Tag Archives: Cathedrals

Mainz, Germany and Gutenburg Bible

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Day 35    Saturday,  October 4, 2025

It is a 45 minute drive to Mainz, and Bob has several items on our ‘must see’ agenda. First stop is the market. The flowers at these markets are always so beautiful and very reasonably priced.

The main sculpture in the main square (market) of Mainz is the Heunensäule, or Hay Column. It is a 1,000-year-old sandstone column with a bronze casing, depicting various symbols of Mainz’s history and culture like a fool’s cap and bishop’s miter. It is in the market square in front of the Mainz Cathedral. 

I like this wishing well and we both toss in a coin and make our wishes.

We both like the interestingly shaped squash…we might have to try growing some next year.

We have seen these coloured eggs in the grocery stores and wondered what they were. Turns out they are hard boiled eggs that are coated in a tinted resin that keeps them fresh for months! The colour helps to identify them as being hard boiled.

Gorgeous sunflowers!  I am definitely planting some of them in our garden next year.  They are so cheerful. Next stop in the Mainz Cathedral.  We are met at the door and told that there is a concert starting and if we enter the church we have to stay for the 45 minute concert.  Sounds perfect as it is raining and cool outside!
We spend the next 45 minutes listening to an amazing organ concert to commemorate the new cathedral organ.  The musician, Alexander Grün, is only 25 years old and has three Masters Degrees!  He plays some traditional organ music and then music that is innovative. The 45 minutes absolutely flew by.  I sketched for a bit while listening to the music.  Loved it. I wish I had recorded more of the music, especially the finale of the concert…it gave me goosebumps!      https://youtube.com/shorts/HykSsp-S-9E

There are fall foods displayed on the steps to the altar to remind people to give thanks for the harvest, and to share with those in need.  

The Cathedral cloister has a beautifully tended garden,

Bob liked this statue statue of a man holding his head. This is probably Saint Denis, who was beheaded but picked up his head and walked some distance, preaching the Gospel.

The buildings surrounding the market square are tall, narrow and decoratively painted.
Next on Bob’s agenda is a visit to a small museum underneath a shopping mall. We see Roman ruins from before the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century. These ruins were discovered when excavations began for the shopping mall. The area was thoroughly excavated and recorded, but ultimately the mall was built and most of the ruins were destroyed.

This little museum has the reconstructed ruins of a temple, under a ceiling of constellations. Some of the items found when the ruins were excavated.  Well endowed males were well represented.

Our final stop in Mainz is to visit the Gutenburg Museum, which is connected to a small Natural History Museum. This display in the entrance is quite striking.

We start with the Gutenburg Museum which shows the impact of Johahannes Gutenburg’s invention of a moveable type printing press in 1440.  This press allowed for the printing of 3600 pages a day, compared to 40 by hand printing and only a few by hand copying. There were  several beautiful ancient books on display. This Atlas of the World was printed in 1482.

The World Chronicle is from 1493.

An ornate Columbia Printing Press from 1824.  

We are given a blank card that has a chip installed inside the paper when we entered the museum.  We place this card into a machine that takes a selfie of us. Then we take the still blank card to a modern printer and this is what we received.

Entering a small room with dim lighting we see the Gutenburg Bibles. Only 49 of the approximately 180 printed Gutenberg Bibles have survived and the Gutenberg Museum owns two. The complete two-volume Bible shown in the bottom of this photo was added to the collection in 1978. The second Bible is incomplete, with only the second volume surviving. The book in the top right is a calligraphed manuscript.

The Bibles were only printed in black ink – two or more colors would have been too time-consuming and expensive. Spaces for colored ornamentation were left empty and the books were handed over to an illumination workshop. As a result, all surviving editions have different ornamentation.

The Missale Moguntinum, was hand written on parchment between 1453 – 1459.

I love that the guide lines are still visible. Imagine writing this huge book. Gutenburg’s press changed how books were produced and made them available to so many more people. Seeing these bibles in person is special but I am still in awe of beautiful hand written and illustrated books.  

In the mid-15th century before printed books were readily available, the demand for books could not be met. One solution was to produce books faster. This was why copies of the “Speculum Humanae Salvationis” or “Mirror of Human Salvation,” were created in cursive and quick pen-and-ink drawings. The volumes are dated around 1450, making them approximately the same age as the printed Gutenberg bibles.

