Tempus fugit! The Great Clock

April, 2010 Rouen, France
Sitting in an outdoor cafe, sipping "un cafe" and people watching .

Wandering through Vieux Rouen (Old Rouen), a warren of tiny streets lined with hundreds of half-timbered medieval houses, you will find the Le Gros Horloge (the Big Clock). The symbol of Rouen, the clock is located on a beautiful stone archway crossing the rue du Gros-Horloge.

In 1409 a clock face was installed on the archway over a gate in the ancient Roman walls.

The current archway and clock faces (one on each side of the archway) were rebuilt between 1527-1529. On the two Renaissance clock faces:

• a single hand indicates the hour: time didn't need to be more exact!
  
• under the number VI, an image representing the day of the week (Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn and Sun) appears on a chariot at noon
• above the clock face, a globe indicates the phase of the moon

Because it speaks to me...

"...Man has no harbor, time has no shore;
It flows, and we pass! ..."

from the poem Le Lac by French poet Lamartine:
...L’homme n’a point de port, le temps n’a point de rive ;
Il coule, et nous passons !...

"But meanwhile it flees: time flees irretrievably, while we wander around, prisoners of our love of detail."

from the poem Georgics written by Roman poet Virgil:
Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus, singula dum capti circumvectamur amore

"I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive." Joseph Campbell