Maison de Zola, Médan

I was one of hundreds who made the annual pilgrimage to Médan today, the home that Emile Zola bought with the proceeds from the sale of his first best-seller, L'Assommoir. The house will be closed now for the next three years and reopened as a renovated museum and research centre. It was quite a moving experience to see the diverse group of people who came to pay tribute to Zola. I took lots of photos that will no doubt end up in future powerpoint presentations for my classes on Zola. I snapped this while the crowds were listening to the speeches in the garden to the side of the house.

Because there were so many people and so few buses, I ended up walking back from Médan to the train station in Villennes-sur-Seine. It was a long walk but gave me a chance to see the two villages and to come across some things that surprised me, like the communal laundry bassin in Médan and beautiful homes and public parks in Villennes.