We wander through the Natural History Museum. I wonder how archaeologists are able to reconstruct skulls and bones from a pile of fragments.  It must be a very difficult puzzle.

The Wooly Rhino had a huge head compared to the rest of its body.  There are samples of real wooly rhino hair on view that were found preserved in permafrost.

I thought these fossils were really beautiful.  The plants, insects and other animals are preserved in the finest detail. They are incredible.

We forgot to check what this prehistoric creature was.  

There are a few more displays of stuffed animals.  I thought this one of different types of rabbits was interesting. It is a small museum so it doesn’t take too long to see everything.

I know this is a strange photo, but this is the handicapped washroom at the museum.  I’ve never seen a public washroom like this.

We walk along cobbled sidewalks with reminders that summer is over on our way to see the next sight on the agenda in Manz.

This huge fountain is the Fastnachtsbrunnen, or Carnival Fountain. It is almost nine meters high and has over 200 bronze figures from the Mainz Carnival Mythology. Every year on November 11, at 11:11 pm, people celebrating Carnival in Mainz gather here. When the clock strikes 11:11 pm the carnival officially begins.  

Our last stop before heading home is St. Stephen Church. This is the only German church for which the Jewish artist Marc Chagall created windows.

In 1978, the first window by the 91-year-old Chagall was installed. Chagall completed the final church window shortly before his death at the age of 97! Although all the windows are beautiful, I didn’t find the blue light in the church appealing…it felt too sombre,

Time to drive home…this was a very full day!

Frankfurt, Germany

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Day 33     Thursday, October 2, 2025

We take a train into Frankfurt.  Once we had our tickets it was easy but once again we had problems using one of our credit cards.  This trip has been a challenge with credit card, debit card and cell phone issues.  I am beginning to think we are jinxed!  It is so good to be traveling together. I think if either of us were trying to sort out these problems on our own it would be much more difficult. The saga continues as we find the Hertz car rental company in the train station.  This trip we are told we need to extend our car rental contract every 30 days by simply checking in to any Hertz office.  Well, it turns out that a Hertz office in Germany cannot extend  contracts that was signed in another country. Sorting this out takes more than an hour and we are still not sure it actually will be taken care of.  We will see.

We walk down the street across from the train station. I am struck by the contrast between the old and the modern buildings.  I should have paid a bit more attention to the signs on the storefronts.

After a man and his lady friend propositioned me we noticed that we were walking through the red-light district!  We had a bit of a chuckle!

Nearly 70% of Frankfurt was destroyed during the Second World War but many of the buildings look older than they actually are.

There were four of these massive sculptures supporting the bridge across the street in the above photo.

In1405, two houses were joined together to make Frankfurt’s City Hall. It is a striking building.

Saturday is a popular day to get married and there is a steady parade of weddings taking place. The bridal couple and their guests wait outside for their turn to be married. It seems strange to me but is perfectly normal here.

We have our picnic lunch on the banks of the Rhine River and then visit this pedestrian bridge. ‘Love locks’ are covering this bridge.  I suspect that before long authorities will have to remove these locks before their weight begins to damage the bridge because of their weight like the bridge in Paris that was covered with locks.

Saint Bartholomew Cathedral is the only church in Frankfurt that survived the bombing of WWII.  Divine intervention?

As we enter the church we see this group of sculptures depicting Christ being crucified on Calvary Hill.  

The cathedral was built in the Gothic style between 1315 and 1358, but suffered a fire in 1867 and then the bombing of Frankfurt in 1944. The reconstruction after these events changed parts of the church. Today it is a hall church with three naves.  The cathedral’s organ is impressive and has a different layout of pipes.

I saw two priests walking out of the church and hurried to take a photo.  They look like they belong in another age and appear very intense.

The cathedral’s bell tower has survived from the 15th century and we are climbing it. This is the view from about halfway up the 66 meter high tower.

We are above the gargoyles.

I will admit that I needed to stop and rest a few times as we climbed 328 steps to the viewing platform, although there were people much younger than me were who huffing and puffing more than I was!  We had a spectacular view of Frankfurt.

Some views from the tower.

We walk around the platform several times.  I wasn’t going to climb all those steps for one quick tour around the tower!

We begin our descent of those 328 steps.  I am very thankful that they are solid stone and I don’t have to contend with see-through wire steps, specially as this is the only staircase to access the tower. We have to squeeze to the side when people pass us their way up the stairs.  

