Vezelay, Burgandy

Ah France ... I seem to find myself in another tiny town with a remarkable Romanesque Cathedral ... what an odd coincidence. Vezelay is an amazingly tiny and beautiful town, perched on a hill amidst rolling countryside. Its showpiece is of course the Basilique Ste. Madeleine, built in the 12th century to house the relics of Mary Magdalene. They're still there, by the way, which is not at all creepy.

Basilique Ste. Madeliene,

Which I know is fairly ugly from the outside, but houses (you guessed it) a remarkable collection of historiated capitols!!!

The view of the surrounding countryside from the medieval wall behind the Basilica:

So that Bridget wouldn't die from chruch-overload, we also spent one afternoon canoeing down the nearby river 'Cure'.

Here I am, optimistic, at the beginning of our journey:

It turned out, of course, that the "river" was basically unnavigable ... there were so many rocks and it was so shallow that we took turns periodically getting out of the canoe and pulling it through the water.

Once, when we got stuck on the rocks, we decided to just picnic right there.