If you look closely, very closely, at the masonry above the arch of the Gate of the Dead at the Roman amphitheater in Saintes, you can make out a fine line that indicates where a mason stopped his work for the day.

Unless a sign is eventually placed there, you won’t find the exact spot on your own. And even when Karine Robin, head of the archeology department for Charente-Maritime, points to and explains her discovery, I can’t be sure if I’m seeing the line or imagining it through her enthused description. I lean closer. Yes, there it is—eureka!—a trace of thrilling triviality within a Roman ruin in a bypassed town, shown by a proud and passionate archeologist. Astounding!

The minutia of the archeologist’s discovery and her vivid explanation light in my mind a spark that begins to illuminate the course of 2000 years of history, from a mason’s day in about 40 AD to the crowds who filled the amphitheater over the next four centuries or so, then the crumbling of the Roman Empire and the gradual transformation, dismantling and degradation of the amphitheater until archeologist began to study the partially buried structure in the 19th-century and now its fine-comb examination by Karine Robin and her team who have been investigating the site and restoring its remnants along with the National Institute for Preventive Archeological Research (Inrap).

That something so seemingly inconsequential in my own life—evidence of a Gallo-Roman mason leaving work for the day—should suddenly make a 3½-hour train ride from Paris feel worthwhile is in itself extraordinary. Often, the greatest reward of sightseeing isn’t a sight itself but the sparks that light in the mind when an informed person enthusiastically gives it context and teaches you how to look at it.

Would you go out of your way for that?

Probably not. You’ve already been the Colosseum in Rome, you say—impressive indeed. And to Arles and to Nimes, you say—yes, wonderful towns to visit. Me, too.

The Arena (Amphitheater)

Then what more can you find here when in fact far less remains of the cavea or seating area and far less of those wide passages that allowed for crowds to enter and exit? I scan the ruin. I listen to our guides. Those passages, we’re told, are called vomitories. Hearing that, a new spark illuminates the connection between the Latin spoken by Roman masons and emperors and the food poisoning I may have gotten from a 3-star Michelin restaurant several years ago. Like Helen Keller by the water pump and the tree, I want to the learn names of things. Those arched passageways to either end of the amphitheater are evocatively called the Gate of the Living (Porte des Vivants), on the eastern side, opening toward the city, and the Gate of the Dead (Porte des Morts), opening to the then-countryside to the west. It’s on the occasion of the restoration of the latter that Karine Robin has discerned the mason’s fine line. No, it isn’t only men who are intrigued by the history of the Roman Empire, though it could be that men are more susceptible to Roman sparks.

We’re visiting what is locally referred to as “the arena” but is technically speaking an amphitheater, i.e. a theater with seating on both sides. Not that I’ve become a connoisseur of Roman architecture in the past hour, but the traveler learns such things on site, and more: about the amphitheater’s religious, political and entertainment functions for a location population invited to witness wild animals in a hunting show in the morning, executions at noon, gladiator fights in the afternoon.

And there they are, on the theater floor today—gladiators! We go over to speak with them—well, the men in our group do. They aren’t real gladiators but strong and knowledgeable reenactors who perform here in summer. They present their shields and daggers, their metal helmets and leather padding.

There are no combats this afternoon, but we’re drawn in by their accounts of the lives of the trained fighters of ancient Rome. Today’s friendly gladiators now take evident pleasure in deflating our greatest sense of a gladiator fight: that it all ended with a life-saving thumbs-up or a deadly thumbs-down. We could have Googled “Roman hand signals” for details, but learning from reenactors who share their passion and knowledge right here on the theater floor makes think that I might have been a bit overdramatic yesterday when I complained to a friend about taking the 6:48am train from Paris.

Then, just as I’m enthralled by an account of the glamorous and dangerous life of a hall-of-fame gladiator, we’re told that (Christian) Emperor Honorius prohibited gladiator combat in the year 404.

I look around at the grassy, rocky bowl that surrounds us, not to imagine the last of the cheering crowds but take in the pleasing view of sheep grazing on slopes that once held seating for up to 15,000 spectators, the town’s entire populations, all welcome, seated according to social status. And I sense the end of this amphitheater as a venue for the thrill of executed justice and violent entertainment. I sense the dismantling of temples, the surrounding of the city by ramparts, the rise of the Visigoths, the Sack of Rome.

Would you go out of your way for that?

I didn’t think so. But if there are remnants of a Roman amphitheater there’s got to be more to see in Saintes.

The name Saintes might lead you to imagine that the presence of a mother lode of Christian relics or a history of pious devotion, perhaps some memorable martyrdom. Though a certain Saint Eutropius was (for some, is) indeed venerated here as an early Christian martyr (I’ll get to him), Saintes is instead derived from the name of the Celtic tribe that inhabited the region at the time of the Roman invasion with Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars and far before the evangelization of Gaul. They were the Santoni. Under Roman rule, the developing town was given the name Mediolanum, or Mediolanum Santonum to add the term for its inhabitants. (Similarly, the Parisii were the pre-Roman inhabitants of what would become Paris, a town the Romans called Lutetia or Lutetia Parisiorum.)

Mediolanum/Saintes developed just beyond a sharp bend in the Charente River. The town is now somewhat removed from major routes through France, hence the 3½ train from Paris with a change of trains at Angoulême. On the map below, you have to zoom in above and Bordeaux to locate Saintes along the Charente between Cognac, 17 miles to the east, and Rochefort, 24 miles northwest.

Two thousand years ago, however, Mediolanum held a proud place on the map of Gaul as capital of the large province of Aquitaine. Here, the east-west Via Agrippa, the route coming from Ludgunum (now Lyon), met the north-south route through Aquitaine, a sign of the town’s geographical and political importance.

The amphitheater is testimony to the town’s prominence early in the Roman colonization of Gaul. Completed in about 40 AD and dedicated to Emperor Claudius (41-54 AD), who had been born in Lugdunum, its construction predates that of the Colosseum of Rome by about 30 years and that of the amphitheaters of Arles and Nimes by 50 and 60 years respectively.

Bordeaux would take over as the capital of Roman Aquitaine in the 2nd century, leaving Mediolanum with a secondary role, then less so as centuries passed. Saintes is now a part of the vast region of New Aquitaine, whose capital is Bordeaux. Its current population is only 27,000 (56,000 with the metropolitan area), less than double what it was 2000 years ago. Its inhabitants are called the Saintais and Santaises.

The Arch of Germanicus

Even before the construction of the amphitheater, Mediolanum bore the proud markers of a Roman town.

