Category Archives: Cathedrals

Carcassonne to Cannes and The Fonsernes 9 Locks

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Day 49, Monday, October 16th, 2023

Today we travel from Carcassonne to Cannes.  It is a 4 1/2 hour drive if we use the toll highway and 7 1/2 hours without so we decide to pay the tolls.  We make a side trip to Beziers to visit the Fonsernes 9 Locks.  On our way there we drive by a very strange design on Google maps… I wonder if it might be some sort of irrigation system?

A bit of research solves the puzzle.  Who knew?

‘The Étang de Montady, or Pond of Montady is a drained pond or lagoon.. It was built by monks and wealthy Béziers landowners during the second half of the 13th century. The Étang de Montady was drained to provide farmland by making radial ditches from a single center point out to the extremities.  The water flows to this center point and is then drained by sixteen vertical shafts to an underground culvert.’~ info from Wikipedia.

It was a bit of a challenge to find the locks.  First of all we drove to the town of Beziers where we thought we would find the locks, but there were no locks in sight.  We did find a spot to have our lunch though, overlooking a pretty river and the Cathedral Saint-Nazaire.

We check at the location again and this is what google maps tells us!  Really??  We need to get from the blue arrow to the red pin…and we do it!  Pretty impressive navigating and driving I think! I wanted a photo of this pretty bush covered with orange berries, and Bob hams it up by giving himself an orange moustache.

The Canal du Midi connects the Mediterranean Sea to Toulouse.  It has 360 navigable kilometers and there is a drop of more than twenty meters from this location to the town of Beziers.  The locks were built in 1676 to deal with that change in elevation.

We watched these two boats make their way through the locks.

The water level begins to lower…as the water pours into the basin below.

Soon the water levels in the two basins are equal and the lock gates open…

and the boats advance to the next basin and this process is repeated 7more times.

This boat with four couples from South Africa barely has room to squeeze through the open gates.

The 9 locks of Fonseranes have a total of 8 ovoid-shaped basins and 9 doors and in 1996, they were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as is the entire Canal du Midi.

At the bottom of the locks there is a gate that appears unused for some time.  It has grown a water garden on its backside.

Back on the highway we pass through yet another toll booth.  This one is pretty big.  The crazy thing is that on the other side there are no lanes.  Once you pay your toll the gate goes up and all the cars need to merge back onto the highway.  It is kind of crazy.

Bob says he can tell we are getting close to the French Riviera because there are expensive cars on the road.  A Lamborghini costs anywhere from $221,000 to more than three million dollars!  I can’t even imagine driving a car that is that expensive.

The turn off to Cannes is a bit convoluted…we have had a lot of strange routes on this trip.

We check into our next Airbnb…only this one has palm trees and a view of the ocean in the distance.

 

 

Carcassonne, Friday 13th…

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Day 46, Friday, October 13, 2023.

Bob decided he does not want to drive on Friday 13.  I didn’t know he was so superstitious!  That works for me.  I am happy stay put for a bit.  We had originally planned a couple day trips from Carcassonne: to Albi to visit the Toulouse Lautrec museum and to Toulouse for a tour of the AirBus factory.  That isn’t going to happen now as I’m not feeling up to two long days of travel and sightseeing.  Too bad but it is what it is.  So I have a quiet morning and Bob goes exploring. He climbs the hill to visit the back side of La Cité.

He walks over to the cemetery we saw in the distance yesterday.  We both enjoy visiting old cemeteries.

On the way to La Cité he walks along a wall covered with a medieval style mural spelling out the name Carcassonne.  We saw this at the end of street when we walked to La Cité yesterday but didn’t look at it then. I was unable to find out any information about this, which is a shame. It is really quite lovely.,

In the late afternoon we both go for a little walk.  I find more gargoyles, well…actually Bob was the one who spotted these.

We go into Église Saint Vincent and… discover that we can climb the bell tower for just 2.5 euros!  I’m not wanting to do it today but I hope we can get back another day.  We have climbed a lot of bell towers on our other trips, but so far not a one this time.

The old city in Carcassone has a lovely big open square with a fountain and lots of restaurants and cafés around its perimeter.  There are lots of people sitting outside enjoying the lovely evening.

I had to get a photo of this huge old Sycamore tree.  I wish they would grow back home.  Our winters are just too cold.

