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Category Archives: Historic Buildings

Reims Cathedral, Carnegie Library and the Saint Remi Museum

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January 1. 2024

I have thirteen days left of our holiday that I did not post on my blog.  I really want to get them finished so I’ll be working on them this month.

Day 79,  Wednesday, November 15, 2023

This is our last day in Reims and we catch the metro downtown.  Reims has a great metro system that is all above ground because of all the champagne galleries beneath the city.

First stop is Reims’ famous cathedral, Notre-Dame de Reims which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. This cathedral is bigger than Notre Dame in Paris and has more than 2,300 statues on its facades, including a gallery of 56 kings.  All but seven of France’s kings were crowned at Reims.

Inside there are wonderful stained glass windows. There are the traditional rose windows but there are also several modern windows, including this set of three windows behind the altar that were designed by Marc Chagall.

This golden eagle makes me think of the Nazi eagle symbol…it seems out of place here.  A bit of research and I discover that the eagle is also the symbol of John the Evangelist.

The enormous pillars each have a candle holder with a red cross in a circle painted on the pillar.  I wasn’t able to find any information about this symbol, but I am curious about their meaning.

The front doors to the cathedral are enormous and they are flanked on either side by a wall of statues.

The second winged angel just to the right of the central statue is the Reims Cathedral’s famous Smiling Angel.  During WWI the cathedral was the target of German bombing. Struck by a beam of burning scaffolding, the angel was decapitated and its head broken into more than 20 pieces. It became a symbol of the suffering of the people of France, and its photo appeared on the front pages of newspapers around the world. A priest collected the 20 pieces of the head and with the help of a plaster cast of the statue kept in a museum, the angel was restored in 1926.

The cathedral was heavily damaged during the war and reconstruction appears to be an ongoing process…these statues look quite new.

Next stop is the Carnegie Library. The Carnegie Library of Reims is a public library built with money donated by businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie to the city of Reims after World War I. It is built in an Art Nouveau style and is very beautiful.

The card catalogue is still on display.  I remember looking up books using this system and now it is all computerized!

What a gorgeous place to study.  There is even a monitor to make sure all is well.

It isn’t a big library.We are beginning to see some Christmas decorations.  This huge Christmas ornament is just outside the library.

Next we walk for about half an hour, in light rain, to see some restored tapestries in the Musée Saint Remi.  It is a large museum with many other exhibits besides the restored tapestries depicting the life of Saint Rémi.  The museum is in a former abbey and has a magnificent central staircase.

I adored the expression of this bird on a fragment of XII century sculpture.

We finally find the room with the tapestries and once again we are absolutely astounded at the size, complexity and beauty of these tapestries.

There are only three panels of the original ten that have been restored and returned to the museum. Here are the other two tapestries.They are very large!

Close up photos showing some details…

and here’s a couple more.

This large sculpture from 1500 was on one of the staircase landings.  I thought it was quite beautiful .

There was huge room full of model boats and other nautical items…

and rooms with amazing mosaic floors and Greek and Roman pottery.

This very ornately carved piece is a sarcophagus from 367 A.D.

One of the people working at the museum told us to make sure we saw the display about early Magdalenian people who lived at Lascaux.  I particularly liked these wonderfully constructed miniature models.  We had visited so many caves and learned about the people who lived during this time.

The simple entrance to the museum is deceiving.  There was more than we could see in the time we had there.  All too soon the museum was closing and we were ushered out.  Bob is checking Google Maps to figure out how we are going to get home.  Thanks heavens for Google maps…it certainly makes it so much easier to find our way around.

We walk past the enormous Saint Remi Basilica.

It seems to never end…

but we don’t get a chance to go inside as someone locks the entrance door just as we get near.  It is late anyways and time to head home.We saw starling murmurations as they were looking to settle down for the night.  It is such an amazing sight to see so many birds flying together.

Reims, Champagne and WWII

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Day 77, Monday, November 13, 2023. and Day 78, November 14, 2023

Reims is  the unofficial capital of the Champagne wine-growing region in France, and many of the champagne houses headquartered here offer tastings and cellar tours.  Today we are going to Maison Mumms for a tour and champagne tasting.

I like the yellow leaves on the sidewalk outside our apartment.

On our way to Maison Mumms we pass the Cimetière Du Nord which opened in 1787.  November 1st is All Saints Day in France,  this is the day that families visit cemeteries and place pots of chrysanthemums on the graves.  We walk through a little bit of the cemetery to see if the flowers are still there and they are.  I wish we had more time to explore but we  don’t want to be late for our tour of Maison Mumm.

Bob noticed this evergreen that had been trimmed back to reveal a tombstone from 1852 and I liked the statue holding flowers. 

There is a war memorial near the cemetery with bouquets of red, white and blue flowers…the colours of the French flag.

The entrance to Maison Mumms…this is an enormous complex, and it is a wet, cold day.  