Its first aqueduct was already supplying water, and a second would soon be added to provide a more abundant supply to the growing provincial capital. Remnants of these can be seen at their sources in the countryside 6-7 miles outside of town. Fascinating as they may be, it’s likely that only a diehard explorer of antiquity with a vehicle will inquire the route at the tourist office to seek them out.

Every visitor to Saintes, however, takes a walk along the river to see the Arch of Germanicus, built about 18-19AD. (Also, the tourist office is close by.) Originally constructed at the point of arrival of the Via Agrippa, the arch was the entrance gate to the bridge crossing the Charente into the heart of Mediolanum. The double-arch gate honors Emperor Tiberius, his son Druus and his adoptive son Germanicus, yet Germanicus gets sole reverence today since his name is the most legible of those inscribed along the arch’s crown.

In 1843, the arch was displaced 150 yards from its original position as the bridge and waterfront were modified. So it now stands isolated and out of context, diminishing some of its aura. Nevertheless, as we stand by the river with a full view of the arch and learn from Cécile Trébuchet, a dynamic local guide, how to interpret its blocks and inscriptions, visiting Saintes feels less like a detour and more like an arrival. It also inspires a wiki read about Tiberius and the imperial gang of 2000 years ago that later sends me down the rabbit hole of Roman history from which I eventually emerge with the sense that the same gang is at it today.

A visit to the town’s Archeology Museum, right nearby, seems like the natural next step. Unless it’s mealtime, in which case consider the restaurant barge La Batiâ that’s docked by the arch.

Would you go out of your way for that?

Unlikely. Maybe a medieval monument or two will tilt the balance. Three medieval bell towers stand out above the pale red tile roofs of Saintes, those of the Abbaye aux Dames (the Ladies’ Abbey), of Saint Pierre (St. Peter) Cathedral and of Saint Eutrope (Eutropius) Basilica.

The Tomb and Crypt of Saint Eutropius

Saintes’s most unique medieval sight is the basilica’s crypt, a subterranean church containing the tomb on the early Christian missionary and lapidated martyr Saint Eutropius. A site of devotion since the mid-500s, the presence of the saint’s tomb later earned Saintes a stop on the Way of Saint James to Compostella, Spain. The tomb now lies in dramatic simplicity in the heart of a vast crypt of the 11th century. The light, the chill and the musty smell there create a spectacular and eerie atmosphere that flirts between virtuous intimacy and the possibility of eternal damnation, as the most titillating flirts do. It’s open to the public, if you dare enter the gaping mouth of the entrance to the great below. The leafy decorations of its column capitals provide touches of charm that partially alleviate the sense that the end is nigh. But be forewarned: Stand inside alone for more than a few minutes and you’ll either fall to your knees in a desperate plea to be saved or run out in a panic to save yourself. I chose the latter.

The Ladies’ Abbey: Hotel, Church, Music Conservatory

You’d be hard pressed to find a tourist trap in Saintes considering how few foreign tourists venture this way. That point alone can be the attraction as an overnight for the wayward traveler, or for someone suddenly struck with wanderlust, or for a cyclist on the easy-going Rochefort-Cognac leg of the Flow Vélo route. Consider then a peaceful night at the Abbey aux Dames, the Ladies’ Abbey, which is also a highlight for the day visitor.

Founded in 1047, the Ladies’ Abbey, is a successful contemporary example of ways in which heritage sights can be rehabilitated to the benefit of local life, local economy, culture, and visitors. While one portion of the complex is now used for social housing, the central portion houses a music conservatory, an auditorium and a hotel, along with the abbey church. The complex also has an information desk, a boutique, a café and a strange playable musical tent of sorts.

The abbey church remains the medieval centerpiece. Though the Benedictines nuns were sent packing during the Revolution, the Romanesque church was later reconsecrated and continues to hold Catholic service. Fires in 1608 and 1648 led to the rebuilding of the convent buildings in the 17th century. From the Revolution until just after the First World War, the site served as military barracks, housing about 2000 men. Audio guides are available to explore the thousand-year history of the site and to appreciate its recent musical vocation.

In 1972, the tired complex was given new life when it became the venue for a Classical music festival. The former abbey now hosts musical programs throughout the year, culminating in the annual Festival de Saintes. In 2025, nearly 12,000 people attended the 29 concerts performed over 8 days in July at the abbey and elsewhere in Saintes.

Situated between the station and the river, the abbey hotel is conveniently situated for lodging train travelers and bikers.

The 33 bedrooms occupy the former cells of nuns along a hallway on the second floor of the main convent building. Only several of the rooms have en suite bathrooms. Most share bathrooms on the hallway (bathrobes and slippers are provided). That will be off-putting for some, but will add a sense of community to others.

The hotel is not for ladies only, and this is not roughing it. The rooms are comfortable. The architecture itself is the primary décor. The quiet of the immediate surroundings, the history of the place, and the arched stone-and-brick ceiling of the bedrooms inspire guests to sleep the sleep of nuns or soldiers or Classical musicians or tired tourists, depending on what dreams, nightmares or fantasies overcome you. About 100€ per room per night is a reasonable price to find out. The complex is open year-round, however the hotel section primarily operates April to September. The rest of the year it opens only for groups reserving 10 rooms or more.

Other nice lodging options for train travelers or cyclists include Hotel des Messageries, a 3-star by the river and the town center, and La Porte Rouge – The Red Door Inn, a charming B&B in the center. Those traveling by car may also consider Relais du Bois Saint Georges, a 4-star on the edge of town.

The Dupuy-Mestreau Museum

It’s from a side street that we enter this handsome private mansion of the 18th century that otherwise faces the Charente River. In the 19th century the mansion was purchased by Abel Mestreau (1855-1939), a wealthy Cognac merchant and a collector of regional folklore, curiosities and apparently whatever struck his fantasy. He never actually lived here. The Dupuy-Museum Museum is so scarcely visited and the discolored collection is so eclectic that that itself may appeal to those who like feeling that they’ve left main-road travelers way behind.

As much as I appreciate having our guide explain the interest of the various costumes, clothing, regional headdresses (coiffes), paintings, regional artefacts, furnishings, knick-knacks, pottery, jewelry, and what-the-heck-is-thats, I also enjoy wandering around on my own so as to make up stories about various objects, e.g. this gal with the racket; I call her the goddess of tennis. Not unlike visiting Saint Eutropius’s crypt, eclectic regional museums such as this inspire in me a mix of intense curiosity and a desire to flee.

Curiosity got the better of us all. We hung around long enough to see the royalist treasure among the footwear display: a cute pair of slipper-shoes said to have been worn by deposed king Louis XVI during his imprisonment, as he awaited the trial that would eventually lead to his execution. I’m glad I saw them, because that gives me a reason to tell you a Saintes fun fact: Saintes was the birthplace in 1738 of Joseph-Ignace Guillotin whose name lives on in the term for the machine for humane and expedient execution that he championed: the guillotine. An etching of the fellow is among the collection.

