Wednesday 20th November 2013
What a beautiful scenery when we woke up on Wednesday morning, snow had covered all the landscape.
We took the bus to go to Château-Chalon and Ménétru Le Vignoble. On the way, we had a problem: a tree had fallen on the road, so the stronger men managed to take it off the road, so that the bus could drive past.
Château-Chalon is a village which is famous in Jura for the production of wines. Typical wine growers' houses can be seen, and the vineyards surround the village. Some members of the group had a funny time playing in the snow! The landscape was wonderful under the white cover.
In Ménétru Le Vignoble, we were to meet Mrs Chevassus, a wine grower who was to talk about her work. Usually, winegrowers are male, and here, we had an exemple of a female working as a male.
Unfortunately, we had another problem: there was a power cut in Menetrux Le Vignoble and we couldn't join Mrs Chevassus because the road was covered by snow and it hadn't been cleaned. Fortunately, Mrs Chevassus was able to come to Château-Chalon and explained us how she worked. We took refuge in the church to listen to her!
Then, we took the bus to go to Arc et Senans and it's famous Royal Salt Works. There, after lunch, we were divided into two groups: one for the visit in French and one for the visit in English.
The Royal Salt Works at Arc et Senans were built by Claude Nicolas Ledoux (1736-1806), a famous neo classical French architect who had lots of utopian projects. The guides explained his vision of the world and how he thought that creating nice buildings would make people better and happier. Students had to answer questions about the Royal Salt Works.
Eventually Wednesday was a great day, rich in good moments in spite of the snow and the cold.
Château Chalon
Arc-et-Senans