We are happy to wait for the start of the tour where it is warm and dry. .

Mumm Champagne has been enjoyed in some very unusual places…When Captain Jean-Baptiste Charcot became the first Frenchman to set foot on Antarctica ,in 1904 he celebrated with a bottle of champagne.

In 2022 astronauts enjoy Mumm Champagne in space!

We also learn that Mumm rhymes with room, not mom.  Maison Mumm employs a thousand seasonal workers to harvest their 216 hectares of grapes by hand.  The grapes are carefully picked and then pressed on site in the vineyards to ensure the juice is of the highest quality.  These enormous oak barrels are no longer used in producing champagne. 

For a time champagne was fermented in concrete vats that are lined with white tiles.  The tag on the front of each vat shows how many litres each vat held…6,850 litres in this one! 

We descend 40 meters to the galleries where the champagne is stored to mature.  Notice the black mold!  I am shocked to see that there is black mold everywhere.  Our guide explains that the people who work in this area get ‘danger pay’.  She says there is no way to control the mold growth!

Maison Mumm has 25 km of galleries that took 58 years to build.  These galleries are carved out of the natural chalk stone.  There are over 150 kms of these galleries under the city of Reims.  Reims will never have an underground metro system because of all the tunnels beneath the city.  The champagne is stored in racks to allow the sediment to settle in the neck of the bottle.  The bottles need to be turned a quarter turn approximately 25 times over a period of six weeks.  Today this process is mechanized but there are certain champagnes that are still turned by hand.  There are two workers who still do this and they can each turn 50,000 bottles a day!

We walk through a maze of gallery after gallery where we see thousands of bottles of champagne maturing in smaller side galleries.

Maison Mumm buys 8 million wine bottles a year but our guide is not allowed to tell us how many bottles are stored here.  It is hard to imagine millions of bottles of champagne maturing in these galleries, and this is only one of nine Champagne houses in Riems.  A Google search reveals that here are over 200 million bottles of champagne below the city of Reims!

During WWI  the citizens of Reims sheltered in these galleries as their city was bombed repeatedly.  They made schools, hospitals, sleeping quarters, living for years in these galleries.  In places there are reminders of this time scratched into the gallery walls.

One of the galleries is locked as it stores the most expensive, rare bottles of champagne.

After many years the champagne loses its bubbles but it then turns into a very fine, very expensive bottle of wine.

The longest gallery is named the Champs-Élysées. It stretches as far as we can see in both directions!

This map of one small part of the galleries shows how the galleries are arranged.  At the beginning of our tour our guide told us not to fall behind as she didn’t want to lose anyone down here!  

There is a museum down here with some of the equipment that has been used over the years in the production of champagne…and more mold!  I would not want to spend very long down in these galleries.

Champagne is sold in many different sized bottles, from the smallest which is 1/4 of a standard bottle to the 9 litre Salmanzar pictured here.  But they also have even larger bottles.  The Nebuchadnezzar holds the equivalent of 20 standard bottles and serves 120!      

After our tour we have a tasting and toast.  Our French holiday celebrates a milestone anniversary.

After our Mumm tour we walk to the Musée de la Reddition, or the Museum of the Surrender.  This museum in Reims commemorates the end of World War II in Europe.  It is located at the actual site of the surrender, which took place at a red brick school just northwest of the train station, now named the Lycée Roosevelt.  This was the location of  the Allied Command Center of General Dwight Eisenhower.     At 2:41 am on Monday, May 7, 1945, officers of both sides signed a declaration of unconditional surrender, ending World War Two in Europe. I am amazed to see that this is a very short simply worded document…and wonder what such a document would look like if signed today.

The signing took place in the headquarters’ Map Room which has been preserved as it was at the time.  The walls are covered in war maps and statistics, and the table at which the generals and admirals sat for the signing are exactly as they were on May 7, 1945.

There is a photo of those present at the signing of this document and their nameplates are still on the chairs they sat. Other rooms hold exhibits of uniforms, press reports and war artifacts.  There was also a very informative film which we both found interesting.

This is a view of the nearby train station which we see on our way to catch the metro home.Stay At Home Day

Day 78, Tuesday November 14, 2023

Today is rainy and cold, a good day to stay home, rest up a bit, get some groceries and do a bit of planning for the rest of our trip.  We are both still a bit low energy after our bout with Covid.

 

 

 

 

Dijon, Musée Des Beaux Arts

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Day 74, Friday November 10, 2023

This is day five since I got Covid and I am feeling better today so we go explore a bit of Dijon.  Bob has been out and about but I haven’t seen anything yet.  When we are around other people I wear a mask.  I shouldn’t be contagious anymore, but just in case…I wouldn’t want to make anyone else sick.

I love these geraniums growing on the landing windowsill.

First stop is the indoor market which is only a couple blocks from our apartment.  I have never seen such huge lettuces or cheeses!  The chrysanthemum plants were a bargain, only 5€ each.  There is also an outdoor market along the streets around the indoor market.  It is a busy place.