Would I advise you to go out of you way for that or does this sound like a far way to go for yet another quaint small town in France?

Still wondering.

Cognac Grosperrin

After all of the vestiges and artefacts that we’ve encountered through the day, we air out our dusty minds with a stroll along the river. It leads us to the offices and cellars of Saintes’s last remaining Cognac broker. As we approach, we imagine barges docked nearby to load casks for shipping when these cellars were first operational in 1851.

Cognac, the town that gave its name to the world-renown double-distilled brandy, is 17 miles upriver, to the east, yet Saintes lies within the cognac grape-growing zone. While most of the major players in the Cognac market are in and around Cognac, the Grosperrin Cognac house, located here, is increasingly known to connoisseurs. Since 1999, first under Jean Grosperrin then, beginning in 2004, under his son Guilhem, Cognac Grosperrin has made a name for itself by purchasing from a variety of sources single-terroir and vintage Cognacs in oak casks, which it then continues to age before bottling and selling at what it deems the appropriate time.

The main cellar, with its old casks and demijohns, most of which are dated and authenticated with official sealing, is an impressive sight in its own right when one thinks of the history (your own, France’s, the world’s) that the dates represent. Then comes the tasting.

I will admit here that among French brandies I never had a taste for Cognac, finding it too harsh for my palate. Before now, that is. Turns out that my impression was based on middling or young Cognacs, the kind best reserved for cocktails or give-me-anything-that-burns digestives. When well-selected fruit is well-distilled and well-aged, it’s an entirely different experience. The same can be said for Calvados (apple) and Armagnac (grape), the two other internationally known French brandies, but I’ve generally been more forgiving when sipping middling versions of those, on the one hand because I’m a frequent visitor to the Calvados region of Normandy and accept that apple brandy is a unpretentious spirit, and on the other because the Armagnac-producing region of southwest France is so enchantingly rural. One reason that I didn’t write about the town of Cognac after a quick visit there ten years ago was that I couldn’t quite wrap my tongue around its namesake brandy. I now realize that I need to go back and try again, because one sip—one spark—of a vintage offered by out tasting guide Maxence le Moulec at Grosperrin and I find myself wondering where I can buy a nice set of crystal brandy glasses. A sip of another and I’m thinking of purchasing a set of leather armchairs. One more and I’m considering looking for an apartment with a working fireplace.

Grosperrin isn’t only a connoisseur’s Cognac. It can also be a Cognac for infrequently imbibing non-connoisseurs who would enjoy splurging for a quality bottle that will last a while, or for someone who already owns a set of leather chairs and crystal tumblers but not the brandy to go with it, or, finally, someone who may never buy a bottle Cognac but wants a sip of local heritage excellence while traveling in the region. Even a sniff-swirl-and-spit tasting may suffice to understand the meaning of carpe diem, as the Roman poet sang. Let’s take this opportunity to recall what the Roman playwright said: “Moderation in all things is the best policy.”

For 7€, visitors are welcome for a tour and tasting. More intense and in-depth tasting tours can be reserved for 45€ and 150€. Advance booking is advised. Grosperrin isn’t the only merchant to go for quality in the Cognac-producing region, but I give them their due for sparking my interest in Cognac.

Is Cognac too harsh for you? Try Pineau des Charentes when in the region. Pineau is a fortified wine of about 17% in which grape juice (white, red or rosé) and Cognac are mixed and aged on oak barrels to create a sweet aperitif, served chilled. Don’t drink? Savor the food stands at the Saint Pierre Market on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.

So would I recommend that you go out of the way for Saintes?

I thought about the question on the long train ride back to Paris. How could I possibly give a generic answer? To each his or her own sparks, interests, imagination and cheap thrills. But don’t readers deserve an answer, a proverbial thumbs-up or thumbs-down or an algorithmic 1 to 5 stars? Was there something special here or was this just another quaint old French town? And if the latter, isn’t that enough?

I thought of all I’d done: I’d met archeologists and gladiators, learned history and words, descended into an eerie crypt, slept in a nunnery, wandered around a bizarre museum, nipped Cognac. Then suddenly, in a spark, I imagined Julius Ceasar, pleased, contemplative and exhausted on his way home from the Gallic Wars that would change the course of history all along this train route. I felt just like that. I came, I saw, I conked out.

© 2025, Gary Lee Kraut

Read about two other towns in the department of Charente-Maritime in New Aquitaine, Rochefort and La Rochelle.

The post Sparks of Curiosity in Saintes appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

I’d barely passed the social distancing sign at the entrance when I spotted one: a man and a woman walking hand in hand just ahead of me. I entered the first room of the permanent exhibition just behind them. They walked up to the panel on the wall and stood shoulder to shoulder reading it. From a proper meter to one side, I, too, read about the origins of the town that the Romans called Divodurum Mediomatricorum.

Madame either read faster than monsieur or she gave up before finishing the panel. She let go of his hand and moved on. Or did the gesture reflect something deeper, some dissatisfaction or annoyance, even something as simple as the way he moved his lips as he read to himself in an audible whisper? It was certainly annoying to me.

I walked on among the extensive Gallo-Roman collection.

To some, the very idea of a museum is foreboding, and the term Gallo-Roman, indicating the Romanized culture of Gaul from the first through the fifth centuries AD, would be unlikely to reassure them. Neither would subsequent signs pointing to collections of the Early, High and Late Middle Ages, though those eventually give way to the mildly promising sign for the Renaissance.

Some travelers imagine that knowledge is required when visiting such a museum, or, crueler still, appreciation. But nothing more is required in this free museum, or any museum for that matter, than when visiting a park: a simple stroll will do. Something is sure to come of it—you’ll catch a sight or sensation that draws you one way or another or the scent of a thought or an idea—at the very least a bit of physical or mental exercise.

The couple I’d first seen soon disappeared. I was alone on my stroll. How fortunate not to be encumbered by anyone. It was then that I truly began to notice the couples and twosomes. They were everywhere: complicitous duos, ‘til-death-do-us partnerships, unselfconscious hand-holders, shoulder-to-shoulder soulmates, undying friends and eternal companions, along with complex trios, bosom buddies of indeterminate gender and questionable confidantes.

In the first several rooms I educated myself by reading the wall panels about the development of the Gallo-Roman city, but I was more curious about interrogating these ancient pairs without the voice of a historian. So I ignored the panels and focused on the figures.