Shop windows are starting to display Halloween items.  These creatures are all made of chocolate.  We have seen so many closed shops, restaurants and galleries.  Every block in this old part of town, which is frequented by tourists, has at least one or two shops that have shut down.  On some streets almost every second shop is closed. I am pretty sure this is because of Covid.  It makes me quite sad.

 

Medieval Cité in Carcassonne, France

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Day 45, Thursday, October 12, 2023.

I’m feeling bit better this morning so we go visit the medieval citadel called la Cité.  It is a half hour walk and we pass a church on the way that has incredible gargoyles.  I love gargoyles.

I thought this one was particularly interesting. This is one of the entrance gates to the old city of Carcassone.

The medieval city, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has 52 towers and 2 ramparts.  Bob is standing beside a sculpture of Dame Carcas who ruled the city when it was attacked by Charlemagne in the 8th Century.   After being under siege for five years, there was only a sack of grain and one pig left to eat.  Dame Carcas fed the sack of wheat to the pig and threw it over the ramparts at the enemy, who thought that they must have a lot of food left if they could throw it over the walls, so they called off the siege and left. Dame Carcas had the bells of the city rung in victory, “Carcas… sonne” means  “Carcas is ringing”.

This is the massive entrance past the outer ramparts into the Cité.  This citadel has two sets of walls and two ramparts for protection.

and I am standing at the entrance to the residence of the ruling family built inside the fortress in 1130.

Here is another view of what is really a fortress within a fortress.

Our visit starts with a walk along part of the ramparts overlooking an interior courtyard…

and continues through some of the buildings and towers.

These wooden additions to the ramparts allowed soldiers to attack the enemy from above.  There are holes in the floor to allow attack from above on anyone trying to enter the fortress.

I was expecting to see furnished rooms, similar to our visits to the chateaus of the Loire Valley but any rooms we walk through are unfurnished.  A couple room have sculptures that were removed from Saint-Nazaire Church during the restoration of this walled city in 1846 and placed here for preservation.  I particularly liked these carved heads that were part of the exterior cornice.  They are all smiling cheerfully.This is mostly an opportunity to see the fortifications that make this citadel so unique.

I love all the colours on this old tiled roof.

From the ramparts we can see the path we will be taking when we leave the citadel, however we found a set of stairs near the beginning of this long ramp that is a much shorter route.Carcassonne  is now considered to be the largest and best conserved medieval fortress in Europe.  It is impressive with its set of double walls and ramparts.  Both sets of walls and the area between them can be seen in this photo.

This one tower looked out of place, it was built with different stone blocks and had a different look that the rest.  

The Saint-Nazaire Basilica has an outdoor theatre that was built where the cloister once stood.  It is just visible behind the church and has 5,000 seats and is in use for productions every summer.

We sit for a while inside the church listening to beautiful cello music.  I think the musician just liked the acoustics…he played several songs and then just got up and left.

On a plaque outside the church is a reproduction of drawings of some of the church’s gargoyles drawn in 1858.  I guess I am not the only one who likes gargoyles!

On our way home.

 

Market day in Sarlat-le-Canéda, France

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Day 40, Saturday, October 7, 2023

Saturday is market day.  We woke up to the sounds of vendors setting up their tents and tables.  This is the view from our window. After breakfast we go check out the market.  The streets are crammed with vendors…

There are fresh fruits and vegetables.  These little radishes are so yummy, and very reasonable, just 1euro for a big bunch. However there are many more vendors selling a variety of meats and foie gras.  I’m afraid we weren’t tempted by these stalls.

These are duck and goose livers, and other items that I do not even recognize.  The chickens and I think perhaps grouse all still have their heads!

This is the old church that is now an indoor market.  You can see the big doors open behind Bob.

We try out some street food…

and after a stroll down another street…

We head back to our apartment for lunch, perhaps not the healthiest, but it sure was good.  We saved the beans for our dinner.

We wander through the Cathedral Saint-Sacerdos, and I find these beautiful reflections from the stained glass window. We visit the Hotel de Maleville which has an artist’s studio on the top floor attic.

The stairs up to the attic have seen a lot of use.