This floral display on the side of a building caught our eye.

Next stop is the Musée Rude.  This is a tiny museum, just one room with casts of sculptures created by Francois Rude who was born in Dijon.  Below are Mercury Fastening His Heel, Joan of Arc Listening to Her Voices. and Napoleon Awakening to Immortality. These casts were ordered by the Dijon museum between 1887 and 1910 to study and promote the work of François Rude.The cast of The Departure of the Volunteers of 1792 , commonly called La Marseillaise , was made in 1938 by the French government, when it was feared that the Arc de Triomphe in Paris might be destroyed during the war. It is huge!

Here is the original  in Paris.

Dijon has its own Arc de Triomphe.  At one time this was one of the gates in the ramparts that surrounded the city in the 1700’s.  Now only the gate remains.

We visit the Moutarde Mille shop to buy a jar of Dijon Mustard.  In ancient days verjuice, or the juice from unripe grapes, was used to make Dijon mustard. Dijon was recognized as a producer of mustard by the thirteenth century and it is now regarded as the mustard capital of the world.  We can’t visit Dijon and not buy some mustard.This fabulous Art Nouveau building was built in 1907.  It reminds me of some of the buildings we saw in Barcelona.

There is a well in the courtyard to the Musée of Beaux Arts that seems to be a wishing well, so I take the opportunity to make a wish.

The Musée des Beaux Arts is a nice size.  It isn’t so big that it is overwhelming yet it still  presents collections from antiquity to the 21st century.  It opened in 1787 and it is one of the oldest museums in France.  We saw portraits like these years ago when we were in Egypt.

I had to have my picture taken next to this mummy. It is cold outside today and I am happy I have lots of layers to wear but when I see this picture it makes me think of the poem, When I am old I shall wear purple…

I thought this cat mummy looked rather like a child’s toy.

Journey of the Magi was completed in 1475 but it is so much brighter and more modern looking than other paintings from this time.

These fifteenth century wooden statues still have their original paint! 

I absolutely fell in love with this beautiful little Angel of the Annunciation!

And then there is this 16th century statue of Death…it made me think of a zombie!

Looking back into this room I noticed the strange optical illusion that makes it look like the display case in the middle of the room is floating.

There are rooms with very large paintings.

This 1748 portrait of the Queen Maire Leczinska caught my eye because of the casual pose…women were not portrayed sitting with their knees apart, especially queens.

I quite liked this small painting by Honoré Daumier.  Don Quixote is popular and we have seen several paintings of this subject.

The museum is in a wing of this palace which was the home of the Dukes of Burgundy in the 15th century.

There is a huge open plaza in front of the palace, which I am sure is usually busier than it is on this cold and wet day.

As we are walking towards Saint Michel church the sun peeks out and lights up the front of the church.

We are constantly amazed by the number of churches in France…and we are talking huge churches and cathedrals that sometimes took centuries to build. It is astounding and at the same time rather sad because the congregations of these churches are getting smaller and smaller.  I wonder what their future will be?

We head back to our apartment.  I am tired and now Bob is not feeling well and we are pretty sure he has Covid too.  Bob sleeps the rest of the afternoon and evening and I am wondering if I will need to navigate and drive tomorrow!!

 

 

Musèe D’Art Sacre and Musèe de la Vie Bourguignonne, Dijon France

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Day 73, Thursday, November 9, 2023

Our bnb host kindly sent me information for a nearby doctor and I was able to make an online appointment for this afternoon.  Bob goes out exploring and visits the Museum of the Sacred Heart in the morning, and I stay home.  Here is his post……

The Musée D’Art Sacre (Sacred Art) is installed in a Monastery Church and contains Catholic religious sculptures, paintings and gold works from the 12th to 20th century.  There are many varied representations of the Virgin Mary.  This wooden sculpture is from the 15th Century.

A 16th Century depiction of Saint Sebastien who lived in the 3rd Century and is called upon to fight plagues and epidemics.A 15th Century painting of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary, the swords are symbols of the sorrow she endured while witnessing her son’s crucifixion.

A 15th Century wood sculpture of Saint George the dragon slayer.  I find it interesting that Saint George was a legend, yet was worshipped by the Church.

A 16th Century depiction of John the Baptist.  Notice how the young girl is not the same proportional size as the others.

Trudy here now…We walk to the doctor’s for my appointment.  It is only three blocks away and surprise, no waiting.  I sit down and within minutes I was called into the doctor’s office. All I really wanted was a prescription for Otrivin, but I was very surprised to find out that it is against the law for any doctor in France to prescribe decongestants for anyone who has Covid!  Go figure…apparently it can cause permanent loss of smell, which is  interesting because on the internet in North America, decongestants are recommended for nasal congestion caused by Covid.  So instead of a little bottle of nasal spray I walk out of the doctor’s office with four prescriptions!   Methylprednisone pills for the Covid, some other pills to protect the stomach from the Methylprednisone as it is hard on the stomach, a nasal spray that has cortisone in it and Paracétamol for aches and pains and headache!   The good news is that all only cost less than 20€.  I am already starting to feel a bit better than I did the last two days , so I wonder about taking all this?

