medieval stone mason. Or, maybe I just need to build my own. Arkansas has plenty of rock if nothing else. Besides, I’m far more reasonable than these folks. I’d be willing to settle for tower.
When I was kid, I loved the Lego castle sets. I spent many a summer vacation building, laying siege to, and rebuilding castle after castle. David Macaulay’s book Castle just fanned the flames.
This fetish eased its way into the background as I got older. However, working on houses has reawakened this old demon. And then I found this.
[The second picture is what it should look like when they finally finish]The very short version of the story is: a Frenchman always wanted to build a medieval castle so he started to in 1996. They are building it by hand with period (c. 1263 I think) construction techniques. There are about 49-50 full-time employees and it ought to be finished in 2023. So many tourist have started coming to see it that the project became self-sufficent after the first two years.
The AP wire and some other news source have been running stories about this place the last two days. Here are some links to them if you are interested:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
And, here is Guedelon Castle’s official website (in English).
Maybe I need to sell everything and move to France to become medieval stone mason. Or, maybe I just need to build my own. Arkansas has plenty of rock if nothing else. Besides, I’m far more reasonable than these folks. I’d be willing to settle for tower.
posted by John | 7:26 PM
1 Comments:
Oh me too. I saw the article about that on CNN and I think that's my new vacation spot. (After I win the lottery, of course.)
I have always wanted a stone tower out in the middle of nowhere. :)
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