Silver Men and Smithies

There was a time as little boys we dreamed of going into battle as silver men on fiery steeds with lances poised and broadswords drawn.  But...the silver men are gone with childhood dreams!  At the Musee de l'Armee in Paris old men can relive those dreams. It has one of the largest collections of body armor in the world.  Full metal body armor came into being about the 14th century. You see men wanted to protect themselves in battle. Armor had been around in Greek and Roman times but not full body armor. Not silvermen!

The Roman soldiers wore breastplates and helmets. But not full body armor. Full body armor is usually associated with the 14th and 15th centuries. When men learned how to produce better metal and forming it, full body armor become possible. The metal could be shaped to cover individual parts of the body. Arm, leg, hand, foot and so on. A new type of blacksmith emerged...the armorer. A blacksmith that specialized in making armor. His basic tools were the hammer and anvil. He would have used a forge to heat metal to make it more malleable, so that it was easier to shape. But most of the shaping was done by brute force. Intricate curves were all shaped with a hammer.   The most difficult design problem was to design a suit that allowed freedom of movement while providing protection. Once this design problem was solved the only uncovered part of the knight were the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet.  The armor of the kings and wealthier nobles was decorated by way of embossing, etching, and engraving. Gold and other metals could be inlaid in intricate designs.

Nowhere is there more variation in design than there is in helmet design. The face may have been

enclosed or revealed. There may have been a hat brim or not. Heavily ornamented or plain. Plumed or not. There seemed to be endless variety. One of the biggest problems for the wearer was how well he could see!  Particularly peripheral vision! Whatever the design was, the purpose was the same… to protect the head!

Interestingly enough the weight of a suit of armor was less than you might think. A knight’s armor weighed only 60 to 70 pounds. Roughly the same weight as carried by a modern foot soldier. But the knight rode a horse. Incidentally armored horses weren’t very common. The armorers were no longer needed in the 16th century. Armor was no longer in use. The development of firearms had made full body armor useless.

When, as boys, we dreamed of going into battle as silver men our dreams were spawned by history. Nobles frequently took their sons as young as 12 fully clad in suits of armor into battle.

Just as we as boys had dreamed.

• musee de l'Armee Hotel national des Invalides, 129 rue de Grenelle - 75007 Paris
• www.musee-armee.com

It's About Service...

In our travels we have had some interesting encounters with desk clerks. For the most part they have been positive encounters.  However...it was not always the case.

While visiting Venice we chose not to stay in Venice proper but rather to find lodging an a nearby island. A great idea. The cost was roughly one half that of a hotel in Venice proper. However, little did we know of the  adventure staying on Lido would hold for us.  When leaving Venice we had to catch first water taxi in the morning to get to the train station on time to board our train for Florence. Upon awakening we could find no desk clerk at the desk. We found ourselves locked in the hotel. After  trashing the front desk, we found a key to the door and were able to get to the train station on time. (read more about this in the blog post: Escape from Lido)

In Villefranche-sur-Mer the desk clerk was quite helpful. The French town is on the French Riviera and we had reserved a room on the third floor with a balcony overlooking the harbor on the Mediterranean Sea.  Due to my medical condition I prefer to use an elevator to reach higher levels rather than a stairway. The helpful clerk informed us that he elevator was not very dependable and may stop between floors. But he quickly added that he would get me out if needed! The next day we were going to catch a train for Nice to visit the Matisse museum and leave our rental car in the parking lot. It was one of those lots  where you deposit some coins in a machine that prints a ticket for you to place on the dash of your car showing that you’ve paid to park. Much to our chagrin the ticket dispensing machine was broken. When we spoke with Jacques, the desk clerk, he said he would take care of it. And he did.

Bed and Breakfast hosts have been quite helpful and offered interesting anecdotes during our travels. When in Alaska the hostess, Mrs. Walker, of a B & B encountered a bear while picking blueberries for our breakfast. Her husband entertained us with stories of hunting mountain goats in the mountain peaks. And in Scotland our host  entertained us with bluegrass music while showing us his collection of stringed instruments. We had a breakfast of kippers at the bed and breakfast on a loch.

One of our most interesting experiences was in Spain. My wife, Claudette, makes all our travel arrangements. Many times she communicates with hotels via the internet making reservations. She had spent considerable amount time communicating with a young Spaniard named Javier. Javier was a desk clerk in a Madrid hotel. He was extremely helpful with directions on which subway train to take from  the airport and exactly which streets to walk to get to his hotel. He was an extremely helpful young man. During our stay in Madrid, Claudette decided we needed to do some laundry.  Normally we would find a coin operated laundry and do it ourselves. But in this instance Claudette thought she would let Javier take care of the chore. “No problem,” he said and sure enough did deliver our clean clothes the next day. Much to my surprise, Javier washed my red shirt with my underwear. The rest of the trip I lived in fear of being admitted to a hospital in pink underwear!

We have found over the years that the most interesting things in travel isn’t the places, it’s the people.