The attic roof is ‘shingled’ with fieldstone’s.  These ‘Thackstone’ roofs are very steep.  This shape distributes the weight throughout the walls.  Once a thackstone roof is installed, it does tend to stay in place! Here is a peek at the underside of one of these roofs.

Here is what these roofs looks like from the outside.  The Gisson Manor is composed of two different buildings linked by a hexagonal stair tower. This manor’s origins are in the 13th century.

The artist, Adrien Kenyon, https://www.adriankenyon.com/ who works in this unique studio makes collages, and has an interesting sense of humour.  The collages are unique, and large.

He doesn’t mind people taking photos and just asks to be given credit for his work.   Here is another beautiful old building, the house of Etienne de La Boétie.  He was born in Sarlat on November 1,1530 and died on August 18, 1563.  He was a French magistrate, classicist, writer, poet and political theorist who died when he was only 32.

We find another building with artist’s studios and there are two rooms full of works similar to these.  I lost the artist’s card so don’t know her name, but I wonder about being able to draw all those tiny circles.  Some of the artwork is a 90 x 60 cm or larger.  

Another studio has a variety of work, some interesting, some not so much.

Time to go home, but first here is one more of Sarlat’s medieval streets.

Gouffre de Padirac and Rocamadour, France

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Day 38, Thursday, October 5, 2023

Today we are visiting the Gouffre de Padirac which is about 1 1/4 hours east of Sarlat. This cave was opened to visitors in 1899 and now receives 800,000 visitors a year.  A gouffre is sinkhole or pothole.  Well, this is one heck of a pothole!  

We climb down several flights of stairs cut into the rock and exit this first staircase to start descending the metal exposed stairs on the side of the gouffre.  We are going way down there.

When we reach the bottom…we look up…way up…

and then down…and surprise…more stairs. Once we are inside the cave there are even more stairs…

We finally reach the floor level of the cave, after descending 543 stairs!  But wow!  It was so worth it and non flash photos are allowed everywhere except during the boat rides, so I am happy.  Yes…there are lakes and two boat rides 103 meters below the surface!

I took this photo after we disembarked from our boat ride.  The lake that we rode on is called Lac de la Pluie, because it is always raining. We had light rain falling on us on that part of the boat ride.  Can you imagine continuous rain? and at 103 meters underground!

Our walk continues past amazing rock formations …

that are enormous…

with incredible shapes and colours…

only to arrive at the beautiful Lac des Gours with crystal clear reflections.

At the far end of this lake we can see the river below with an old boat.  I don’t think the public is allowed in that part of the cave.

At this point we are given the option of returning the way we came or we can continue to another part of the cave that requires climbing more steps…lots more steps!  Of course we choose to continue further into the cave!The displays here shows some pictures of cave exploration…not for me..it looks cold, wet and exhausting and rather frightening as well. In all, 42 kilometres of galleries have been mapped by speleologists but there are still more areas that have not yet been explored.

There is a warning that there are lots of stairs, and wet, slippery sections…that isn’t going to stop us.  So up we go… And there is another lake, twenty metres above the river!  Mind boggling!  Lake Superior (Upper Lake), is crystal clear and an incredible aqua colour.  The round tan shaped formations on the right hand of the photo form a dam that holds the water in this lake.“A remarkable stalagmite lies above the lake. It is nicknamed the Pile d’Assiettes (Pile of Plates) because of its surprising resemblance to stacked-up china. It is a typical high-roof stalagmite formed when such a structure exceeds several tens of metres in height. Drops of water fall to the ground at great speed and explode, depositing limestone in circles and giving rise to very flattened formations.”  ~ https://www.gouffre-de-padirac.com/en/salle-du-grand-dome   We are standing beneath the Grand Dome, which rises 94 meters above us.

This diagram shows how high above the river Lake Superior is, and the incredible dome that rises above it.

There are still more steps, many more steps…

and many more amazing formations…

that are enormous. Bob is in the bottom of this photo to give an idea of their size. I am quite relieved that we do not have to climb these steps!

This is a magical underground world!

More formations, just because they are so wondrous…

and I am amazed by their colours. It is difficult not to include all even more photos.

We need to descend way down there!

We continue to walk by so many rock formations…I have run out of words to describe how amazing they are.  Édouar-Alfred Martel, the discoverer of this cave said that these are “Marvellous areas that can only be lived in by fairies.”     

