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Le Mans, France

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Day 85,  Tuesday, November 21, 2023

We are taking the TGV High speed Train to Le Mans.The train station with all the tracks and overhead electric lines that power the trains.

This link to a short video which shows how fast the countryside was flying by.  The vehicles on the highway are going 130 km an hour and we fly past them!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wt-AzdJG54

We are travelling 282 km an hour!

I thought I should snap a photo of our train.We are in Le Mans.

Just one of the many beautiful buildings in Le Mans.

We decide to wander and see where we end up.  Notre Dame de la Couture dates mostly from the 12th century.

We were the only people visiting the church, which seems even larger inside than it did outside.

The pillars in the church are beautifully decorated.

We don’t really get tired of visiting all these magnificent old churches.  Each one has something different and interesting to see.

So many of the churches we have visited are undergoing restoration of some type, this one is no different.  I think if you are in the restoration business in France there is no shortage of work.

I loved this simple sculpture.

We sat in the sun with a view of the Cathédrale de Saint-Julien de Mans to enjoy our picnic lunch.

This cathedral was built between the eleventh and the fifteenth century in a mixture of architectural styles and has some of the oldest stained glass windows in France still in their original location.There are also many sculptures in this church that retain their original polychrome finish.  We are so used to seeing bare stone sculptures that it is easy to forget that many if not most sculptures were originally painted in realistic colours.  These are some of the most beautiful that we have seen on this trip.

This Madonna and Child was stunning, as were the other polychrome sculptures in this church.

Some of the buildings in town have started to decorate for Christmas.  This one was rather unique!

Another interesting old building…I wonder what the inside looks like? There are cobbled streets everywhere,

There aren’t many people out and about in the old town…we are the only people on the these streets.  It feels strange, like the place is abandoned.

The old town is on high ground and we walk over this road which somehow passes beneath us…a tunnel perhaps?

More very old buildings, but everything is closed…too bad.

We finally see a few other people!

Even this beautiful, ornate merry-go-round is closed!  I love riding merry-go-rides. Too bad I won’t be able to try this one out.

After much searching we find a Paul’s and have some hot chocolate and yummy pastries….only 22 euros, or $32.00 Canadian!!  At least it was all delicious.

We walked past this beautiful variegated holly bush which was very Christmassy on our way to find the Musée de Tessé.We have seen several tree sculptures in different towns by this artist, whose name I have forgotten!  I quite liked them all.

We find the Musée Tessé and are surprised that there is no admission fee.  It isn’t a big museum, but it is just the right size for an afternoon visit.  This museum opened in 1799, and is one of the oldest in France. It has a collection of French, Italian and Flemish paintings from the 14th to the 20th century and a unique space dedicated to ancient Egypt.  Each era has a room dedicated to that period with a nice selection of work…not too overwhelming which suits us well today.

I liked this little portrait by Théodore Gericault…

this tempera on wood painting of Saint Agathe from 1315…

and this terra cotta sculpture of Saint Antoine from the last half of the 17th century.

We make our way to the basement down several flights of stairs to discover an area which has the reconstructed tombs of Nefertari and Sennefer.  The photos with their light reflections do not do this area justice.  It really reminded us of our time in Egypt. We were able to visit the tomb of Nefertari in the Valley of the Queens.  This reconstruction is not the same as being in the real tomb but we really enjoyed seeing it all anyways.

These are canopic jars that contained the organs of’Ânkhouahibrê  that were removed from the body in the process of mummification: the lungs, liver, intestines, and stomach.

I thought these bird mummies were interesting.  I have seen cat mummies before but cannot remember seeing any bird mummies.

There are  bronze plaques of the ’24 Hours of Le Mans Race’ winning team’s hand prints set into the sidewalks of Le Mans.

All too soon it is time to catch the train back to Paris.  We didn’t have time to go visit the Le Mans Race museum as it was on the outskirts of town and it would have taken too long to go and visit, but we are happy with our day in Le Mans.

Catching the metro home…the station was very busy!  It has been full day and we are happy to be back home in our Paris apartment.

