On our trip to Provis yesterday it was kind of hard not to notice that the majority of the buildings are from the Middle Ages or shortly after. The tour guide told our group that there are at least 300 buildings that are from that period. Instead of turning the whole town into a “museum town”, it became a part of the functioning urban and modern lifestyle. Or that’s how the UNESCO website described it.
This UNESCO world heritage site has done a remarkable job maintaining the whole town and making sure that the historical importance is still in tact. This site reminded me of another UNESCO site I visited earlier this summer in Taos, New Mexico. These two sites were very similar because they preserved a whole town (or in New Mexico’s case, a pueblo). The goal of doing this is to keep the history of the area while incorporating it with modern society. However, I don’t believe that goal has been reached. Both Taos and Provis are tourist towns, and their economies are highly dependable on the people that get shuffled in and out of these places. After visiting these two vastly different sites, I believe that they are somewhat stuck in the past because that’s all that they know. In Taos, the people that live in the pueblo are trying to find that opening into the modern world and in Provis, the people seem to eat, sleep, and drink the midevil times. These two places were so touristy, that it was a little overwhelming.
In class, we’ve discussed how Paris is able to encorporate the new and the old in such a swift and simple way. When I walk around Paris, it’s crazy to me that so much history is embedded in this city while just around the corner there’s an H&M. Paris has encorproated itself into the modern era, so how is it that places such as Taos and Provis are unable to do the same? Maybe it’s because they’re more on the country-side, maybe their enconomies are too dependent on tourism, or maybe its UNESCO’s agenda and/ or criteria. I’m paraphrasing here, but our tour guide made a comment on how Provis is dwindling away from modern society. How is it possible that some cities are able to encorporate the modern while others simply cannot?
I actually asked our tour guide what people in Provins do for a living, because I was struck by how quiet the streets were and how much tourism must mean to the economy. She said that other than tourism, people worked in farming or commuted to Paris for work. Personally, a 1hr 15 min commute to Paris seems really long, but maybe if people don’t have to be in for work super early, a longer commute wouldn’t be such a big deal.
It’s definitely interesting to see how some places are more modern than others. My parents told me that while they were in Italy, there was a town not too far from the villa that only spoke Italian and refused to adapt to modern life because if the old way of living was good enough for their parents and ancestors then it’s good enough for them. I wonder if a similar thing is happening in Provins or if it has to do with the fact that it’s a UNESCO site like you mentioned.
This was really insightful and now that you mention it, Provins did seem over touristy and very stuck in the medieval time era that it was representing. I remember speaking with another classmate about what it must be like to live there, and how neither of us would probably enjoy it because it seemed so detached from the modern world. I did like the short visit we took there, though.