We need to go way down to where that light is.

Finally we can see the dock for our return boat ride.

But first we still pass by even more formations.  The roof on the bottom right protects us from water drops as we walk past this one.

All too soon we are back at the boats.  Honestly, I would have been happy to just turn around and trace our steps a second time…but there are no washrooms down here!  This boat just arriving is the one we take on our return journey.

We sit right at the front, so we will have a great view of the Grande Pendeloque (Great Chandelier) which is a 60-m-long series of calcite formations that seems to hang in the air above our heads, but no photos are allowed on the boat trip.

We reluctantly make our way back to the exit.  One last photo in the cave.

We decide to take the elevators back up to the surface from here.  We are going to visit Rocamadour this afternoon and it also has lots of steps.

It is less than a half hour drive to Rocamadour, which is a famous pilgrimage site and a  UNESCO World Heritage site.  It takes a while to figure out where to park but we finally find spot near the top rather than the bottom of this cliffside village. This it our view while having lunch.

We are disappointed to discover that the ramparts are closed for restoration.  We were looking forward to the views from the ramparts,  so we start on our way down towards the church and chapels.  Part way down the winding path, this cave marks the end of the Stations Of The Cross.  Turns out we are starting at the end instead of the beginning.  

One of the fourteen Station of the Cross.

I did mention that it was a winding path, and fairly steep.

Looking up towards the ramparts, with the afternoon sun looking low in the sky because of the steep angle.

The trees and hillsides are covered with ivy.  The grounds are not terribly well kept here.

Finally we enter the Sanctuary… 

and walk past many plaques engraved with thanks for prayers answered.

Some of the churches and chapels are built right into the stone cliffs, which are visible in the back of the 850 year old Basilica of St. Saviour.

The Black Virgin in the Notre Dame Chapel.  A group has arrived for a private mass so we don’t stay long.  This is the second Black Virgin we have seen on our travels.

In this spot, in 1166 the perfectly preserved body of an early Christian hermit who died in 418 AD was discovered… St. Amadour.

However, there is also a small chapel and a patron saint for Rugby!  We were not expecting that.

A view of the valley from the sanctuary.

We start walking back up the hill to our carpark.  We decided not to go all the way down to the Medieval village at the bottom of Rocamadour.  It now consists of lots of shops selling tourist souvenirs and restaurants.  It has been a long day and we are ready to go home.

I loved this little red leaf stuck on the side of this rock.

There is a little church in the hamlet of L’Hospitalet on our way to the carpark but it isn’t open so we head home.  We were both a bit underwhelmed by Rocamadour….it didn’t have the presence that we were expecting…although we are not really sure how to explain why.

Tours, France

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Day 25, Friday, September 22, 2023

Today we explore Tours.  Our apartment is within easy walking distance of downtown. First stop is the Tours Train Station which is one of the prettiest train stations in France. The architect is the same one which designed the station which is now the  Musée d’Orsay .  I can see the resemblance. The inside is decorated with tiled pictures of French towns and chateaus.

We pass a little patisserie and buy couple treats for our tea time.  So far I am able to have the odd gluten treat with no ill effects, although I am sensitive to gluten at home. They were delicious!

We visit the garden behind the Beaux Arts Museum and see this phenomenal tree!  It is an enormous Lebanon Cedar with a height of 31 metres, a width of 33 metres and a trunk with a circumference of 7.5 metres!  It is a magnificent tree.  

I love big trees, and this one is one of the biggest I have seen.  It has enormous cones, and long arching branches, some of which lie along the ground.  Pictures do not do it justice.

There are flowers and lots of benches.  The device just above the red flowers is used so that the gardeners can sit or perhaps lie down and weed without having to walk in the flower beds.

This is Fritz the Elephant.  He died in 1902 in Tours.  Please take moment to read about his tragic death.  He was stuffed and is on display in the gardens. https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2017/05/26/fritz-the-elephant/  

St. Gatien Cathedral is very ornate.  

The decorative work on the outside of the church is very delicate and beautifully carved.

This interesting coffee shop/art gallery was under part of a building and open to the street.

Tours has horse drawn wagons!

These medieval buildings lean out over the street.  Each floor extends a bit further out than the one below.  Note the interesting carvings on the grey building.  There is just so much to see everywhere.