On the walk home we pass this mural…

and very old buildings still in use.

These half timbered houses are from the 15th century…and they are still in use today! The Notre Dame church of Dijon is just around the corner from our apartment. The interior has beautiful stained glass…

but it is the front of the church with its 51gargoyles, or grotesques, that catches my attention.

I love gargoyles and this church is loaded with them, although the ones on this side of the church are decorative rather than water spouts.

The owl is very important in Dijon, there are even owl cookies.  More on this later.I go home to rest and Bob goes out to explore a bit more.  Dijon is a very pretty city, very walkable and our apartment is only a block away from the old town. I hope I feel well enough to be able to see more of it.

Back to Bob…In the afternoon I visit a heritage museum (Musée de la Bourguignonne)  which displays the community and culture of Dijon from 1880 to 1930.  Objects of daily life reflect the agricultural  and urban history and traditions of the times.  Surprisingly there is little mention of Dijon Mustard.

A typical home with a 4 poster bed to help trap the heat.

A 19th Century clock that is about a metre tall.

Marionettes for the children’s theatre in the 1890’s.  They are about 10 inches tall.

The Charite Hospital had a wing for the Daughters of Sainte-Anne.  They are girls who, “having an infirmity (not explained) cannot be placed in the countryside”.  The charter states “we will carefully try to raise these girls to fatigue, and in a way that makes them fit for the functions of the household and families”.  Not sure what this means, and there were no pictures of these girls displayed, so I am not sure how successful their rehabilitation program was.

These ornate walking sticks were related to the La Mere Folle festival where 20 foot versions of this larger character were paraded through town.

A 1920’s beauty salon that sold wigs tied to the status and age of the wearer.

I don’t understand why such a small clock face has such a big wind mechanism.  It must have run for days without needing winding.

 

Lyon to Cluny and Dijon

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Day 70,  Monday November. 6, 2023

This morning when Bob is taking our stuff out to the car he meets the sniffer dog in the hallway.  He was quite excited to start his bedbug hunt!  I’m sure he gets treats when he does his job well.

Today we are driving to Dijon with a stop in Cluny.   It is cloudy and rainy today and we are surprised to see these sunflowers still in full bloom.  They were finished and harvested over a month ago elsewhere.

In just an hour we arrive in Cluny, find a parking lot and paid .15€, which is about 24 cents,  for all day parking!  What a bargain, although I wondered why they even bothered to charge anything.  It is quite a walk to the Cluny Museum and it is raining and cold.

These medallions set in the road and sidewalks help us find our way…kind of like our walk in Vincent’s footsteps in Arles.  They were really helpful, and before too long we arrive at the museum.  We find out that the museum closes in half an hour so we barely have time to see everything.  Good thing it is a small museum.

The museum is all about the Cluny Abbey,  the oldest Abbey in France.  It was founded in 910.  This is a model of the Abbey in 1250 when it was at its peak.

The lady who works at the museum suggested we visit the library before it closes.  It has a lot of very old books and manuscripts but the room is not climate controlled, and I think the books are suffering because of that.

The books on display have warped, wrinkled pages…from moisture I wonder?  It seems a shame but everything costs money and I don’t think this little museum would have the funds to make the library climate controlled.  As soon as we left the library they locked the doors behind us…they kept it open so that we could see it.  Nice!

In the museum we see this carved stone with the same symbol as the bronze medallions that helped us find our way earlier.  It is called the ‘keystone of the paschal lamb’.  I looked up paschal and it means relating to Easter and the Jewish Passover.

There were interesting carved panels that lined one of the museum rooms.  Every circular design was different than the others.

These reliquaries were interesting.   The relic is usually so revered that the reliquary is traditionally made of precious metals or gems like these two below. Relics may include pieces of bone or hair, pieces of cloth, or natural objects that were significant in the lives of a saint or holy person.  The bottom photo is of two unusual portrait reliquaries.We have a rather quick look a the rest of the museum and then we are told that they need to close up so we go outside to find the ruins of the Abbey.  On the way we walk by a lovely medieval herb garden.

By the time of the French Revolution, hatred of the Catholic Church led to the suppression of the order in France in 1790 and the monastery at Cluny was almost totally demolished in 1810. Later, it was sold and used as a quarry until 1823!  This plaque shows what is left of the Abbey Church…only the black bits remain today.

The Abbey Church was the largest church in the world until the construction of the St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  These are the remains of a few of the church pillars.

Our entrance to the museum also gives entrance to the Abbey.  There is a fantastic 3D film that shows the construction of the Abbey and we walk through many of the existing Abbey buildings.  Today only part of the transepts and bell tower remain of the Abbey Church. There is only 8% of the Church still in existence today, but that little bit is spectacular.  