They didn’t appear to be newlyweds, new lovers or fresh affairs. They seemed to belong together, cut from the same stone, so to speak, in it for the long run. I tried to decipher their expressions. None of them looked particularly happy. Nor did they look particularly unhappy. Did their inexpressiveness mask distress, dissatisfaction or disappointment? Resignation? Reproaches unanswered or ignored? Were those expressions of consent? Or of exchange or transmission? Were those faces of contentment? Now there’s a goal!

I studied them closely, each one, as though examining them that way would allow me to understand why they had stayed together as long as they had? As I scrutinized their stance, their dress, their fixed or absent gaze, I wondered: Did they rationalize their union? How so? I mean, did they not give in from time to time to a torrent of thoughts about alternative possibilities—would I be better off with someone else, or alone? Or did such questions have no meaning within the spans of their lives and the mores of their time?

Still, as a couple, or individually, did they think of themselves as virtuous or acquiescent or constrained? Or was theirs an easy, nearly natural covenant, one of comfort, convenience, family and/or love? Or the consequence of a contract imposed by one or the other or by some outside force? Were they putting on a good face for the sake of posterity?

I strolled on. Decades passed, and centuries. As time went on, the anger, the meanness, the drama and cross-purposes grew.

A third party occasionally entered the scene—an evil or supernatural force, a counselor, a savior, a commander, a sage? Was the couple in danger? Had new laws circumscribed their relationship? What help did they need? With communication? With sexual satisfaction? With forgiveness? A need to placate a new ruler or deity?

Did they, could they, “work” on their relationship or had the material of their union hardened to the point that it was no longer workable but simply accept-able? What did “settling” mean to them? Did they make their bed and then lie in it? And was that so bad? Had their bed been made for them?

I’d been in the museum for nearly an hour and a half by the time I left the Middle Ages. I was ready to leave. I skimmed through the Renaissance, following signs to the exit.

It was a fine summer day. I walked in the direction of the cathedral. The yellow limestone of the city’s old buildings glowed in the late afternoon sun.

The museum had presented me with nothing but questions. Yet what a curious and magnificent stroll it had been—unplanned travel therapy. Rarely has a museum felt so personal. I’d received no answers, yet I felt clear-headed, content, nearly euphoric. I felt a need to talk. I stood by the café nearest to the cathedral. I took out my phone and thumbed a text: Où es-tu? / Where are you?

© 2022, Gary Lee Kraut

Musée de La Cour d’Or, 2 rue du Haut Poirier, Metz. Located one block from the cathedral. Open daily except Tuesday, 10AM-12:45PM and 2-6PM. Free entrance.

Metz, capital of the historic Lorraine region of northern France, is attractively set along confluence of the Moselle and Seille Rivers. Other highlights of the city include its sunbathed Gothic cathedral, aka The Good Lord’s Lantern, with its acre-and-a-half of stained glass; its buildings made of a yellow limestone called pierre de Jaumont; its covered food market by the cathedral; its train station, itself a prodigious Germanic temple. See the site of the Metz Tourist Office for more.

The post Couples Therapy in the Cour d’Or Museum in Metz appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

This illustrated article examines the Rochefort maritime arsenal, the Naval Medicine Museum, the Rope Factory, Two Young Girls, The Hermione, the Raft of the Medusa and Pierre Loti. Other aspects of Rochefort are presented in Without Rochefort There Would Be No Begonias and Sylvie Deschamps, France’s Master Artist of Gold Embroidery.

* * *

As the crow flies, the town of Rochefort is situated 5 miles inland from the Atlantic. But you’re unlikely to find a crow taking the direct route. Even the gulls follow the twists of the Charente River 15 miles to Rochefort.

The foreign visitor, however, is more likely to arrive via a 35-minute drive, either south from the attractive old port town of La Rochelle or northwest from the impressive Roman and Romanesque remnants at Saintes. Beyond Saintes, Cognac and Angouleme lie further upstream along the Charente River.

Walking alongside the stern facades on Rochefort’s grid-plan streets, one might well think of Rochefort as a quiet town that has always looked inward. But Rochefort was created as an outward-looking town of national importance, with international ambitions.

The creation of Rochefort

In 1666 the dynamic duo of France’s golden century, Louis XIV and his right-hand minister Colbert, aware of the need for France to beef up its maritime might as European powers bordering the Atlantic coast developed trade with and possessions in the New World, ordered the creation of a naval shipyard or arsenal at Rochefort.

Until then, France’s place as a European powerhouse typically meant deploying its force on land; its navy was a small affair. But with 17th-century globalization the English, the Spanish, the Portuguese and the Dutch rivaled for power on the high seas, and France risked missing the boat. Furthermore, while France’s Atlantic commercial ports of Nantes, La Rochelle and Bordeaux flourished, they were susceptible to enemy attacks and piracy.

So in a riverside zone, surrounded by marshland, close to the major commercial ports, within easy reach of the woodland and forests whose timbers were necessary for building a fleet, and defendable due to its position upriver, the Rochefort naval arsenal was launched.

A tremendous maritime enterprise was born, bringing together all of the various trades associated with such an enterprise. As it grew, a town of 14 east-west streets and 10 north-south streets was laid out.

Over time, Rochefort’s fortunes as a naval arsenal ebbed and flowed. It would be overtaken in importance by Brest, in the far reaches of Brittany, and later by Toulon, in the Mediterranean. Nevertheless, for 250 years Rochefort maintained a role in French maritime history.

The School of Naval Medicine

In 1722 the world’s first School of Naval Medicine opened in Rochefort. For the next 240 years it trained surgeons for the job of caring for sailors, and those surgeons became a part of the scientific team as the French navy around the world. The building where the school was installed in 1788 now houses the Naval Medicine Museum.

In 1778, Rochefort launched the construction of a 213-foot frigate called the Hermione. It was on that ship that, in March 1780 the Marquis de Lafayette embarked on a transatlantic crossing to deliver news to General Washington of France’s military support in the colonists’ fight against the mutual enemy, the English.

Rochefort was an important naval arsenal during that period. Some of the manpower came from forced labor as a penitentiary for criminals with lengthy sentences had been created here for just that purpose. (A more notorious forced-labor penitentiary was that of the maritime arsenal of Toulon, where the fictional Jean Valjean, the hero of Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables” was held prisoner). The force-labor penitentiary or bagne of Rochefort functioned from 1766 to 1852. Living and working under harsh conditions, not only did the convicts provide labor for the navy, they also provided, upon precocious death, cadavers for the naval medical school.

The 19th century saw the development of the study known as phrenology which gave credence to the notion that the shape and size of the cranium reveals character, mental abnormality and the supposed inferiority of certain groups. The craniums of deceased criminals were studied here in an attempt to discern which cranial proportions signaled a propensity to one type of violent crime over another, e.g. distinguishing the physical traits of a murderer from that of a rapist.

