Yup, It's Old

This afternoon I took a guided tour of "the old city," the theme of which seemed to be, "Check it, this place is old." At first I assumed the tour would be guided by some boring old fart who wants to drone on and on about construction materials, but then I saw this sassy old broad looking at everyone's tickets. She was wearing a fedora and a fanny pack and smoking a cigarette; I was beyond excited.

I figured we were waiting on her to finish her ciggy before getting started, but right about the time she stubbed it out with her shoe, another dame showed up and proceeded to drone on and on about construction materials. (I tried to pay attention at the beginning, but I confess to having major vocabulary deficiencies when it comes to masonry, so before long I'd tuned her out.)

We started out at the cathedral, where there was quite obviously a wedding taking place, but the guide just took us on in anyway. I'm sorry to say that I was unable to get photos of the groomsmen, whose suits were grey and, I am not exaggerating, shiny. It looked like they were wearing aluminum foil-- I've never seen anything like it.

A note about Le Mans: they are very, very proud of their old city. They love the fact that it has been used in numerous films, most notably the Rappeneau version of Cyrano de Bergerac. (Great movie-- see it if you haven't.) Anyway, they mention this constantly, the way people in Tours mention that theirs is the purest form of French, or people in Mobile mention that they had Mardi Gras first.

As we were about to leave the cathedral, a handsome young man walked in, and the hat lady snagged his arm and asked him a question. I couldn't hear what it was, but I didn't think much about it. The group left the cathedral and walked down to admire some really old walls, and when I looked up again, Hat Lady and Cute Guy were getting in his car and leaving together. What the heck just happened there?!? I have no idea, but whatever it is, it's awesome.

You can see lots of pictures of old buildings here.