It is 30 meters up to the vault above us.

Around 1100, Cluny and its monastic order held authority over 10,000 monks and 1,500 monasteries across Europe. The decline set in from the end of the Middle Ages. The abbey became the target of an entrepreneur who used explosives to demolish the buildings, and sold the stones as building materials!

There is a small chapel with sculptures of biblical figures.  Some of then still have bits of their original paint.  We are used to seeing sculptures as bare stone and it is easy to forget that they used to be colourfully painted.

We marvel at this intricately carved stone and wonder at the skill it would have taken to carve such delicate work.

The remaining abbeys is currently a trade school.  Here are some of the hallways around what used to be a cloister.

The granary has the most amazing wooden roof that was constructed using wooden dowels, which you can see in the bottom right photo.The basement of the grainery was used for storage.

Parts of the remaining abbey are shown their age and really need major repairs.

The cloister looks quite lovely… but when I hold my camera up to a broken panel in one of the doors along the cloister walkway this is what is inside!  Not what I was expecting.  I thought these doors would open into rooms but at least some of them seem to be storage rooms…for what looks like junk.

On our way back to the car we pass an artists studio, which is closed but I sneak a photo through the window.  

It is another two hour drive to Dijon and we see a lot of army trucks on the highway.  We wonder where they are going. 

Notre Dame of Lyon and Lugdunum

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Day 67, Friday, November 3, 2023

It is still not very nice outside but tomorrow is supposed to be even worse, so we take a bus and the metro to visit downtown Lyon.  Public transportation in Europe is so easy to use and much better than driving and trying to find a place to park.  We walk across the bridge over the Rhône River towards Notre Dame de Fourvière, the church high on the hill in this photo.

The funicular to the top is 3.50€ each and well worth it.  Sure saves us a lot of stairs.

Notre Dame de Fourvière is impressive.  It took 25 years to build, was completed in 1896, and is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.  This UNESCO World Heritage Site has over 2.5 million pilgrims and visitors each year.

We walk into the church and stop to stare in wonder.  This is one of the most richly decorated churches we have visited.

Everything is in immaculate condition, there are barely any signs of damage or wear.  The column are beautifully carved with magnificent capitals.

The floor is made of many small mosaic tiles interspersed with marble tiles.

A view of the altar and ceiling.  Gilt, marble, stained glass and coloured mosaics cover almost every surface.

On the sidewalls are six 50 square metre mosaic panels. Those on the left illustrate Mary’s relationship to the Church, and on the right, Mary’s relationship to France.

They are spectacular…but difficult to photograph.

There is so much to look at.

Here is a closeup of part of the ceiling…

which is also incredible.

We spend quite a while here, it is an awe inspiring church.  

This close up of one of the pillars shows their intricate decoration…all painstakingly carved from stone.

I need a photo beside these magnificent columns on the church steps.  It is quite cool and windy up here on the hill.  I am wearing 5 layers!

The crypt is closed today as they are setting up for some special event…we have not had much luck visiting crypts this trip.  But just outside the crypt there are these interesting molten candles.

We spend a bit of time at the lookout beside the church…

along with many others…but it is really cold and windy …

so after a selfie we head inside to a nearby café for hot chocolate, regional mushroom soup and a couple pastry treats.  It was so nice and warm inside!

Warmed up, and fortified, we set off in search or some Roman ruins.  These wishing trees are in the courtyard beside the church.

Nearby I spot this little fountain, just for dogs!

There are four church towers and each one represents one of the virtues…Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, and Justice.

It is a short walk to the Lugdunum site.  Lugdunum was the capital of Roman Gaul in the 1st century.  During the Middle Ages it gradually became known as Lyon. These ruins are from the oldest theater in Roman Gaul and it is also one of the largest (108 m in diameter). we are pleasantly surprised that there is no fee to visit these ruins. It is a long ways down, and no railings. This theatre held 10,000 spectators.

Photos show where the theatre was completely concealed in 1933, partially excavated in 1934, and a view of the uncovered theatre in 1946.

Bob spotted these  bits of remaining marble that once covered the stone surface.

We wander through some of the back rooms and alleys, imagining what they must have been used for.

Pretty sure this was a takeout restaurant.  We saw very similar rooms in Pompeii where patrons could buy prepared food.

It is getting dark and the gates close soon so we walk back towards the funicular.

Everything looks different lit up for the night.

We decide we should walk about and see some of the old town of Lyon tonight.  The wind has died down and it is nicer than it was earlier in the day.  There is another huge church here and although it is impressive it looks so bare after visiting Notre Dame on the hill.

Interesting motto!

There were a lot of interesting little shops to peek into, although many of them were already closed for the night.  

We really enjoyed our leisurely stroll through Old Lyon.  The city is pretty at night, but it is getting late so we head home.