This photo has an interesting story.  We were having tea and I noticed that there was a large duffel bag sitting unattended on a bench some distance from us.  It made me rather nervous.  We have seen signs to be aware of abandoned bags or other unusual activity.      Several people walked by and looked at the bag, but just kept walking, until this fellow walks by, turns around and sits down beside the bag.  He sits there for about 5 minutes, then casually stands up, looks at the bag, picks it up and quickly walks away.  Pretty sure the bag wasn’t his.  Tours is a university town and Bob figures someone just forgot their bag, but I wonder how anyone leaves a big duffle bag behind.

On the walk home we pass this flower store.  If we had a bit more room in our apartment I would have bought some flowers, they were so beautiful and not terribly expensive.

Mont St. Michel, France

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Day 22,  Tuesday, September 19, 2023

Here we are walking out to Mont St. Michel.  It is a three kilometre walk from the car park to this UNESCO World heritage site.  Be warned, this is a photo heavy post.

The sheep under the bridge attract a lot of attention.  I wish I had time to sit and draw them, but Mont St. Michel beckons…

Almost there!

We climb the ramparts right after the entrance gates while the sun is shining.  There is a chance of rain this afternoon. The Abbey church dominates the skyline.

The streets below are crowded and more people are arriving by the minute.  The group with the white hats are pilgrims from Southern France.  I spoke to one of the ladies later in the day who sat by us while we were having lunch.

I love the little conical roof over the dormer window.

The streets are narrow and they fill up quickly.  We are told that in high season you can barely walk through the streets as there are so many people.

Soon we are among the hordes of people climbing the tall narrow 319 steps to the Abbey.

We bought our tickets online so we get to walk right past a long line of people waiting to buy tickets.

This model of the abbey shows the back side which is only visible if you walk on the sands  at low tide or travel by boat.There are usually 5 monks and 7 nuns who live at the abbey and there are only 25-30 people who actually live on Mont Saint Michel. We sat and listened to part of the mass, from the side of the church.  The singing was really lovely and I found it interesting that the nuns and the priest sat on the floor of the church during the service.

Next we walk through the cloister with its many narrow columns and a view of the church tower.

The Host’s room has two enormous fireplaces. Here I am standing in one and the little round circle is looking up the chimney towards the sky.  This is where food was prepared and where the Abbot received important visitors.  The bottom photo is the Refectory where the monks ate their meals.

Another view of the Host’s room with its beautiful arched ceiling.
There are so many interesting doors in this abbey.

The Crypt des Gros Pillars (Big Pillars’ Crypt) with its ten huge pillars was built to support the choir in the abbey above.There are so many smaller rooms and interesting spaces to be explored.  This one is off the side of the crypt.When the Abbey was used solely as a prison in the 1800’s, this huge wheel was was used to haul supplies up to the abbey.  Prisoners walking inside the wheel were able to raise and lower a cart along a stone ladder inclined along the rock wall.  

Here you can see where the cart was hauled up the side of the abbey.

The Salle des Chevliers or Knight’s room was most likely used by the monks as a place of meditation and for copying and illustrating manuscripts.  

When we walk out into the gardens we see that the ocean is now at low tide and the sand bars are visible all around Mont St. Michel.We hear shrieks and peals of laughter and realize that is is coming from the people out walking on the sands now that the tide is out.  Some of them are thigh deep in the water!  There are a lot of people out there, some of them way off in the distance.  Thanks, but I am happy to pass walking in mud and cold water.

We stop at this little art gallery and I have chat with the artist.  She has a variety of different styles and media, and I found her work very appealing.

It starts to rain so we duck into the Parish Church of St. Peter for a well needed sit down.  I draw the statue on the wall while Bob rests and then goes for a little walk about so that I have time finish my drawing.

I forgot to see if there was plaque saying who the sculpture was.Bob took interesting photos of the inside and outside view of these two stained glass windows.

People are still coming and going…lots of people!

This photo of the bell tower just barely shows the golden statue of St. Michael threatening a dragon, who represents evil, with his sword.  St. Michael is perched 156 metres high, is 4.5 metres tall and weighs 520 kg. The statue is made of gilded copper and serves as a lightning rod.