Some of those “criminal” skulls can be seen at the Museum of the Naval Medical School among other displays of mid-19th-century medical know-how. Visits on the theme of phrenology and the penitentiary are occasionally held at the museum. Inquire at the Rochefort Tourist Office or directly at the museum.

The phrenology display is just a small part of the overall exhibit to the museum which presents a wide variety of displays relative to the concerns and methods of 19th-century maritime medicine and surgery. The building also houses an extensive historic library on the subject.

End of an era

As warships evolved in the latter decades of the 19th century it became increasingly difficult to justify maintaining a shipyard on a relatively shallow river. The death knoll for Rochefort as a shipbuilding town had been signaled several times over the centuries, and finally in 1919 the last warship to be constructed at Rochefort, its 550th, slid into the water. The arsenal closed eight years later. The port was partially dynamited by the German occupying force in 1944 with the approach of defeat. It was subsequently all but abandoned by the French navy.

The Young Girls of Rochefort

By the mid-1960s there was little life left in the old naval arsenal to identify Rochefort with its maritime past. The arsenal wasn’t dormant, it was in full decay. A town whose history had always led it to look outward could now barely face its own waterfront.

Then in 1966 a film crew came to Rochefort, awakening the town from its post-war slumber with bright colors, cheery music, movie stars and a whiff of flower power. Called The Young Girls of Rochefort (Les Demoiselles de Rochefort), the musical tells of two artsy young women who dream of love and life beyond Rochefort. Starring Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac (twins in the film, non-twin sisters in real life) and Gene Kelly, it was written and directed by Jacques Demy, with music by Michel Legrand. Hitting the big screen in 1967, the movie became such a cultural icon in France and remained so for so long that for several decades a foreigner hearing about The Young Girls of Rochefort when visiting France would have assumed that the town had no greater claim to a page in the history of France than being the backdrop of the colorful musical.

You can see from the trailer below how the movie would become an inspiration for La La Land (2016).

The Rope Factory and the Knot Tyers of Rochefort

Two Young Girls gave Rochefort a new taste of civic pride, but it was going to take much more than splashes of colors on the central square, some whitewashed walls and a few curious movie fans to face up to having an abandoned naval arsenal in the front yard.

Projects finally came to fruition in the 1980s. The Begonia Conservatory, though not in the arsenal zone, renewed Rochefort’s history of botanical exploration that accompanied its naval expeditions. After all, without Rochefort there would be no begonias.

More visibly, restoration of the Royal Rope Factory, the Corderie Royale, was undertaken. At 1227 feet long, long enough to twist hemp into 650-foot cables of rope, the corderie had been the first major royal construction project of the arsenal in 1666 and was to become the first project to draw attention back to the shipyard zone. Both tourism, in the form of presentations and exhibitions related to rope-making, and offices, with the presence of the International Sea Center, have found their place here, as well as an outstanding maritime bookshop. There’s a daytime restaurant, Les Longitudes, right nearby.

Visitors to the rope factory can learn through displays and demonstrations how string made from hemp was twisted into thick rope for the sailing ships of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

Sylvie Deschamps, France’s master artist of gold embroidery, may have the nimblest fingers in Rochefort, but knot tyers (mateloteurs in French) at the Corderie Royale are quite skilled at turning, twisting, braiding and knotting as they create traditional and contemporary rope pieces, both utilitarian and decorative.

The French branch of the International Guild of Knot Tyers, an organization created in the U.K. in 1982, is headquartered here.

The Hermione

Promoting a historic ropeworks can do only so much to bring townspeople and visitors from elsewhere to a former naval arsenal. What was missing was something that would instill civic pride and truly draw attention to the town: an actual ship.

Like neighborhood kids getting together to decide they wanted to put on a play, some elected officials and historical-minded folk came up with the crazy idea of actually building a warship at the old arsenal. It would need to be an evocative ship, one that called to mind the successes of the French navy, the role of France in the world and a historical figure who was famous and ambiguous enough that he hadn’t fully been claimed by either the right wing or the left. A tall order.

One ship identified with one man fit the bill: the Hermione, the frigate built at Rochefort, which took Lafayette to meet with Washington in 1780. It had been a journey that signaled France’s full involvement in the American cause, or more precisely in the hurt-the-British-wherever-you-can cause.

Turning a fantasy project into a reality took time. The municipally-backed non-profit Hermione – La Fayette Association was created in 1992 and construction finally began on July 4, 1997. While the original frigate took six months to construct, it took 17 years and a budget 25 million euros to building a full-scale replica of the 65-meter (213-feet) long frigate. The project required the wood of 2000 oak trees, 1 ton of hemp for caulking, 1000 pulleys, nearly 15 miles of rope for riggings, and eventually 32 canons, altogether requiring the creation of numerous workshops along the dock.

The region, department (sub-region) and town provided 4.8 million euros each for the budget and the European Union provided 1.5 million, while over 9 million came from members of the association, donations, sponsors/partners and visitors who came to see the construction site. Visitors could speak with the various artisans involved and learn about the various techniques and trades involved in building the replica.

Interest from the general public arrived slowly at first, but once the hull took form public interest rose with the ship. By the time the Hermione was completed in 2014 4.1 visitors had visited the dockyard to see the ship under construction.

A crew of 80 was formed, and in 2015 the Hermione took the ocean for a 17-day transatlantic crossing. She made calls along the U.S. eastern seaboard at Yorktown, Mount Vernon, Alexandria, Annapolis, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Greenport, Newport, Boston and Castine, then Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, before returning home via Brest and Ile d’Aix.

The crossing itself required a budget of about 5.4 million euros, with 3.15 million coming from American sponsors, partners and other sources.

The voyage was driven by the ship’s sails 95% of the time. A motor built into the replica was used as necessary, particularly to more securely navigate the entrance and exit to ports. Also breaking with tradition, about one-third of the crew members were women.

While the rope factory continues to please and inform visitors of all ages, the Hermione has become the face of the shipyard.

Dockside, visitors can see exhibitions about the ship and watch more or less active workshops regarding the sails, riggings, iron work and historical costumes. One can then step on board without a guide, but tours, given by crew members, are the more interesting way to go, especially if you’d like to know hear about sailing the high seas and ask questions about navigation and life onboard. Among those who made the crossing was Geoffrey Laulan, who started as a volunteer and has become one of the Hermione’s professional crew members.

Only one of the canons is an authentic 18th-century canon. The others are reproductions, unusable with cannonballs but suitable for fireworks displays.

In addition to regular visits, the Hermione also host’s special events, such as dinner events and concerts.

