Wow!
Château de Guédelon
http://www.mirabilis.ca/2006/07/03/chateau-de-guedelon/
From the Telegraph: Hard hats and woven bonnets.But what is this? The tap tap, tap tap of mallet on chisel. The thump thump ting of a blacksmith’s hammer, bashing red-hot iron on an anvil. Rocks are being split, baskets of mortar hauled up the walls of a tower by means of a man walking in what appears to be a very large, wooden hamster’s wheel. This all-too-human activity takes place around the stumps of some castle walls, but here is no ruin. Piece by piece, slowly, a completely new castle is rising. The stonemason has carved the inscription, "Welcome to the 13th century".
This is the Château de Guédelon, an extraordinary exercise in living history. Behind it is a visionary-cum-amateur archaeologist-cum entrepreneur, Michel Guyot - the sort of dreamer who may disappear at a moment’s notice, but nevertheless gets things done. He may wear a country gentleman’s quilted jacket, but this only thinly disguises his deeply Gallic romanticism. [continue]