We wander the back streets which most people seem to ignore. There are lots of steps…. …interesting details…

…narrow streets… …crooked roof lines…

…fantastic rooftop views…

…more steps and stone walls…

…the narrowest street ever…This is Cuckold’s Alley!

I think I may have mentioned steps…

and buildings tucked into the strangest places…

…and more steps with a tiny view of the ocean…

…which leads us back to the Main Street.

Time to cross the drawbridge and leave Mont St. Michel.

We say goodbye to Mont St. Michel after 7 hours of exploring this fabulous island.  

Day 21,  Monday, September 18, 2023

Yesterday was a stay at home day. No photos, just relaxing and catching up on my blog and planning the next part of our trip.

Saint-Malo, France

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Day 20, Sunday, September 17, 2023

We are on our way early this morning to catch the ferry to Saint-Malo. Yesterday’s walk  was at low tide and there was no water here.  High tide was at 9:30 this morning…what a difference. It is cloudy, much cooler and there is a chance of rain today.The ferry loads right at the top of the ramp, yesterday it was down near the bottom of the ramp.

After a ten minute ferry ride, the captain docks effortlessly at Saint-Malo Take note of how high the water is.

Soon we are walking the ramparts of Saint-Malo. The walls below are as thick as these walkways.

There are still some cannons protecting this walled city..Checking out the view… …and here is the view.  The tide is already starting to go out and more beach is visible.

That dark line on the pillars and the wall is where the water reaches at high tide!

The Etoile du Roy  is the second largest replica tall ship in France. For most of the year, she is moored in the port. The Etoile was originally built as the Grand Turk for the British ITV series Hornblower, and has appeared in several films and TV series.  it was closed to visitors when we were there, too bad.  It would have been very interesting to climb on board.

We visited and art exhibit in a very strange venue…it was full of very large, very old, very smelly engines.

After lunch we  visit the Saint-Malo Cathedral. This cathedral was heavily damaged in the liberation battles at the end of WWII where nearly 80% of the city was destroyed.  Somehow the walls protecting the city remained undamaged.  The cathedral has been restored, keeping faithful to its original form. The stained glass window are beautiful…

and the sunlight shining through them throws colour over the interior of the church.

There are several beautiful modern Biblical paintings.

The rose window is magnificent and the unique altar and podium are glazed ceramic. 

Saint-Malo’s most famous seafarer was not a corsair (pirate) but the explorer Jacques Cartier. Born in Saint-Malo in 1491, it was from his home port that Cartier set out on his first voyage of discovery to the New World, where he was to establish “New France” on the Gaspé peninsula of the North American continent, now a part of Quebec. On a second voyage, Cartier sailed up the Saint Lawrence river, as far as a point where a hill rose up on the north bank of the river. He named it “Mont Royal”… or to use the phonetic spelling of the age, “Mont  Réal”.   Cartier is buried in the cathedral at Saint-Malo. ~AboutFrance.comBack to the beach where it is getting closer to low tide.  These pillars are wet higher than I can reach.

The tide is low enough to walk to Fort National.  There is a flag flown at the fort when it is safe to do this.

We walk to the fort and Bob finds more old cannons to examine.

The view from the fort to the walled city of Saint-Malo. Just a few hours ago all those rocks were under water and boats were able to sail through here!

This man’s wife was fixing the scarf around his neck as we walked by.  Bob chuckled and said this was going to be us in a few years, having our picnic lunches with tea towels on our laps!  

Walking back to the port there is now a swimming pool visible where earlier we could only see the top of the diving board. This is the same ‘island’ that we saw earlier…

when the tide is higher, and we see boats crossing between it and Saint-Malo. When we arrived the water was almost up to the white part of this lighthouse..

…and we got off the ferry just above the red arrow on the right of the photo.  When we leave to go home we get back on the ferry way down on the bottom left of the photo.  It is hard to believe that the water level can change that dramatically in just a few hours.

We have to walk a lot further when we arrive back at Dinard because the ferry could not sail into the main dock.  We boarded at the top of this ramp this morning!

A lot of the boats that were in the water this morning are now beached on the ocean floor.  We were lucky, the day turned out warm and sunny…no rain.

 

 

 

Rouen the Musée Le Secq des Tournelles (The Iron Museum), Rouen

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Day 14, Monday September 11, 2023

It is raining when we leave this morning and we take a  photo of our reflection in a store window.