With Rochefort as its home port, the Hermione will set out from February to June 2018 for a voyage down the Atlantic coast and into the Mediterranean. It will call at La Rochelle, Tanger, Barcelona, Sète, Toulon, Marseille, Port Vendres, Portimao and Bordeaux, before returning home to Rochefort on June 16.

No frigate worth its salt would be complete with a ship’s cat.

The Raft of the Medusa

Less photogenic but claiming high historical honors in its own right is the replica of another French frigate called the Méduse (Medusa). Not the ship itself, actually, but the raft that was created from the ship’s masts and yards when the Medusa ran aground on a sandbank 50 miles off the coast of Mauritania while on its way to Senegal in 1816.

The outline of the true story of the raft of the Medusa is well known in France. It’s known through history books as well as art books, and especially through The Raft of the Medusa (Le Radeau de la Méduse) a large painting by Théodore Géricault (1791-1824), created while the news was still fresh. Today the painting is likely seen but ignored by most of the millions of visitors who come each year to the Louvre since it hangs in the gallery of monumental French paintings behind that of the Mona Lisa.

The Medusa was not built in Rochefort, rather at a shipyard in the estuary of the Loire River, just upstream from the modern-day shipyard of Saint Nazaire. But it was from Rochefort that the Medusa set out in 1816 on a mission to take control of Senegal, which the Treaty of Vienna had awarded to France. It was captained—poorly, cowardly and fatally—by an aristocrat who hadn’t commanded a ship in 25 years.

After a succession of navigational errors the frigate ran aground on a sandbar 50 miles from the coast. In order to lighten the ship, the captain commanded that a tremendous raft be made from the Medusa’s masts and yards. But as the ship began to list the captain ordered for the ship to be abandoned. There was a shortage of lifeboats and those were reserved mostly for officers, including the captain. The 151 soldiers and others are ordered onto the make-shift raft with little food and only five barrels of wine as nourishment. The raft, measuring 20 meters by 12 meters (66 feet by 39 feet) was so heavy with passengers that they stood in three feet of water.

If there was ever the intent to have the lifeboats tug the raft, the plan was quickly cut short. The raft was soon detached and went adrift, as the lifeboats made it to shore. Within two days, life aboard the raft was a hell of thigh-high water, extreme heat, delirium, fighting, rebellion and murder, soon followed by suicide and cannibalism as well. When finally spotted 13 days later by a passing ship, only 15 passengers remained. Of those, only seven survived to tell the tale.

The event shook France in 1816 both for the horror of the true tale and for the political scandal of the appointment of an incompetent aristocrat at the ship’s helm. The following year the captain was sentenced to three years in prison, a far cry from the penalty of death that many called for. That year Théodore Géricault began his own painterly investigations that would eventually give rise to his most famous painting. He actually spoke with and sketched some of the survivors in preparing the work.

Géricault’s 7m x 5m (23ft x 16ft) painting, which the Louvre refers to as “the star of the Salon of 1819,” depicts the imagined moment when a ship, potential rescue, is barely perceptible as a dot on the horizon. In that moment, as some die or agonize, the viewers sees an array of reactions and emotions relative to the tragedy and the possibility of rescue, from fatality and despair, it the view sees the human expression of fate of us all, from death to despair to optimism and hope.

In 2014, during the making of a documentary about the history of the Medusa and of Géricault’s painting, a full-scale replica of the raft was created and briefly set afloat. The replica can now be seen in the courtyard of the National Naval Museum at the Rochefort arsenal. On first view, it appears to be a jumbled array of posts and beams, as though something at the museum were under construction. The fuller view is upstairs.

The museum, which occupies the former residence of the Commanders of the Navy at the arsenal, is otherwise dedicated to more glorious moments in Rochefort’s naval history, with many scale models of warships and presentation of technical aspects of the shipyard. A current exhibition, running until November 6, 2018, presents naval uniforms.

Pierre Loti

The facades at 139 and 141 rue Pierre Loti appear as inexpressive as any in old Rochefort. But behind them lie the effusive and theatrical décor of the home of Pierri Loti (1850-1923), Rochefort’s most famous son.

Born Julien Viaud, Pierre Loti was his nom de plume. It might also be considered his stage name. Since childhood he had been interested in theatrics, adventure and exoticism. As Viaud he entered into a long career in the navy, while as Loti he also became an illustrator, a novelist, a travel journalist, a photographer, a collector (hoarder may be a better term for what he amassed) and a socialite. Throughout it all he was a traveler: Algeria, Turkey, Tahiti, Senegal, Japan, China, Morocco, Syria, Palestine, India, Egypt and more.

Loti liked to have himself photographed in the costumes of the places he visited, as in the two examples shown here. Nowadays, someone like Loti might become a master of the selfie and a million-hit travel blogger with his own travel show during which we’d occasionally see him hobnobbing with the titled and the famous from around the world. Loti himself was not famous merely for being famous, as would be the case today’s social networker. His fame came from the success of his writing, hence his election to the Académie Française. Though his novels have been largely forgotten, written in a bygone style, there is a brilliant level of detail and discovery in them.

He grew up on the street that now bears his assumed name, in the house that he would eventually purchase from his mother and transform in his own image. He later purchased the adjacent house. Each room was decorated to be reminiscent of a different time or place: the Chinese room, the Gothic room, the Japanese Pagoda, the Mosque, the Renaissance room, etc. He wrote little about Rochefort itself, but his work is rich with the outward-looking gaze that growing up in a port town in the mid-19th century might evoke: the desire to encounter distant lands and distant peoples, and the need to bring home pieces of foreign cultures.

Unfortunately for current visitors to Rochefort, Loti’s house, a historical monument belonging to the town, is closed to the public. Shuttered since 2012 because it requires thorough restoration and structural work and the hefty financing (about 12 million euros) to do so, the house won’t reopen before 2020.

In the meantime, the town’s Hèbre de Saint-Clément Museum provides an excellent introduction to the colorful character that was Loti and to his unusual home.

The Hèbre de Saint-Clément Museum

Nothing is more off-putting to a foreign visitor than a museum with a forgettable, multi-syllabic name, in this case that of the aristocrat who once owned the property. So ignore the name, but don’t forget that you’re in Rochefort because while this eclectic public museum might appear to be a handsome repository of random-abelia, its diverse parts offer a vision of the town’s history of seafaring, expeditions, colonialization and an interest in distant lands.

There’s a nod to The Young Girls of Rochefort, of course, but more importantly a thorough glimpse of Pierre Loti and a virtual visit to his house. The museum also presents a small beaux-arts collection, a display of objects handed down over the generations from a seafaring ancestor, and contemporary works from Oceania. The latter reminds visitors that there is more to Aboriginal art than the curiosity of colonizers but that vibrant arts and culture remain in areas that are far-flung from our point of view.