 

Avignon, France

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Day 64 Tuesday,  October 31, 2023.

We are visiting Avignon today.  There is always something interesting to see on our drives.  I think this is an old chimney stack that is being dismantled.

There is a free parking lot on an island near Avignon with a free bus ride into town.  The first thing we see when walk through the town gate is this magnificent tree.  I know…lots of tree photos, but I do love these beautiful huge trees.  It is too bad our winters at home are too cold for these beauties.

We have seen so many churches…but every time we enter another one it is different and sometimes there are little jewels to discover.  I loved the contrast between the modern paintings and this ancient Gothic church that was built in the early 1300’s…Saint Agricol Church.  There has been a church on this site since 660.  Then there is the sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows!

The indoor market has a living wall… and lots of seafood.  Too bad neither Bob nor I are fans.  The very last picture is of Lapin…Rabbit.  Not something we are used to seeing.  I had rabbit once many years ago and although it was OK, it isn’t something I am interested  in trying again.  

We used to pick and dry these same mushrooms.  I knew they were a delicacy but I had no idea that Morels were so expensive … 640€ a kilogram!!

There is a flea market outside the  indoor market.  These old copper pots make me think of my grandparents and their copper pots.

After having our lunch we walk through this narrow street built between the walls of the Popes Palace and a rock cliff.

Bob has taken some amazing photos this trip…he might become a photographer yet!

At the end of this street there are some painted windows.  We see several buildings whose windows contain paintings of people.  They make me smile.

I love the look of all the cobbled streets but they sure are hard to walk on for a long time.

This is a scale model of Le Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes). It is the largest Gothic building in Europe!   It was a fortress, a palace, and the seat of Western Christianity during the 14th Century.  Nine popes lived here and it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Our 12€ admission tickets includes the use of a Histopad.  This device allows us to look in any direction, as well as up or down and the Histopad screen shows us what the  room would have looked like in the 14th century.  

I usually wait and try not to have a lot of people in my photos, but it was really hard to do that today.  Everyone stands transfixed, viewing these rooms as they might have been. This room was the treasury and in 1995 a secret chamber was discovered under the stone floor, that still contained precious treasures from hundreds of years ago.  There was no information on how this chamber was discovered.  It is amazing that it would still be there after all this time.  Bob is standing beside this secret chamber in the photo.

In this photo you can just see the top of a sculpture behind the Histogram…

It is made from corrugated cardboard and stands about 5 feet tall by Paris artist Eva Jospin.  I think it is fascinating.  

We take a break in the palace gardens and try to buy a hot chocolate from a machine that only accepts credit cards…it was beyond both of us!  No hot chocolate for us today.

The palace walls rise 52 meters above the garden!

The gardens look lovely from afar but they were actually a bit neglected.  

We return to the inside for the last part of our tour.  However the Histopad photo is not what grabs my attention.
Rather it is the three enormous silk embroidered wall hangings displayed on one of the long walls.  ‘Chamber de Soie’  or ‘Silk Room’ is also created by Eva Jospin.  

We spend a lot of time here as I walk back and forth, studying these huge embroidered panels.  I can not believe how much work it would take to make these.

Here are the other two…

along with some close-ups of the embroidery.

Next door is a small room that used to be a kitchen.  It also has artwork, including this sculpture, ‘Empyrée’, that is suspended from the top of the huge chimney in the center of the room.   Empyrée is from mythology and means ‘Highest part of the sky, where the gods reside’.  I am astounded to read that this is also by the same artist, Eva Jospin.

But then we walk into the next room and see this sculpture that is made completely from corrugated cardboard!  Wow, It is astounding.  I spend a lot of time here as well.  There is so much to look at in ‘Forest Galleria’, or Forest Gallery.  And who is the artist?  Eva Jospin!

Some close-ups of the different techniques used to create this forest.  I cannot believe the size and complexity of this sculpture…

until we walk into the next huge room.  OMG!!  There are simply no words to adequately explain this work called ‘Paysages’, or ‘Landscapes’.  There are three enormous sculptures in this equally enormous chamber.  This one is actually the smallest of them all and they are all made with corrugated cardboard!

This piece is reminiscent of a classical temple on one side…

and here is the back, all overgrown with trees!

These two sculptures are astounding…but then there is this absolutely unbelievable piece that is placed between the other two.  What can I say?

A close up of part of the front…

a side view.  I did say it is very large!

And a view through the center, which reminds me of a river flowing through a rocky canyon.

Honestly,  photos cannot capture the grandeur of this work! I did find a video explaining how these pieces are constructed with corrugated cardboard, but sorry, it is a FaceBook video so not everyone may be able to view it.   https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=437873248434139.      

And here is the link to Eva Jospin’s website.

https://www.suzanne-tarasieve.com/artist/eva-jospin/?lang=en&show=

There was also a room with a video about Eva Jospin and some photos of the process for creating these pieces.  I am in complete awe.