We visit the Musée Le Secq des Tournelles, the Iron Museum, which is housed in an old church in Rouen.

The main themes represented are shop and property signs, cutlery, trade tools, objects of embellishment and enjoyment, and equipment and decoration for churches, homes and doors, particularly locks, coffers and caskets.  The first photo is looking down from the second floor. There is a lot to see here.

I take the opportunity to sketch a little dragon wrapped around a post.  I love dragons, and there are several wrought iron ones here.

There was a class of high school students here when we first arrived, and they were all sketching objects in the museum as well.

Bob finds all the locks very interesting, and there are ‘Swiss army type knives’, moustache trimmers, with containers to catch the cut hairs and beautiful coffee bean grinders.

This large trunk has a very intricate lock that opens with a key in the very centre.  The locking mechanism is visible on the underside of the lid.  We think it was probably a strongbox for storing money and valuables with such a complex lock.

On the way home we pass Saint-Ouen Abbey, a large Gothic Catholic church that is undergoing extensive restoration.

We walk around behind the cathedral and can see the part that is not shrouded in tarps and scaffolding.  It is magnificent.

There is a little garden behind the cathedral and these miniature cyclamen are in full bloom.

These pillars block traffic unless the driver has the code to make them sink into the road. A favourite pastime of children in Rouen is waiting until a car passes over one of these, they quickly step on top and balance as the post raises up to its original height of about two feet.  

We finally find some houses with dates on them. The brown sign says 1590 and the green on is 1740 or 1711, depending in the last letter is an L or an I.

There is street after street of these ancient homes and shops.  These are only a few blocks from our apartment.

Although the buildings are very old, most of them have new windows.  Good windows help to block out the noise of living on busy roads.

Joan of Arc and the Rouen Cathedral

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Day 11 Friday, September 8, 2023

After a sleep in and a bit of a quiet time we walk to downtown Rouen.  On the way I find the cutest little car!Then just two blocks later we see three of its siblings!  These are the perfect cars for parking in France’s cities.There is so much to see in Rouen. I thought this was the Notre Dame cathedral but it is the much smaller St. Maclou Catholic Church.  There are 35 churches, abbeys, monasteries, and ruins in and around Rouen and most of them are from the Middle Ages.Rouen’s Notre Dame Cathedral was the tallest building in the world (151 m) in 1876, and still keeps the record of being the tallest cathedral of France. Photo courtesy Wikipedia.
The inside is awe-inspiring.
This is just one small section of Rouen’s Notre Dame cathedral.  It is enormous! As is their pipe organ, but there was no organ music today.

This stunning staircase leads to a library, unfortunately with no public access.

Much of the cathedral was damaged during the WWII and we wonder if these are shrapnel fragments?

I love this statue of the Madonna and baby Jesus and the light that falls on it.

The statues from the outside of the cathedral have been moved inside to protect them from further damage and the photos below show the process of making replicas which are now on the face of the Cathedral.

Here are some of the originals…

and the replicas. You can see the replica of the first one beside the main door outside.

We are staying for the light show at the cathedral when it gets dark, so we have time to visit the Joan of Arc Church.  The cross marks the spot where she was burned at the stake in 1431, and the church is supposed to represent a boat.

And here is the interior.

I love gargoyles and spot these on a smaller church we walk by near the cross for Joan of Arc.The Gros Horloge (the Great clock) is one of the oldest clocks in France, the movement was made in 1389. It has a different face on either side and it rings on the hour, the half hour and the quarter hour. This fellow spends his time on the street busking for money…only he plays the same song over and over and over.  No variety at all to his performance.

While we waited for the light show at the cathedral I drew the people sitting and walking by. I decided to draw directly in pen, which is a bit more challenging but I am quite happy with several of the drawings.

While I think of it, here are my first metro drawings from Paris.  I forgot to post these earlier.  I was particularly pleased with the top right hand lady, I really captured her well.  I draw with a Bic ballpoint pen when doing my metro sketching. I love how I can get a variety of lines and that the drawing almost looks like graphite.

It is getting dark and people are gathering for the light show in front of Notre Dame.

The show begins and it is spectacular. Here is a little video that gives a better of idea of what we saw. https://youtu.be/r_KhQMqvhIk?si=NFokSZYjIwopCI93