The Slower Road

The CIAT at Cuts is a really, really beautiful event. The setting is perfect — in a park, in front of a chateau — and the dozens of participants (around sixty this year, I believe … I’ll have to double-check) have a wide variety of horses and ponies, and three donkeys this year, put to an even wider variety of vehicles.

I bought a new, much larger, memory card for my camera before we left on this trip, and it allows me to take A LOT more photos than I could with my old card, so I don’t ever have to worry about running out of photo memory at an event. In just four days, I’ve taken more than a thousand photos. So, needless to say, I haven’t had time to sort through them all yet.

Until I can sort through them and give a full CIAT Cuts report, here are just a very few photos from the past two days, to whet your appetite …

These ponies were approaching the second of three stations where they would be judged on all aspects of the turnout (i.e., standing presentation). The judge at this station was Raimundo Coral Rubiales of Spain.

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This pair of ponies was at the third standing-presentation station on Saturday, being judged by Richard James of England.

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This lovely restored vehicle was made by the Page Brothers Buggy Co. of Michigan.

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We saw this pair of horses on Sunday’s drive.

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After the prize-giving on Sunday afternoon, most of the turnouts trotted in a parade of sorts past the chateau.

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In both Brussels and Noyon, we’ve happened onto the most fascinating exhibits / tours of underground spaces. We’ve been underneath a portion of a Brussels palace to see the gothic-arched cellars of a chapel that was once part of an earlier version of the palace. On that visit, we also saw and walked on a narrow, cobbled medieval street that’s been buried underground for a few hundred years.

Here in Noyon, we visited the town’s beautiful cathedral, which is considered the earliest example of the gothic style in France.
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While there, we discovered that that very evening was an installment of occasional underground tours of this cathedral. For nearly two hours that night, we and just three others learned about Noyon’s early history, visited numerous medieval and later cellars, saw an ongoing archeological dig (underneath a hotel!) of the town’s Roman and medieval market, and more. Absolutely fascinating, and it gave us a better appreciation for and understanding of what we were seeing above ground.
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The gorgeous international driving event at Cuts began yesterday and continues today. Both A.J. and I took (and will continue to take) tons of photos, but I haven’t even begun to sort through them yet, so I don’t have any to post at the moment. Stay tuned.