Finhan and Montauban: Focus in France February 2025

One of the things we love most about traveling is discovery and exploration, and all that follows in the tail of a simple walk or visit. Curiosity, as well as insights, come with afternoons in new places, knowledge is hooked on experiences, experiences point to questions, things are connected or disected in new ways, all inspired by going new places. 

In Finhan, where we live in February 2025, not much is happening. The church in the square strikes its hour, funnily enough, twice, so if you didn't quite remember to count the first time, you get another chance. Pretty nice. Pretty peaceful. Not even that to stress about. The pigeons take off poetically from the open bell tower, audibly flapping their wings across the usually completely blue sky, in the silence their shared wingbeats are a whisper of presence.

It's nice to just be.

The city doesn't tempt you with anything other than walks under the interwoven poplar trees, which form a natural cathedral to walk through on your way out of town, down towards the fields, the lake and the river. The post office is open for a few hours a day, and on the main road a small Carrefour can cover most of the needs you might have. The silence is good for us. We are usually very busy, in February we keep our focus. The journey of discovery is in architecture, nature, people and thoughts. People play boules in the square on Sundays and buy baguettes by the meter from the bakery when it is open occasionally. People are well dressed and well behaved, smiling. We are welcome, even if, because of our license plate, they think we are German.

Montauban is a bigger town nearby. We strolled there one afternoon in wonderful springtime sunshine. Enjoyed the river with a dam and canal with canal boats, discovered that the city is the first “brigade”, an urban construction from the Middle Ages that builds a fort and a city in the same breath. Carcassonne is the shining example, which has been sold in the thousands as a board game and which, well preserved, has become so much a tourist attraction that it is almost like visiting an amusement park: there is a battle for the tourist's economy, enjoyment, indulgent desire for adventure. You can easily go there and look up in stead, walk on the city wall and experience the historic Carcassonne - but you have to concentrate, otherwise your attention will be swept up by candy shops and silk scarves and other luxury shops, restaurants and other distractions.

Well, Montauban is such a brigade city, originally one of the first (the second oldest to be precise). Founded in 1144, one of the really old cities. Founded and founded. In 1144, when our culture was just leaving the Viking age, it was granted the status of a free city by the ruling nobleman in Toulouse. There must have been a city before, so what does that really mean? A whole lot it seems, because now the city is being fortified, and people are moving in from the surrounding cities, it is all growing.

In the thirteenth century, less than a hundred years had passed, the city was hit by the Crusades against the Cathar religion, a crusade launched by Pope Innocent the Third. It is comical to call a man Innocent by name when he launches a war. This crusade meant destruction throughout southern France, and as a result, the building style; the city that is a fortress became the way to go, and supported by the nobility. According to Wikipedia, 700 such cities were built in France, England and Wales over the next 150 years.

You could go on and on. The Hundred Years' War, the Black Prince, King Richard of England, several Crusades. Traveling stimulates the desire to read, to understand, these stories of bygone times and connections between fortunes, coincidences and events become interesting in new ways, because we are there, have been there, relate to the surroundings that today are an extension of once upon a time.

Anyone who doesn't know their history 3000 years back, only lives from hand to mouth, Goethe is said to have said. You get really stressed! You know? The interest is there, the rabbit holes you can disappear into when curiosity makes your eyes light up. But I would not claim to know everything 3000 years back, nor would I agree that means I am living only from hand to mouth. 

Allegedly, these urban constructions were the beginning of the end of the feudal state in France. Something about tax relations and economic interests and the concept of vassal versus free man. The nobility encouraged and supported the construction of brigades, where trade could be conducted and taxes could be collected from trade because it eased the pressure on taxes on production (i.e. the tax they paid as landowners), but since moving into the city gave the status of "free man" it destabilised the entire foundation of feudalism.

Who wouldn't want to be a free man?

Back then it was pretty clear, but nowadays:  do we know what exactly that means?

These reflections were another indicator to discuss the book: The Price of Unfreedom. So far this book is only published in Danish, but you can listen to a podcast we recorded with the author about it, episode 109 will be released Feb 27th. Or just go read his book "Pseudowork", this one is out in a lot of languages, and also very impactful. 

Montauban is a beautiful town, I had never heard of before we arrived in this part of France, to spend a month of focus time far out in the countryside. The shutters are painted in blue and brown colors, the streets are paved with natural stone in fine patterns, the river runs through the town, old and new bridges rise up so that you are overwhelmed by the engineering and the mathematical nature of them, making things possible in a seemingly impossible way. A walk through the town and over some of the bridges lifts the spirit in the sunshine. They are tall, the bridges, and the old bridge is very beautiful with a whole island structure of trees that have stuck while drifting down the stream, caught something, formed roots, created a gripping function for the next ones, then a whole line of deposits and trees, from which birdsong rises up to the wanderer.

Place Nationale offers a fountain that unfolds like a mirror, an enormous puddle in the center of the square, quietly reflecting the sky, shining, without visible construction of any kind, just a few centimeters of water that is occasionally decorated by fountain art: Pearls of dancing water balls shoot up playfully, stop in the momentum, splash, sing their joy of light and gravity and the element itself: the fine possibilities of water, changing into sloshing rays, larger, rhythmic splashes and spreads, so much fun in the sunshine.

The cathedral stands majestically and white, bombastically overwhelming - and closed, you can't get in (temporarily closed). But you can enjoy the herb garden in the square in front of it and walk further into the light to a smaller church, the Eglise Saint-Jacques de Montauban which in its raw and unrenovated form still has infinitely beautiful frescoes on the walls and ceilings. The walk in the city center is beautiful, it is architecture, people, aesthetics, small luxury shops and squares with the obligatory cafes and restaurants.

Am I just telling you about a day in the life? Is that what travel blogging is?

Our personal experience of Montauban also includes the phenomenon that the town is big enough to have a centre commercial in the outskirts, and we could change a pair of pants in Decathlon and pet the camels at the traveling circus that had settled in the area with the big stores and large parking lots. It made me smile that a cozy pancake food truck was standing temptingly outside Decathlon, even though I can't eat a single ingredient in the pancake myself. The enjoyment of life, the little moment in the sun, the personal initiative in the middle of all the big chain stores just lifted the day even more, before we started the big car and drove back to the completely quiet Finhan, where we could then dive into understanding where it all came from and how it all fits together.

Just for household needs. Not suggesting we know our history of the past 3000 years at the back of our hands, no. Goethe might have said we need to, in order to not live only from the hand to the mouth, he might even be somewhat right. But this can do. Curiosity, appreciation, passion, gratefulness and exploration.

That is one of the epic aspects of living a fully nomadic life.