We climb lots of stairs to the roof of the palace.  We started our tour way down there, under the raised seating of this outdoor theatre.

The views from the top are amazing, but it is time to start heading back home.

As we walk back to catch the bus to our car we walk under the Pont d’Avignon.  Bob said they used to sing the French children’s folksong ‘Sur le Pont d’Avignon’ when he was in elementary school.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r8eALyO8E4

We walk through the fortified walls through this rather makeshift looking doorway.

Just as we are leaving to catch our bus one of the town’s little busses passes by.  This is the tiniest bus we have ever seen.

Thanks, if you are still reading and made it this far.  I know this is a really long post, but I want to remember all of it.  I actually pruned out a whole lot more photos!

Arles, France…Walking in Van Gogh’s Footsteps

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Day 62,  Sunday, October 29, 2023

“Vincent van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888.  This was the start of an intense period of activity for the artist, in the Mediterranean light.  Indeed, it was his most productive era and during this 15 months in Arles, Van Gogh produced over 300 paintings and drawings, thus forging one of the most important periods in the history of art.  In May, 1989, Vincent left Arles for the Saint-Rémy de Provence asylum, leaving the name of Vincent van Gogh linked to that of Arles forever.” ~ Arles Tourism brochure.

Vincent spent a year at the asylum before moving to Auvers-sur-Oise in May 1890, where committed suicide on July 27th 1890.

Today we are going to follow Vincent’s footsteps as we walk through Arles, looking for the places where he stood at his easel creating some of his most loved paintings. Arles has placed a copy of each of his paintings at the location where Van Gogh would have stood.

First stop is the courtyard at the hospital in Arles.  Vincent stayed at this hospital three times between December 1888 and May 1889.

I feel like I have walked into a painting…

In the old hospital buildings there is also a wonderful photography exhibit by Pierre Vallet.  We later see some more of his work on display in the Arles Amphitheatre.

There is a sculpture of Van Gogh in the courtyard.

On our way to the next location we pass an old church that is hosting an AI exhibition. The audience is invited to sit and interact with these AI games.Here are the screenshots of some of the other games…notice that one of them has a character named Bob.

We pass a shop window with a creepy window.  Halloween is only two days away!

Arles is a pretty town.  We are trying to follow the not very clear map to find the next location when I notice…

this plaque set into the sidewalk.  So now we just have to follow the plaques, and it feels like a treasure hunt!

The stairs of the Trinquetaille Bridge was painted from this spot.

We climb the steps and cross the bridge, walking beside the Rhône River to our next destination.

We pass these ruins which are Roman baths…looks interesting but we are on a mission.

We pass a couple of old stone façades, just one wall left standing.  Back home it would have been torn down.

Starry Night over the Rhône…too bad the river cruise boats are in the way of our view, but we are able to pick our several of the landmarks in the painting.

We make small detour to check out the remains of a bridge that was destroyed in the bombardment of Arles in 1944.  There are many reminders of both the First and Second World War in every town and city that we have visited.

Then we pass a little carnival that was just getting set up.  I thought it was interesting that they have chairs for the parents to sit while their children are on the rides.  

Unfortunately the Yellow House that Van Gogh shared with Gaugin was also destroyed during the bombardment. It stood on this very street corner.Several young boys were hanging about and one of them, Leron (in the blue jacket) asked me to take his photo.  They were fun.

Van Gogh’s next painting was done in the amphitheater, so we buy tickets to go inside, even though the plaque is outside for tourists to see. The Amphitheatre painting shows the arena full of people, but there aren’t many people here today.

I took some black and white photos in the passageways beneath the seats.  I like how the light streamed in through the openings and all the old stones.

We climb to the top of the amphitheatre tower and get a great view of all the very French rooftops.

And up in the tower what do I find?  Graffiti!  It has been around for a long, long time.

Set in one of the stones at the top of the staircase to the tower is a sea shell, partially buried in the stone and just below it another stone block that is full of smaller sea shells.  I love it when we notice these little kinds of details, details that I am sure many people don’t ever notice.

We take another detour to visit the The Roman Theatre of Arles.  It  is a 1st-century Roman theatre, built during the reign of Caesar Augustus.  Bob is sitting consulting our map to figure out where to go next, as we have wandered off the path laid out by the plaques in the sidewalk.

I just love the way the stone steps have been worn down by countless footsteps over the centuries.

We pass this poster of a young man who is carefully another poster

We walk through this old building to reach the square on the other side…

to look for the painting, Café Terrace At Night.  We find the cafe but there is no sign of the plaque with the painting.  We find the location which must have been very close to the spot where Van Gogh stood.

I noticed that the café isn’t open so I went up to take a peek in the windows.  Everything inside looks ready to receive customers, and there is the plaque that we were looking for!  However….

I think it has been closed for a while, as there is a pile of old  mail on the ground at the door.  Too bad, It would have been nice to go inside for a drink.Walking through this plaza I notice another photography exhibit but it is getting late and we still have one more painting spot to find, so we decide not to go in.