The view through a glass window in the stairwell.

This is the tower…

and here is the viewing platform above the clock! If you look closely you can see the platform railings.

Next we visit the indoor market. I am so tempted to buy some flowers.

Edelweiss and Gentians, two of my favourite flowers.

Everything is so colourful and looks delicious.

Produce doesn’t look this appealing at home.

The leeks are enormous!  We buy some pastry for a snack and I even find a slice of yummy gluten free apple cake.

Heading back to the train station we do a bit of window shopping.  We don’t buy souvenirs as a rule.  It is just too difficult to carry purchases around during an extended trip.

These characters made us laugh. This store carried some interesting merchandise.

I am always kind of shocked to see semi-automatic weapons and other guns on display in store windows!  

In front of the train station this group of friends are all wearing Lederhosen.  I think it was for some special event as they were taking photos of themselves.

Back to the train station to head home.  Another full day!

Fontoy, France to Frankfurt, Germany

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Day 30    Monday, September 29, 2025

Today is a travel day to Frankfurt Germany and we have been travelling for month already. Bob says we have to stop and see another Eiffel Tower along the way but it is not quite as impressive as the one in Paris!

We had no idea that this is wine country.  There are vineyards on both sides of the road as far as we can see.

The hills around each town we pass are all growing row after row of grapes.  We see the odd group harvesting grapes but the main harvest occurred earlier this month.

We stop in Trier and have our picnic lunch on a bench with this view.

The breeze blew water spray and made a rainbow just as I took this photo.

This foot of Emperor Constantine is a replica of one of the largest marble foots to have survived since antiquity. It was part of a 12 metre high seated statue of Constantine.

The Roman Baths are considered to be the largest Roman baths outside of Rome. 

The ruins are impressive!

We are able to walk through the underground tunnels that would have been used as a service level for the maintenance of the bath’s heating system. This is the entrance to the tunnels.

There was a group of schoolchildren ahead of us…probably the loudest group we have encountered on our travels! We took a side tunnel to avoid walking behind them. There are a maze of tunnels and we are free to explore as we wish. That is Bob peeking around the bend in the tunnel.

We do get a bit lost down here, but it was a lot of fun exploring these interesting tunnels.

Which way should we go!

This photo shows the size of the original baths, although they were never actually completed. The ruins of today are superimposed on the original baths.

The ruins are impressive, but they are only half the height of the original structure! We pass this lovely garden on the way to visit Trier’s cathedral.

Photos really do not show how beautiful and enormous the trees are. I wish we were able to grow trees this large back home. These trees wouldn’t survive our colder climate.

Trier Cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the oldest cathedral in Germany. Construction started in the 4th century and it was built upon the foundations of ancient Roman structures.

And yes, the inside of the cathedral is very impressive.

It has one of the most ornate organs we have seen… and many huge sculptures with multiple figures. We walk up these stairs for a view of the nave. This beautiful blue and white Baroque stucco work decorates the choir loft of the Cathedral. It is stunning and unusual. This is the first time we have seen anything like this in a cathedral.

We pass this building on the way to the Nigra Gate. There are many ornately decorated buildings in Trier.

I love watching the bubble makers, and the children trying to catch the bubbles. This fellow made huge bubbles…

and lots of smaller bubbles.  I would love to know how to do this.

At the end of the street we can see the Nigra Gate, another UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Porta Nigra, or Black Gate, is the largest Roman gate in Northern Europe.  It was part of the defensive walls and gates that surrounded Trier in 200AD. It is  incredibly well preserved, especially when you consider that it was completed around 200AD, and it almost two thousand years old!

We pay 6€ each to climb inside the gate. This ‘window’ has a pile of coins, perhaps people making a wish?

A view inside the gate.

We can see the Trier Cathedral from the second level of the gate.

Grafiti has been around for a long time.  Some of the dates on the walls are hundreds of years old.  I do really hate this practice of defacing monuments.

There is Bob, I sent him down to the street so he could take a photo of me in one of the gate arches.

Here I am.These carved decorations are still in remarkably good condition.

Walking back to our car we stop for a photo of the Electoral Palace. We had our lunch in its beautiful gardens which have many white statues and small ponds.

Another gorgeous tree.

The clouds are moving in on our drive home.