Restaurants, hotels, tourist information

For further tourist information about Rochefort and nearby sights along the Atlantic coast see the site of the Rochefort Ocean Tourist Office, Avenue Marie-François Sadi Carnot, 17300 Rochefort. Tel. 05 46 99 08 60.

Information about the wider area which includes Rochefort, Saintes and La Rochelle can be found on the site of the Charente-Maritime Tourist Board.

For an easy-going lunch or tea-time stop while at the arsenal, Les Longitudes, next to the Royal Rope Factory / Corderie Royale is open daily April to mid-November and during the Christmas-New Year holiday period. Otherwise closed weekends as well as early January to mid-February. Tel. 05 46 87 56 15.

In town, Patrick Bonnaud prepares finer cuisine at Les Quatres Saisons, 76 rue Grimaux, 17300 Rochefort. Tel. 05 46 83 95 12. Open Tuesday-Saturday.

A 20-minute drive from Rochefort by a little lake in the village of Trizay, Les Jardins du Lac is an attractive and friendly choice for seasonal gastronomy, prepared by Yohann Suire. 3 chemins Fontchaude, 17250 Trizay. Tel. 05 46 82 03 56. Open Tuesday-Saturday lunch and dinner and Sunday lunch. The restaurant is part of the Suire family’s quiet 3-star hotel of the same name.  The hotel also has a heated swimming pool.

Back in heart of Rochefort there’s the 3-star Hotel Roca Fortis, 14 rue de la République, 17300 Rochefort. Tel. 05 46 99 26 32.

While some drive from Rochefort to La Rochelle and others to Saintes and points beyond, then this writer the train to Cognac. But that’s a whole other story.

© 2017, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Rochefort: Ships, Shipyards and Seafarers appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

Urbanites in France often speak of Creuse, a region deep into the often bypassed center of the country, as the kind of place to which you might flee to escape the rat race and surround yourself with goats and sheep, the proverbial middle of nowhere.

France Revisited takes pleasure in revealing the somewhere of such nowheres, and there is nowhere more somewhere in Creuse than the small town of Aubusson, world famous for its 500 years of tapestry-making.

Cité Internationale de la Tapisserie Aubusson

The Cité Internationale de la Tapisserie Aubusson (International Center of Aubusson Tapestry), which opened in July 2016, represents far more than a pat on the back to the history of tapestry-making in the region. It also reaffirms and encourages the continuity of know-how for the entire branch of tapestry-related activities present in Creuse, from the raising of sheep and the spinning and dying of wool to the creation of images and their weaving into an extraordinary array of contemporary tapestries.

The Cité is at once a museum, an institution for the transmission of know-how, a research center, a start-up incubator for related businesses and a platform for the promotion and creation of contemporary tapestries.

Taking the relay from an older, smaller museum, the Cité project was in the works for over 20 years, but truly began to take shape in 2009 when Aubusson tapestry-making gained entry onto UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

As a museum, the Cité displays examples of tapestries since the 15th century, including a dramatic presentation of works through the ages presented in a series of theatrical decors. The techniques of tapestry-making and their use around the world are also presented. And 12 weavers (lissiers in French) are admitted every two years to the Cité’s two-year program for budding weavers. Also, State-owned tapestries are now restored here.

Weavers, les lissiers

Visiting the Cité Internationale de la Tapisserie Aubusson is one of the rewards of a detour into the middle of the somewhere of Creuse. And enhancing that rewards is the possibility to meet individuals who carry and transmit the know-how associated with the creation of Aubusson tapestries.

Since 2010, the Cité has supported the work of regional artisans in the development of contemporary creations. Each year it calls on artists from around the world to present projects according to a given theme. The three selected projects are then woven in Creuse. In order to be considered an Aubusson a tapestry needn’t be woven in the town itself but anywhere within Creuse. The two main centers of creation, however, are Aubusson and Felletin.

France-Odile Perrin-Crinière in Aubusson

In 2015 France-Odile Perrin-Crinière’s workshop-gallery A2, located in the center of Aubusson, received a commission from the Cité to weave a richly colored 3m x 5m (about 9.8ft x 16.4ft) tapestry called “The Family in the Joyful Greenery” based on an image by Argentinian artists Leo Chiachio and Daniel Giannone.

Enter Perrin-Crinière’s workshop-gallery and you’ll see two (or three if she, too, has her hands on the wool) highly-skilled artisans leaning over a long horizontal loom. They work with patience, skill and comradery before a web of yarns, knots and colors—300 nuances in all. They’ve been at it for over 18 months now, and the tapestry is expected to “fall” from the loom in another six month (spring 2017). They weave without even seeing the actual face of the tapestry since a tapestry is woven from its back.

Perrin-Crinière’s route to becoming the master artisan at the helm of a well-established little workshop began in 1978 when, at the age of 16, she left her home in the Landes region of southwest France to learn tapestry-making at Aubusson. After three years of schooled training followed by several years honing her skills working for others, she struck out on her own as a creator-weaver, meaning that in addition to following the designs of others she would weave her own designs. In 2010 she partnered with another weaver to create the workshop A2. The unexpected early retirement of her partner left Perrin-Crinière alone at A2 just as the major commission from the Cité arrived.

In need of employees she turned to the two-year formal training program run by the Cité. She hired two weavers whose entrance into the field was quite different from her own.

Patricia Bergeron, a Creuse native, had a long career assisting the elderly before undertaking a professional reconversion to become a weaver. “Ever since I was little I’ve worked with my fingers,” she says. “I did embroidery and knitting, without thinking that I’d eventually turn to working in a workshop like this.”

Aubusson’s international reputation meant that Aiko Konomi knew of Aubusson tapestries in her native Japan, where she received a master’s degree in contemporary art fabrics. She arrived in 2014 to study in the Cité’s program. For financial reasons and because of her prior experience working towards her master’s degree, she only completed one year of the program before Perrin-Crinière hired her. Bergeron and Konomi now work daily on the commissioned tapestry while Perrin-Crinière puts in time here and there between weaving smaller orders on other looms and running workshops.

A2 has now earned the label Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant (Living Heritage Company, or EPV), a distinction given by the French State in recognition of excellence in traditional and industrial skills.

While working on this major commission as an artisan at the service of art (artisan d’art), Perrin-Crinière continues to create and execute her own designs in which she marries color and material, such as a tapestry framed by slate (e.g. the work behind her in the photo above).