But we do a quick peek inside the Church of Saint-Trophime.  We never know what we will find behind church doors.  Every church is different, ranging from quite austere to the incredible elaborate.

We find the park where the next painting should be located and a monument to Vincent but we can’t locate the painting.  Pansies have been recently planted for the winter garden around this monument.

Bob checks out one part of the park and I go look in another.  The tower is part of the Roman Theatre that we sat in earlier.

Finally we find it!  But looking at these photos, I think we should have turned around and taken the photo of the garden in the other direction.  Guess we were getting tired.  There were three more spots on this walking tour but they are almost on the town’s outskirts and we have once again run out of daylight.

It is only 45 minutes to Nîmes and here we are driving in the dark once more.  One more interesting fact, the whole old town of Arles is a UNESCO World Heritage Site!

Nîmes, France

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Day 59, Thursday, October 26, 2023

Nîmes is a pretty city.  It the most Roman city outside of Italy, and it was the regional capita during the Roman Empire.  Today it has a population of about 150,000.

On our way to the center of town I peek inside this open window and I am surprised to see a boxing ring!

I love this door knocker and it even looks a bit ‘Halloweenish’.

We turn the corner and there it is.  The Amphitheater of Nîmes, or the Arènes de Nîmes.  It held over 20,000 spectators and is the best preserved Roman Amphitheater in the World.  It is so well preserved because it has been in constant use since it was built.  In the 6th century it was turned into a fortress, and in the 14th century it was filled with houses, workshops and warehouses.  In 1809 this was all demolished and work was done to restore it to its original state.

Today, the amphitheater hosts bullfights, concerts and sporting events.  It host many cultural and festive shows all summer long.  We will come back and visit the interior another day…today we are just strolling.

Today it is also offering shelter for this homeless person. The Maison Carrée is a very well preserved white limestone Roman temple that is about 2,000 years old.

Here is another view of the the Maison Carrée from the street opposite to it.  It is impressive.  Both the Amphitheater and the Maison Carée are UNESCO World Heritage sites.

In the 1700’s canals were built to supply a better source of drinking water and to power textile mills.  These mills made ‘serge de Nimes’ or as we know it today ‘denim’ (‘de’ or ‘from’ Nimes)!  Today it is a beautiful park with exotic plants, statues and walkways.

We walk along the canals and find some Pétanque players.  This is a popular pastime everywhere in France, although we have only seen one female player. It is more common to see elderly men playing when we are out and about in the afternoon.  We noticed this extraordinarily tall man on his bicycle which Bob says is the tallest bike he has ever seen.  The men around him barely come up to his armpits!

A Pétanque game in progress, with observers and critics!  The players are incredibly skilled and can knock an opponent’s ball out of the game with one throw.

On the way home we pass St. Paul Church and go inside.  I really liked the sculpture right by the entrance and the dome is beautiful.

One more view of the amphitheater on the way home.  This is only a couple blocks from our Airbnb.

As we were waiting to cross the road two vehicles with fully armed military drive by.  There were four soldiers in each vehicle and they were scanning the surroundings as they drive by.  The sign on the side of their cars says Vigipirate Operation Sentinelle.  They are part of the 10,000 soldiers that are currently active in this operation to defend and protect the French.  As France is currently on high alert the Vigipirate Security Alert System has been at its highest ‘Emergency Attack’ level since October 15th.   This means that our bags are searched when we enter tourist sites, museums and other places where there are lots of people.  We stay aware of our surroundings and we certainly avoid anything that looks like a protest, or large gathering of people.  So not to worry, we are safe.

Cannes to Nîmes, France

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Day 58, Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Time to move on….today we have a four hour drive to Nîmes. We have been using the toll highways for these longer drives as it usually saves us a couple of hours of much slower driving through little towns with lots and lots of traffic circles. Most intersections use a traffic circle here, so Bob is now a traffic circle expert.  I finally took a photo of this beautiful big tree that was in our back yard garden in Cannes as we were leaving.   It had huge limbs that arched all the way down to touch the ground.  Unfortunately a photo just doesn’t do it justice.  

We are only on the road for a short time before the landscape changes, and we drive past red rocks that remind us of Arizona…and cypress trees that make me think of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings.

Now instead of Sycamore/Plane trees lining the roads, there are Cypress and coniferous trees.

We were going to visit Cézanne’s Studio in Aix en Provence, but it didn’t work out.  When we tried to book a ticket online the site wouldn’t allow same day bookings, so we decided to drive there and hope to get tickets.  That proved to be a very difficult task.  Between one-way roads, a couple missed turns and crazy rerouting, we finally gave up.  We weren’t even sure we would be able to get tickets and I was getting frustrated…it just wasn’t meant to happen today.  We get back on the highway and we are soon at our new home in Nîmes.  It is quite small with a cheery hot pink sink and shower and it will be our home for the next five days.