Big black ominous clouds.

We arrive at our Airbnb in Frankfurt. It is smaller than our last place but cozy and has everything we need.

Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

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Day 28     Saturday, September 27, 2025

We drive a half hour to a free parking lot on the outskirts of Luxembourg city, then catch a bus to the downtown area. We should have realized something was wrong when we passed this interesting looking tower…we saw it when we drove to the parking lot. So…we caught the bus going the wrong way and ended up at different  parking lot on the outskirts of the city! The bus driver told us where to get the tram we now need to use to get into the city.  Luckily all the public transportation in Luxembourg is free!

We pass this renovation site on the way to downtown. I am impressed that buildings are almost always repaired, not demolished.

Walking downtown we pass a Cartier store. The necklace is ‘only’ 191,000€, the two bracelets are 26,900€ and 36,200€ and the ring is 113,000€…just a wee bit out of my price range!

We find a Post Office to buy stamps. While we are writing on the postcards, my purse falls down between the counter and the wall…a narrow space less than a foot wide!  I have to ask the security guard to come help. Even though his arms are much longer than mine  he is just barely able to reach my purse.  My phone fell out when he pulled my purse up but luckily it is on a cord attached to my purse so it didn’t fall to the bottom of the space behind the counter!

There is a big park downtown, at the base of high cliffs.

Yes, another church! The cathedral “Notre-Dame” of Luxembourg was built between 1613 and 1621 by the Jesuits. The stained glass windows make a stunning backdrop for the altar.

There are many paintings and tapestries in this cathedral, and the stone pillars are decorated with intricate carving.

I look up and there are paintings on the ceiling high above the nave.

We pass the National Monument in Memory of the Victims of the Shoah in Luxembourg (1940-1945). The monument was inaugurated on 17 June 2018. It is named after the Kaddish, one of the most famous Jewish prayers recited as part of mourning rituals in Judaism.

Luxembourg City has an upper plateau, which contains the historic Old Town, and a lower valley known as Grund. This area is home to some of the oldest and most picturesque buildings in the city, dating back to the 14th century. Take notice of the suspended platform on the right of this photo.

People are dining in the sky! I am not sure why anyone would want to do this. It does not appeal to me in the least, but for 325€ per person you can have lunch prepared by Michelin chefs 50 meters high above the ground!

We were in Luxembourg 46 years ago, but all I can remember is looking down from high walls onto the city, like we are doing here.

We take an elevator down to the lower part of town and cross a bridge on our way to the Natural History Museum.

I would not want to be a bus driver here, the streets are very narrow.  

We see our first halloween decorations.

The current St. John the Baptist church dates back to the 17″ century. Its rich Baroque furnishings are not its original ones, they were taken from other churches during the period after the French Revolution!

In the valley looking up at the upper city.

As we enter the Natural History Museum I am startled by the man sitting on the red couch.  From a distance I thought he was a real person.

It isn’t a big museum and after a quick look around I find a spot with a chair to sit and draw while Bob explores the rest of the museum.

This room is a hodge lodge of stuffed animals…some look old and a bit worse for wear.

Bob discovered an interesting fact about hedge hogs. “The European hedgehog is a nocturnal animal that is easy to recognize by its many spines. When faced with danger, it can curl up and form a “prickly ball”. Its luxembourgish name”Keisécker” (“cow sucker”) originates from a legend that hedgehogs sucked milk during the night from cow udders. Obviously this is not true as hedgehogs suffer from a lactose intolerance.” On our walk to the bus we stop for another look down into one of the garden areas below the walls.

We caught the right bus back to our car but getting out of the parking lot was another thing!  Thank heavens for Google maps!  We might still be driving in circles trying to get back onto the highway!

We see four nuclear power plants on the way home. They always give me an eerie feeling. I wouldn’t want to be living anywhere near one of these.

It is getting dark on the drive home but we are treated to a lovely sunset.

Bruges, Belgium

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Day 21     Saturday, September 20, 2025

We drive an hour and a half to visit Bruges.  First stop is the market which was supposed to be open for another hour but most vendors are packing up because of the cold and rain.

We see this huge contraption which I am sure is a spider, but it is not moving. I just looked up Bruges Giant spider and found this little video on Instagram…I was right, it is a spider! https://www.instagram.com/reel/DO3Y573jK1r/ 

It is miserable out, lots of umbrellas, lots of rain and it is cold.