Catherine Bernet in Felletin

A pretty 10-kilometer (6-mile) drive south through the wooded valley from Aubusson, leads to Felletin, a small town of 1800 inhabitants, less than half the size of Aubusson. If Aubusson is France’s tapestry capital, Felletin is its cradle since tapestry work has been documented here since the middle of the 15th century, even before Aubusson. More than 500 years later, Felletin remains a force in the Aubusson tapestry industry. The tennis-court size tapestry at Coventry Cathedral, designed by the British artist Graham Sutherland and completed in 1962, was made on a single loom in Felletin by Pinton, one of the largest manufacturers in the region.

As Perrin-Crinière passed the half-way mark of her commissioned tapestry at A2, the Cité’s commission to Catherine Bernet and her Atelier Bernet was falling from its loom after two years of weaving. (A tapestry “falls” from the loom when the weaving is complete.) For the first time Bernet could see the full 2m x 8m (6.6ft x 26.2ft) tapestry face up. But no sooner had its fall from the loom been celebrated then the tapestry was turned over again so that she could set to work bunching and cutting the pompoms on the back.

The tapestry is the door-rug intended to be partially hung, partially laid flat (see photo) in the lobby of the Cité Internationale. The image for tapesry, officially title “Toute personne 2 – Tissage métissage,” was created by Vincent Bécheau and Marie-Laure Bourgeois, architect-designers from Dordogne who, Bernet says, “actively participated without hindering the work.”

Both Bernet and Perrin-Criniere speak of the “relation of confidence” between the weaver and the artist-cartoonist. (The image that a tapestry is based on is called a cartoon, carton in French.) “A tapestry is necessarily a collaborative work, a dialogue between the two,” says Bernet.

Bruno Ythier, curator of the Cité, says that while weavers may be creators of the images for the tapestries they create, Aubusson largely represents an encounter between the image’s creator (an artist, a decorator, an architect or another) and the weaver who then interprets that image.

Bernet’s workshop in an attic partially bathed in natural light in a house near the center of Felletin. She works with two employees, one a young weaver whom she employed freshly graduated from the Cité weaving program, the other a weaver with 35 years of experience.

Originally from nearby Auvergne, Bernet came to tapestry-making in 2010, at the age of 34, having begun her professional career as a pharmacist. “In my free time I did a lot of painting and sculpting, but it was impossible to include my artistic side into my professional life,” she says.

She discovered tapestry-making “a little by chance” and, after giving that discovery time to mature in her mind, she crossed the border from Auvergne to Creuse and from pharmacy to craftsmanship.

Instead of seeking to enter Cité’s program, she apprenticed directly within with the Pinton workshop in order to better understand “the reality of the work.” “Having left my previous work, I couldn’t afford to make a mistake,” she says, “so I wanted to go directly to the heart of the matter to see if it was for me or not.”

It was.

In 2013 she set up her own shop. No sooner had she hung out her shingle then she sought and received the commission from the Cité to weave the door-rug which now prominently stands-lies in its lobby.

Asked if he ever misses her work as a pharmacist Bernet says, “There’s great joy [in being a lissière] but it also demands a lot in terms of time and energy. It’s a complete investment. But no regrets.”

Tapestry for the centennial of WWI

Weavers can also been seen at work in the Cité Internationale de la Tapisserie Aubusson itself. The inaugural on-site project, currently underway, is a tapestry for the centennial of the First World War.

Woven by the workshop of Patrick Guillot, it is based on an image entitled Pieta for World War I by the German artist Thomas Bayrle. Measuring 4.5m x 4.5m (14.7ft x 14.7ft) and consisting of thousands of skulls, the pieta is being woven on a loom that has been specially installed for the project in the Cité. The tapestry will eventually be displayed at the Historial Franco-Allemand of Hartmannswillerkopf in Alsace, a French-German WWI museum to be inaugurated on Nov. 11, Armistice Day, 2017.

The Terrade spinning and dyeing company

Not all wool that that goes into Aubusson tapestries comes from sheep raised in Creuse. Furthermore, all manner of fiber and fabrics may be used in Aubusson tapestries: alpaca, camel, bamboo, synthetics, etc. Nevertheless, those in search of local tradition might drive down by the narrow Creuse River as it flows out of Felletin toward Aubusson, there to visit Filature Terrade, a spinning and dyeing business that has been run by the Terrade family for over a century. Filature Terrade has also recently received the national label Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant (Living Heritage Company, or EPV).

Until 1950 the factory produced woolen cloth for shepherd’s capes before transforming into a spinning factory for wool and dying, primarily of sheep’s wool, using natural dyes. It is a small factory by industry standards, producing about 20 tons per year. It allows for a fascinating and personable introduction to spinning and dying. (Visits are organized by a local association; see information below.) Now operated by the third (Michel) and fourth (Thierry) generation of the founding Terrade family, the factory produces customized yarn for professionals. A small boutique on the site is open to the public and has excellent factory prices on wool yarn and knit products.

Practical Information and Contacts

See websites for opening times and entrance fee.

Cité Internationale de la Tapisserie Aubusson
Rue des Arts
23200 Aubusson
Tel. 05 55 66 66 66

Musée des Cartons de Tapisserie d’Aubusson
The images that weavers follow and interpret in creating tapestries are known as cartoons, cartons in France. This one-of-a-kind museum along the Creuse River as it flows through Aubusson present an exceptional collection of historic cartoon. It can only be visited on a guided tour, which is available in English.
Pont de la Terrade
1 rue de l’Abreuvoir
23200 Aubusson
Tel. 06 88 25 35 07

Filature Terrade (spinning and dying factory)
Rue de la Papeterie
23500 Felletin
Tel. 05 55 66 44 88
Don’t just stop by. Factory tours are organized by the association Felletin Patrimoine-Environement. The association (felletinpatrimoine@gmail.com) or the Felletin Tourist Office can provide further information about tapestry-related visits at Filature Terrade and elsewhere in and around the Felletin.

Hôtel de France
A charming and old-fashion 3-star hotel and restaurant in the center of Aubusson, amiably operated by René Jean Hawaï.
6 rue des Déportés
23200 Aubusson
Tel. 05 55 66 10 22

Aubusson Tourist Office
63 rue Vieille
23200 Aubusson
Tel. 05 55 66 32 12

Felletin Tourist Office
Place Quinault
23500 Felletin
Tel. 05 55 64 54 60
An annual exhibition of tapestries in the Gothic chapel at the center of town. In late October Felletin organizes National Wool Days (Journées Nationales de la Laine) http://journeesdelalaine.wixsite.com/felletin devoted to all aspects of the use and production of wool, from shearing to yarn to finished goods.

Information about Aubusson is available in Felletin and vice versa. Information about the overall Creuse region can be found at www.tourisme-creuse.com.

© 2016, Gary Lee Kraut

An earlier version of this article first appeared in The Connexion.

The post Aubusson Tapestries: Weavers, Spinners, Dyers, