Wendy's Platter…travels

November 9, 2025

Watching the up escalator like a hawk, I, of course, almost missed Skylar who, when faced with an escalator, elevator, or anything other than a stairway, will choose the stairway. This was true when he lived in New York City walking the 20 blocks to and from work, climbing the 10 floors to his office, and always taking the stairway between the floors in his skyscraper building. And for fun he ran the 8 mile loop around Central Park almost daily. He now lives in Seattle on the 30^th floor and I think he has succumbed to the elevator only as it saves time in his day. The almost daily 8-mile run now takes place in Seattle.

What this means, as Skylar joins us for the next month of our trip, is that Nick and I will have to step up our stepping and walking game…which we have already stepped up considerably since we left Humboldt County two months ago.

Ah, but Thiers is the perfect foil for Skylar. It is all uphill.

Skylar arrived in Clermont-Ferrand by train from Paris around 10:30 giving us a couple of hours to explore that city before we needed to get back to Thiers for the knife making class that I had arranged for Skylar.

Our previous trip to Clermont-Ferrand was in October when we were trying to find a way to get our absentee ballot to Humboldt County. Clearly, our efforts were worth it as we saw the results come in from the election at the beginning of this week. Not that our two votes changed anything, but we made our voices heard.

The Cathedrale Notre Dame de l’Assomption stands “comme d’habitude”…(as usual) on a knoll in the center of the old town of Clermont-Ferrand. My previous post (Euro Days 39-42 of 100: No Kings…but Castles) discussed the plethora gargoyles that adorn the gothic cathedral but failed to explain why the church is black. And it is stunningly black.

My assumption [only a minor pun intended, as the catherdral includes l’Assomption (the assumption), in its title] was that the black color of the church was simply the dirt and soot of a city over the past almost 800 years. I was wrong…or perhaps mostly wrong. The color of the church came from the dark volcanic stone, trachyandesitic type, indigenous to the very volcanic Auvergne area. When entering the church, the deep rich colors of the stained glass windows against the darker volcanic stone is stunning. It is believed that this cathedral was fashioned after Saint Chapelle in Paris, often considered one of the most beautiful in France.

Skylar is attempting to hit his 2 TB memory limit on his new iPhone on the Cathedrale Notre Dame in Clermont-Ferrand. I am in love with the ascending gargoyles from the top of the cathedral.

Skylar, putting his new iPhone to work, quickly showed me a couple hints and tricks and left me to play with my own phone. Saturday was market day in old town Clermont-Ferrand and due to the old town configuration, there was no center market but rather vendors around every corner. Skylar bought a few bottles of fresh apple and pear juices to bring back to Thiers.

The first photo is NOT a distorted panorama of this renaissance building but rather a convex building built to follow the street and hillside behind it. On the right is not an arched building but a mural of an arched building. Not sure if it was a representation of something that had been in Clermont-Ferrand.

As Skylar clicked away at the Renaissance and occasional medieval buildings, Nick asked how much memory he had in his phone, as we wanted to make sure he left some for the very photogenic Thiers. Skylar only laughed…2 TB (terabytes) should get him through and the infinite Cloud would be his backup.

It was time to head back to Thiers to make our knife-making appointment. Nick stayed in the apartment to rearrange furniture to accommodate our new guest. Skylar and I headed down the hill to our class.

The Robert David atelier is a warehouse building with a retail shop with more knives than you can imagine. Even Skylar, the knife king, slightly raised his eyebrows at the number of knives. I decided to join him in making a knife and we were shown into the “classroom” which has a long workbench with small anvils spaced along the side to accommodate up to 12 amateur knifemakers at a time. On a Saturday afternoon in November, it was just Skylar and me. We would not be forging the steel, but rather assembling the raw parts into a finished knife.

Skylar watches as our instructors starts gathering the parts for our knife assembly. In the right hand photo, in the small container are all of the parts of the knife to be assembled: on the left are the two pieces of wood rubber-banded together that will become the handle; in the center is the decorative stainless steel back of the knife; and on the right is the actual blade. To the right of the components is a hammer, metal pinchers and a file.

Skylar’s French is excellent, thanks to a semester abroad in France, so he had no trouble following all the instructions and explanations of why things are done the way they are. I caught probably half of it, enough not to stop for a translation at every step. Still, there were times Skylar came to my rescue. More to the point, our instructor was determined not only to let us “do it” but also to make sure we ended up with a finished product that worked, was attractive, and in which we could truly be proud.

As we were handed the raw materials, I was slightly disappointed, thinking that we would have a very rough looking knife. Clearly, I had no idea of the processes that made those materials into the beautiful finished product.

Our instructor carefully shows and explains. Skylar carefully drills the holes for the pins that will hold the knife together and in the next photo is beginning the assembly of the knife by inserting the pins and tamping them into place. In the bottom photo, the instructors checks to make sure all of the pins are in place.

Our instructor walked us through each step, carefully explaining the importance of each, then letting us finish that step as many of the processes were repeated. Looking over at Skylar’s face in concentration, I realized mine must have been similar, except my wayward tongue, that seemed to have been helping my concentration. I tucked it back into my mouth.

In the top photo are the different grades of sanding that the knife will go through. Next: the instructor changes the sanding belts with ever more fine grit as he continues the refining of the knife. Note that in the photos, the instructor uses different places on the belt to achieve different results. Skylar catches a photo of his knife as it finishes the belt sanding portion.

Once the knifes were assembled, our instructor took us back into the polishing room. There was a large electric belt sander with a small stool by it. I immediately flashed on the knife makers of the previous century, lying on their stomachs over the spinning grinding wheel with a dog nestled on their legs for warmth, while they honed and polished their knives in the rock, very cold, usines (factories). I was happy I would not have to assume that position to finish my knife.

The last three areas of polishing, from a black paper, to a cloth, to what was described as a kitchen scrubber. Suddenly you have a beautiful, polished finished product.

In fact, all the next steps were done with finesse by our instructor as he explained each of the seven levels of polishing from the four different belt sanding processes to the three that brought out the beauty of the juniper wood handles and buffed the metal.

For his last step, he disappeared into the depths of the shop with our knives and told us to wait in the showroom. As we waited for him, we had a new appreciation of the knives before us. He returned with our finished products with our names etched on them: “fait par Wendy” and “fait par Zven”…(made by Wendy…Zven).

We came bubbling back to our apartment where Nick had rearranged our apartment for our last few days here. It actually worked well…Skylar in the kitchen and our dining room table in the livingroom. All settled, we decided to take Skylar on his first tour of Thiers, hoping to find some food.

My favorite one-guy tea shop where he creates magic from a tiny kitchen and serves everything on fine china. Skylar looks on with his hot chocolate in hand as Nick solves one of the puzzles. I am busy eating more than my share of the cookie.

As seems to be our problem, it was the wrong time for a meal, but we ended up with hot chocolate and a cookie at my favorite salon du thé where the owner does it all. From there we wandered the old alleys around the streets above our street and then headed into our absolute favorite part of town, down the alley next to our apartment.

Just a few more shots of the half-timbered beauties. In the photo on the far right, I love the whimsey of the placement of the timbers. In the bottom photo is the church we “shut down”…We are not very good at “painting the town red…”

Although it was heading on dusk with minimal light in our medieval part of town, Skylar immediately “got it.” The endless half-timbered buildings, mixed with Renaissance, and the occasional “new” 18^th century buildings kept Skylar’s iPhone in constant motion. Nick and I got to show off each of the little nooks and crannies from the seven deadly sins, to the man of the woods, the out of this world tea house, to the peddes (above the alleyway passages between buildings), to the almost 1200 year old church. We laughed as we were scooted out of the church after dark by the woman trying to close it for the night. We may not have shut down the bars, but, by golly, we shut down the church!

La Cocina was our ultimate choice for dinner. In the middle photo of Nick and Skylar in a heated discussion, look at the wall at the ceiling there is a white block. On the right is a photo of it. Nick and Skylar debated whether it was “156Z” or “1565” which started Nick on a math lecture about how numbers came from the Arabics….who got them from India…and went on to explain why we have a 12-base for a clock or circle…and so on….ask Nick sometime to explain with his knuckles…not that is not a threat!

After much hemming and hawing about where to have dinner, we ended up in the restaurant that is the closest to our apartment but has never been open when we tried to eat there.

La Cocina turned out to be delicious. Our late afternoon hot chocolate had taken away some of our appetite, but that didn’t stop us devouring everything.

Well satisfied, we walked the 25 steps back to our building, settled in to making plans, and eventually tasted some of the half dozen pastries Skylar could not help but buy earlier in the day. We showed restraint, saving some for another day.

Sunday morning was particularly lazy but Skylar, armed with our suggestions from the night before, took off to explore Thiers on his own. Nick and I took to our computers for a little more catch up. When Skylar returns, we will find a Sunday dinner spot.

Only two more days in Thiers…then on the road for almost a week as we head towards Lagos, Portugal.

©2025 Wendy Platt Hill

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*Although Skylar is my nephew, I was very close to him thourghout his childhood. During his eighth grade graduation speech, while he thanked his parents, he also thanked me, his “other” mother. Aside from the tears (of joy) it brought me at the time, it has been an ongoing title between us. My sister Betsy, (his birth mother) approves and has subsequently adopted (along with my sister Di) my son Cory. And, I have happily added Carrie as an adopted daughter, along with my bonus daughters, Ellen and Mary, Nick’s daughters, and Kirspin, Nick’s son. We are a big family!