We take refuge in this cathedral along with a lot of other people.  It isn’t very warm but it is at least dry. I sit and write in my journal and Bob checks out the cathedral.  I am content to just sit and rest for a bit.

There are large beautiful tapestries on both sides of the altar.

There is an announcement in several languages that the church is closing and will reopen in a couple hours after lunch.  So we walk to the huge central square, lined with beautiful old buildings.  It had stopped raining. The entire old city of Bruges is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The city was not damaged in either of the two World Wars so much of its Medieval heritage remained intact.

The streets are packed with tourists and it starts to rain again so we find a MacDonalds and hide out there for an hour and have our lunch.  It is dry and warm and no one cares how long we sit here.

The rain stops and we decide to get tickets for a canal boat ride.  There is a line but it moves fairly quickly and we watch the boats coming and going while we wait in line.

While we are waiting  I notice that there is a tight rope walker high in the sky!  If you look carefully at the previous photo you can see her in the top right corner just above the rooftops.  Yes, it is a woman, when she hangs upside down we see a ponytail. A rope almost 400m long was stretched at a height of 70m between the Belfry and the Church of Our Lady.

Soon we are travelling on the canals which give us a great view of many of the buildings in Bruges.

You can see the high wire attached to the cathedral tower.

We pass under many bridges, some of them so low we need to duck our heads.

The geese on the canals are owned by the city of Bruges and the penalty for killing one is five years in jail!

The city of Bruges is famous for its well-preserved medieval architecture, including many buildings featuring stepped gables.  Houses with lots of steps on the gables showed that the owner was rich.         
I wonder if the houses on the canal are damp, with the water lapping at their foundations.

This is the oldest bridge in Bruges and our driver/guide tells us that if you kiss under this bridge you will have everlasting love.  We kiss.

There are a variety of interesting buildings along the canals…

..and some great views.

There are also signs that Autumn is here.

This medieval building was built using wood, which was a fire hazard.  Most buildings in Bruges were built in a style known as Brick Gothic. 

After our boat ride we wander the streets and see this.  Lots of people are entering the building so Bob says we should follow them.  

It is an open house for the  new Brusk Art Gallery which will open in 2026.  We enter a room with shipping plastic wrap.  We aren’t sure what it is supposed to be…

…until we enter the next room and there is a  large tape art installation in the form of a web structure, and there are people climbing inside of them!  All of a sudden the giant spider we saw earlier makes sense.

I want to climb inside…my turn next!

It was interesting trying to walk around, but not really all that difficult.

This was so much fun!  Here I am inside this giant web-like structure.

There is the hole I climbed through to get inside.All too soon it is time to climb down. This was such fun.

There were several of these ‘webs’ in this huge room. What a clever idea.

Belgium is famous for its chocolate, which comes in all shapes and sizes!

There is a Carillon performance at 4:00.  We find a spot to sit just as it starts and listen to a variety of music for the next hour. The carillon is a piano like instrument that plays 47 bells.

One of the musicians was very young.

I do a bit of pen sketching while I listened to the music.  The last song played was Beethoven’s Ode To Joy and most of the audience stood up. The lady beside me told me that it is the anthem for the European Union, which has its headquarters in Brussels.  

This is an interesting building, skinny at the front and then widening out as along the streets on either side. 

We wanted to visit the Church of Our Lady which houses The Madonna and Child by Michelangelo. This world-famous white marble statue is the only work by Michelangelo that left Italy during his lifetime. But the church closed at 5:00 so we are out of luck.

We have to settle for viewing this poster.

We order a waffle with dark chocolate to share before the long drive back to our bnb. It  had a bit too much chocolate for us, but was still delicious.

Visiting Brussels

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Day 18     Wednesday, Sept 17, 2025

We have fairly relaxing morning. We call our bank and sort out an issue with our debit card and last night we had to call one of our Mastercards because it got blocked…because we are in Belgium.  Yet they don’t want to know that we are travelling anymore!  So it caused problems when we tried to add it to our Apple Wallet.  Same thing has happened to our other Mastercard, so we still have that to sort out tonight. I guess we should have done some things before we left home…like putting our email address as the contact to verify our cards when we  use them online instead of it being our home land line!  But who knew?

Once we sorted that out I worked on my paper journal, drawing some animals at the Lille Zoo from photo reference.  Not as much fun as drawing at the zoo but it was cold and windy and we didn’t have a lot of time there.  Drawing from reference photos is a good way to familiarize myself with the shapes and anatomy of animals and birds. This helps when I am able to draw at zoos in person. I set a time limit for a page so that I don’t spend too long. It is more like drawing live that way.

We catch the train into downtown Brussels which involved a 20 minute walk because in order to use Brussel’s busses or trolley cars you need to have a contactless debit card or use Apple Wallet. Our problem is our Debit cards should work after we called the bank last night to sort out the problem, but they still don’t, so we can’t use them. My MC won’t load onto Apple Wallet because of problems trying to verify it! So we walk to a train station were we can buy a paper ticket. Unfortuntely there doesn’t seem to be any place near us to purchase paper tickets for the bus or trolley cars.  

A half hour later after a very smooth rain ride we arrive in Brussels.  First stop is to see the Mannekin Pis Fountain.  It is the most famous fountain in Brussels.  The last time we visited this little statue was 46 years ago on our first trip to Europe. 

I used to have the cutest little wooden plaque with sculpture of the Mannekin Pis but somehow lost it. I wanted to buy a new one…well that sure didn’t happen! All the souvenirs were incredibly tacky, and ridiculously expensive as you can see in this photo.  So no souvenir for me.  We did buy two postcards to send to our grandchildren and after we left the store the owner chased me down about a block away from the store.  He insisted that I had stolen one of the key chains that we had been looking at. He said he had it on camera, so we went back to the store and I told him, in French, to look at his camera. I said that I am not a thief and that I didn’t even touch the key chain he was accusing me of stealing. I am sure I looked guilty, I felt hot and I am sure my face was red. After a few minutes of conversation and looking at his security footage he admitted that he made a mistake and apologized. We chatted a bit more, and all was well. I shook his hand and said I understood how hard it must be when he does have people steal from him almost every day.  

We see one of the big pink sculptures that we saw all over Paris two years ago. The enormous  candy-pink sculptures created by Philippe Katerine are now on display in Brussels.

The Grand Palace Plaza is surrounded on all sides with very ornate buildings…

….including the City Hall…

…and the Brussels City Museum.  I am done in and need some tea and pastries. I think being accused of stealing was rather emotionally exhausting. It wasn’t easy to find a coffee shop. We had to walk several blocks but found one with a quiet table away from all the smokers.  We had a pot of mint tea with real mint leaves and the most delicious croissant and Portuguese tart.  

We pass a shop with these ‘toy’ cars in the window. The white and red car are €219.90 each, and the green and orange ones are ‘only’ €579.05 each!  This is $941.61 Canadian! I wonder who buys these expensive model cars.

The Cathedral Saints-Michel-et-Gudule is another enormous cathedral. 

The Nave stretches into the distance. The statues on the pillars are the Twelve Apostles. There are many stunning stained glass windows surrounding the ornate altar.

This sculpted scene called ‘Entombment’ is beautiful. Cathedrals often have amazing art work.

The pulpit is an intricately carved wooden masterpiece.

We are hungry and head back to this little square to buy some of Brussels famous frites with mayonnaise.  No photo, we were hungry and they were gone in no time. Bob is walking towards the train station.

We took a wrong turn on our way to the train station and discovered this enormous white Smurf. Of course we needed a photo!

I had a little rest beside several of these beautiful flower towers.

On our walk from the train station back to our apartment I see another sign that Autumn is coming.  It is still unseasonably cool for this time of the year. 16 Celsius and windy.

There are many very large houses along the walk home.  This one has its own magnificent tree.

We have never stayed in a neighbourhood with so many large houses…maybe mansions would be a better term?

There is such a variety of styles. Some traditional and some more modern looking.

This is the lane behind our bnb, which has a huge corner lot. This black cat was determined to cross my path as we returned from getting groceries, but I figured we had enough challenges for the day so I managed to avoid him!

Our bnb has its very own little robot lawn mower…it the cutest thing as it maneuvers itself about the yard cutting the grass.

Amiens, France

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Day 13.    Friday, September 12, 2025

It is an hour drive to Amiens from Arras where we will visit Jules Verne’s house, the largest cathedral in France, and take a unique boat ride.