Life Drawing and Bob’s Paris

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Day 84,   Monday November 20, 2023

I want to attend as many life drawing sessions as I can these last few days in Paris.  I am still feeling quite tired after getting Covid the beginning of the month, so most days I am going to life drawing and then coming straight home.  I don’t have the energy for much else.

I am back at the Grande Chaumière again this afternoon.  Bob and I took the same metro.  I got off at the Vavin stop to go drawing and he continued towards the Place de la Concorde on the north side of the Seine River to do some more exploring.

The session is from 2:30 to 5:00 …only 2 1/2 hours, not the 3 hour sessions I am used to at home.  The time goes by much too quickly.  Today we have a wonderful model named Fanny.

Three 3 minute poses

I tried my Derwent Drawing sanguine pencil, but I didn’t like how it felt on the paper in this sketchbook.  Three 5 minute poses.

Fanny’s poses were naturally graceful.  Two 15 minute poses…

a  20 minute pose…

a 15 minute pose……and a final 30 minute pose.  Fanny was such a great model.  It was a good day!

While I was drawing, Bob explored the north shore near the Champs Élysées.  This photo shows the hoarding which looks like a giant trunk during renovation work on a Louis Vuitton building. How clever!  He saw a lot of the highlights in this area of Paris.

Bob checked out the Christmas tree in a Galeries Lafayette store.  I’m not sure I will have time to go see it for myself, so this photo might just have to do.

The 72′ tall golden tipped Luxor Obelisk on the Place de la Concorde was erected in 1829, on the very spot where Louis XVI was beheaded!  It has now become a symbol of peace and harmony.

The Fountain of Rivers is ornately decorated with mermaids and mermen.  

Jean Dubuffet’s Le Bel Costumé caught Bob’s eye in the Jardin des Tuileries.

This is a long street of shops near the Place Vendome…

with very expensive merchandise!

The original Vendôme Column at the centre of the square was erected by Napoleon I.  It was torn down on 16 May 1871, but it was subsequently re-erected and remains a prominent feature on the square today.

Too bad all these people who are lining up to get into the Louvre don’t know about the side door, where there is usually no line up at all!

The Roue de Paris is a 60-metre tall transportable Ferris wheel, originally installed on the Place de la Concorde in Paris, for the 2000 millennium celebrations. Too bad we didn’t have time to ride on it this trip, although it does look a bit scary.

The Pont Alexandre III is a bridge that spans the Seine in Paris.  The bridge is widely regarded as the most ornate, extravagant bridge in the city.  It has been classified as a French historic monument since 1975.

We both arrive home in time to make dinner and relax.  Our days in Paris are fast drawing to a close.

Life drawing and Exploring Paris

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Day 83,   Sunday November 19, 2023

I have two life drawing sessions planned for today.  One at the Montmartre Life Drawing Studio in the afternoon and another at an artist’s studio from 5 to 7 pm this evening. Bob goes out exploring while I am drawing.  Today there is some sunshine, and no rain!

The Eiffel Tower is visible on the skyline.

This interesting exterior belongs to Stade Jean-Bouin. The 19,904 capacity stadium is used mostly for rugby, but is also used for American football and association football matches.

Pont Mirabeau was built at the very end of the 19th century and  is adorned with four bronze sculptures representing the City of Paris, Commerce, Navigation, and Abundance.

A clever shot through the tree branches.

Can you take too many photos of this iconic structure?  I don’t think so.I attended sessions with the Montmartre Life Drawing group in September so no problem finding their location even though I was coming from a different starting point.  The first thing I see when I leave the metro is this impressive statue in the centre of a traffic circle.

There is a flea market on the median.

There are lots of interesting items but I don’t have time for more than a quick look.

Next I cross a bridge that goes over the top of the Montmartre cemetery rather than cutting it in half… again no time to go exploring.  Life drawing awaits!  I later read that Nijinsky, Degas & Zola lie in this tree-lined burial ground that opened in 1825.

We have a male model for the afternoon, Guiseppé.  We start with five two minute poses

followed by three five minute and a 10 minute poseA 25 minute pose…

and a 15 minute one,

then we end the session with a couple 10 minute poses.  Guiseppé was an excellent model, and fun to draw.

During the break I was checking out Google maps to make sure I could find the second session and I discovered that I had no internet!  Panic!!  A very kind young lady lent me her phone so I could write down some instructions, but I was worried about being able to find the next life drawing location.  Luckily when I was ready to go to the evening session the internet was back!  I was very relieved that I didn’t have to rely on my hastily drawn map.

Life Drawing Montmartre posts on their Instagram page…Here I am!

Screenshot

The second session was at the photographer J R Franco’s studio/apartment.  These two photos are from his instagram site.  You can just barely see part of my knee and sketchbook in the bottom right corner of this one…

and the top of my grey head I this one.  

We started with two 5 and one 10 minute pose of our lovely female model…seems I forgot to note her name.  I like having that information in my sketchbook.

I loved this 13 minute pose, draped over a couch and chair with her torso hanging in the space between them

It was going to be a session with two models but the male model had to cancel at the last minute, so Jean Robert modelled for us. We started with two 5 minute poses. I concentrated on his face…he had an interesting face.

two 3 minute and one 5 minute pose.  Then we drew both models together in a 10 minute pose,

then one more 10 minute pose.

During the break we had goodies upstairs in a loft area and a tour of Franco’s studio which was also his apartment.

It was a wonderful, full day, and I head home in the dark, but the metro is close by and when I get home Bob has supper waiting!

Back at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere!

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Day 82,  Saturday, November 18, 2023

I am off to drawing this afternoon at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere.  This part of the subway system seems quite new and I don’t think it was operational when I was here in 2014.  I love the Paris metro system, it is easy to use and it is a great place if you like people watching, or drawing…and I like doing both!

I do remember to snap a quick photo during the break just before the model resumes her place on the stand. It is taken from my drawing spot today. I like sitting fairly near the front… I’m just one row back and a bit to the side.  

Four 5 minute, one 10, and one 20 minute pose

10, 20 and 35 minute poses

45 minute pose

While I was at life drawing Bob went exploring and walked far enough that he could see the Eiffel Tower in the distance.  It isn’t really the nicest day for a walk, wet and chilly, and he only took this one photo.

Paris

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Day 81,  Friday, November 17, 2023

We take the rental car back and then take the metro home. The nearest metro station to our bnb is about a 15 minute walk which isn’t too bad. There is artwork on the wall of a building right when we leave the station and… 

More artwork on the wall that runs along the metro line.

Bob decides to stay at home and I head back out to attend a life drawing class at the Academié de la Grande Chaumière.  I change lines at Montparnasse Station and it is very busy!  The metro stations are very well laid out, with lots of signs so they are actually very easy to navigate,

My one disappointment on this trip was how few life drawing sessions I was able to attend in the different cities that we visited.  Covid closed down some of them and they just never opened up again, and sometimes the days that there were sessions didn’t match up with the days that we were in a particular city, or for some reason there just wasn’t a session the  week that we were there.  Now that we are back in Paris I plan to attend as many sessions as I can in the next nine days.

I am a bit out of practice and and a bit tired…today’s drawings weren’t the best but it was still really good to be back at the Grande Chaumière.

Reims to Paris

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Day 80, Thursday, November 16, 2023

Today we drove to Pairs, in the rain!  This will be our last stop before we fly home.  It is a two and a half hour drive and we both just want to get to our next airbnb and get settled.  Sightseeing in the rain isn’t much fun.

There is no way I would want to be navigating using a paper map.  The roads can be very complex…like this interchange below.

We pass through several tunnels with lots of traffic. Bob does an excellent job following my navigational instructions, but I think we will both be quite happy to return our car tomorrow and use the metro to get around Paris.  

These two buildings, or maybe it is just one, looked so wonky.  Not sure why anyone wants a build a high rise that looks like it is falling over?  It is still pouring rain. but we are almost to our destination.

On our way to our bnb we passed a church with four angels high on its steeple.

I wasn’t able to find out the name of the church, but really liked the angels.

This lovely house with its beautiful fall colours was just down the street from our bnb.  

We parked on the street close to our apartment to unload but needed to move the car for the night.  As Bob pulled into the parking spot the car made a strange noise.  Upon investigation we realized that a rough curb had caught the side of the tire, tearing it and scraping the hubcap.  We return the car tomorrow morning…we almost made it the whole three months without any car issues….this little incident problem ended up costing us $500!

Our twelfth and last Airbnb on this trip.  It was difficult finding a place when we were booking last Spring.  Our apartment is very small, probably the smallest that we have had on this trip.  In the photos it actually looks a bit bigger than it is in person!  Not ideal for the end of our trip but it will do.

 

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.

 

 

 

 

Quiet Day in Reims, France

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Day 76, Sunday, November 12, 2023

Our apartment in Reims was easy to find and it has parking right outside the door, which is great.  It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but there are lots of big trees and it is in a quiet location.Our Airbnb host met us at the apartment yesterday and he had a little box of six macarons and a jar of his own honey for us as an anniversary gift for us.  He only spoke French but we were able to communicate without any problem…after two and half months in France I am feeling more comfortable speaking French.

The apartment is old, but it is clean and has everything we need.  The only thing that might be a problem is that the radiators have no way to adjust the heat.  There is a set temperature, and it doesn’t feel all that warm. It is cold and rainy outside and we are both quite happy to stay home today.  Bob seems to have recovered  quite quickly from his Covid but it is taking me me a bit longer.  I work on the blog while Bob does laundry and researches what we will be doing in Reims.

Dijon to Reims

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Day 75, Saturday, November 11, 2023

I wanted to go find the Reims owl that is on the Notre Dame church near us before we leave.  There is a little story about an owl saving the town from a fire by sounding an alarm when everyone was sleeping.  Rubbing this little owl is supposed to bring good luck.  There are owl  medallions set in the road that lead tourists to the sights in Reims, kind of like the medallions we followed in Arles when we found the spots where Van Gogh painted.  Too bad we didn’t get a chance to do that here.  I didn’t get to see much of Dijon but Bob was able to do more sightseeing.

One more photo of the Notre Dame church with all the gargoyles, and the little owl.   At the top of the church tower there’s a clock called the “Jacquemart de Dijon.” Jacquemart means “bell-striker”.

This clock has mechanical people who hit a bell with a hammer to signal the hour. This one has  a whole family.  The mom and dad are Jacqueline and Jacquemart and their two children are named Jacquelinet and Jacquelinette. The parents strike the hours and the children strike the quarter hours. ~ Photo from Wikipedia.

Bob says he can drive today…I must say that I am relieved.  I am sure I could have driven if  needed but I am very happy that I didn’t  need to. We take the toll highway and it is a three hour drive and a 30€ toll, but it is the fastest, easiest way to get to Reims.  That is what we need today. Taking photos while we are driving helps pass the time and keeps me occupied when I am not feeling great.

We have seen these growths on trees before but now that the leaves have fallen they really look strange.

This looks much like the fields we see in Alberta.

The trees have really turned colour in the last couple weeks.

We stop at one of the rest areas along the highway to have our lunch and then we both have a sleep for about an hour!  Feeling somewhat refreshed we are on our way again.  The sun comes out for a bit, so much better than driving in the rain!  We have not seen many animals in the fields on this trip, but we see quite a few dairy cattle today.  I like cows…one day I will find a herd and spend the whole day drawing them.

We see several of these big modern grain elevators…

and lots of wind turbines…

After just another hour of driving we stop for another break, and another wee nap!  There are lots of little towns and villages on the hilltops in the distance.

It rains on and off again and we see lots of interesting clouds…

and just before we arrive in Reims we see a rainbow!

I like these trees all in a row.  There have been so many beautiful shades of green on the drive to Reims.  I think that there are winter crops that are just starting to grow so the greens remind me of the the fresh spring green colours I see in Alberta.We are both tired and thankful that we our Reims Airbnb host is letting us check in early.