We luck out and find a parking space right beside the Jules Verne museum.  Parking downtown in French cities is very difficult, there are more cars than spaces available.  We have our picnic lunch in a little park right by the museum but these chestnuts were falling and landing with a crash around us…the spikes on the green fruit are very sharp and we decide to move to a safer bench.

Jules Verne (1828-1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright.  Jules Verne is the second most translated author in the world, ranking below Agatha Christie and above William Shakespeare.  His novel Around the World in 80 Days is printed in 18 languages.

The winter garden was the original entrance to the Jules Verne house.  Tropical garden plants were moved indoors here to spend the winter.

The dining room and salon on the main floor.

One of the second floor rooms was a reconstruction of his first boat.  Jules Verne loved to sail and his first boat was a 9 metre long.  His second boat was 20 meters in length and the third was 30 meters!  

This second floor room was a library. The second photos shows the original library with over 12,000 books.  When he read these books Jules Verne wrote notes on index cards to use as reference information for his novels.

From 1882 to 1900 Jules Verne wrote every day from 5:00 am until 11:00 am in this little room.

Climbing the tower which was added to the house by Jules Verne.  It allows access to all three floors of the house.

The third floor attic has a collection of original movie posters…

…and other memorabilia.  I look like I am one of the exhibits!

Bob and a fictional flying machine from one of Verne’s novels.  A view from the front of the house showing the winter garden.

it is a short walk to the Amiens cathedral. Notre-Dame d’Amiens is the largest medieval cathedral in the world.  It was built in 1269 and is twice the size of Notre Dame in Paris.

The sculpted decorations in the portals have survived in a remarkable state of preservation…

…and the 16th century wood carvings of the choir stalls are unique in the world.

Sandbags were used to protect the exterior and interior of the church during WWI.  The stained glass windows were removed and stored elsewhere.  Unfortunately there was a fire and some of the windows were destroyed.  A bomb did fall directly on the church but it did not detonate. Whether by faulty fuse, divine intervention or sheer luck, the cathedral stood unharmed.  Info and photo~ church heritage.eu

This is a massive cathedral…

…with stunning stained glass windows.

Do you see the people? They give a sense of scale.

Looking towards the richly decorated altar…

and in the opposite direction, the organ that was built in 1549…

which has just been cleaned and restored.

Love this statue of Joan of Arc.

There is also a labyrinth from 1288.When we leave the cathedral, I look up and there are the gargoyles!  I am very fond of gargoyles.
We have time to walk back to the car for tea and cookies and a little down time before we get ready for our boat ride at the Hortillonages.

Shaped by generations of market gardeners known as ‘hortillons’, this site is the only one of its kind in France. The Hortillonnages are made up of a multitude of small cultivated islets surrounded by water, accessible only by boat on a network of waterways

We spend a relaxing 45 minutes travelling these waterways. We see market gardens, private gardens, cottages and some islands that look very wild and unkept.

The Hortillonnages have been here since ancient times. They are located on the naturally marshy terrain of the old bed of the River Somme. The site’s name has its origins in the Latin ‘hortus’ meaning garden. Nowadays, the ownership of this 300-hectare site is shared by over 1000 individuals who use it for market gardening or leisure activities such as gardening, fishing, and observing nature.

Walking back to our car we pass yet another war memorial, a reminder of the war and those who fought and died for France.

Driving to Arras

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Day 9.    Monday, September 8, 2025

Arras is only185 km from Paris but we like to stop and see sights along the way. I am navigating and I see this beside our road on Google maps.  I have no idea what it is!

When I zoom in, I realize that this is a gigantic car park!  A bit of Googling and we discover it is a carpark covering more than 28 hectares and containing more than 22,000 new vehicles!  

We arrive at Beauvais to visit its Cathedral but the first order of business is finding a bathroom…not always an easy task.  Then we walk through a huge square towards a carousel.  European carousels always remind me of a trip we made 46 years ago when our oldest daughter was only four years old.  We stopped for rides at every carousel we saw!  Travelling with Sue is similar, she squeaked and squawked until we let her have a ride!

The Beauvais Cathedral was completed in 1272.     

The cathedral was damaged during the Second World War but remained standing and was restored after the war.   The inside soars high above our heads and the light streams through the stained glass windows.Many of the pillars are still decorated with intricate painting.

The centre of the church is under renovation so we are only allowed to walk around the aisles and ambulatory behind the altar.  Bob is dwarfed by the tall pillars.

I take a photo of the altar by putting my phone through the grating in the above photo.Bob took this photo with this light shining through the stained glass windows into this side chapel.

This “clock was built between 1865 and 1868 by Auguste-Lucien Vérité.  It is 12 metres high, and 6 metres wide. The 52 dials display the times of the rising and setting sun and moon, the position of the planets, the current time in 18 cities around the world, and the tidal times.” ~Wikipedia  We wait for it to turn 3:00 but not a lot happened other than three chimes and a few areas of the clock lighting up.

“In the 1990s, the choir started to become very unstable. In some places, the pillars had moved more than 30cm. The north transept had four large wood-and-steel lateral trusses at different heights, installed to keep it from collapsing.

Since 2000, scaffolding has been continually put up around the cathedral to overcome these problems. Also, the main floor of the transept is punctuated by a much larger brace that juts out of the floor at a 45-degree angle. It was placed as an emergency measure to give additional support to the pillars in an effort to stave off any further movement. Presently, Columbia University is performing a study on a three-dimensional model using laser scans of the building in an attempt to pinpoint where the weaknesses are greatest to see what further can be done to shore up the building.” ~Frenchmoments.ca

We take the smaller highways from Beauvais to Arras instead of the toll highway and see this Sommes cemetery.  This is the information plaque.  It is hard to comprehend that over a million soldiers were killed here.  I think that ghosts must walk these fields.

The headstones seem to stretch forever and so many of these young men were never able to be identified.  They are only “Known Unto God”.

I think it is important to visit these cemeteries and honour those who have died but they are  difficult and emotional visits.

We continue our drive and arrive in Arras at 6:00 to meet our host for our Airbnb.

Notre Dame

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Day 5, Thursday, September 4, 2025

The morning didn’t get off to a good start. We tried to purchase an online e-SIM from Orange. I think it took almost two hours! Seems we need to confirm the purchase on our credit cards by entering the code they send to our phone number. Only problem is the phone number they have on file is our home land line! It took forever but we finally got it done, so now we have two different cell phone providers…hopefully at least one of them will be working when we need them. It poured rain this morning so at least we were still home when that happened. After the rain we set off to visit Notre Dame.

The restored Notre Dame is now open for visitors. I last visited the inside of Notre Dame in 2014 when I spent a month in Paris. It looks amazing, it is pretty much impossible to tell what is original and what has been replaced because of the fire. Our first view of the interior is stunning.

The Rose window on the south side of the Church.

This sculpted wall from the 14th century depicts scenes from the life of Christ. It forms a separation between the choir and the ambulatory. This is just one small section of the long carved wall depicting the story of the life of Christ.

The side chapels have been cleaned, repaired and repainted.  They are absolutely stunning.

I love the sun shining through the stained glass windows.

Another view of one of the two rose windows with dancing lights from the stained glass.

Looking up towards the second floor galleries I see more coloured light.  The chandeliers provide a warm glow as well.

We are impressed with the restoration.  Notre Dame is back!  It took 700 million euros and one thousand artisans to complete the restoration.  We stay for Vespers and listen to the organ music and a young woman with the loveliest voice singing the Psalms. This is how cathedrals should be visited, when they are full of music and prayer.

Outside we take our first selfie of this trip. Unfortunately the rooftop is not yet open.  I loved the time I spent up there in 2014, visiting the gargoyles and enjoying the wonderful views of Paris.  There are 387 steps to climb in the south tower to visit the rooftop.  It is supposed to open September 20th.  We are planning make time to do this on our return to Paris on the way home.We walk towards the Louvre and find a place for tea and a snack.  We stroll along the Seine and find a place to sit, but it was very busy, lots of cyclists, joggers and people going by so we walk to the Tuileries Garden just west of the Louvre. The name comes from the tile kilns which occupied the site before the palace.  

  On the way we walk through the Flower market, just before they close.

This lady was making the most fantastic bubbles, they were huge and there were so many of them blowing in the wind. I would love to know the recipe for her bubble mixture.

This bride and groom were having their wedding photos taken but I thought they weren’t very comfortable following the photographers cues.  There were lots of retakes.

The sun is setting on the Olympic Cauldron…very impressive.

Time to head home and we walk a few blocks to our metro line, which Bob can’t find….I see it right away…it is kind of hard to miss!

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.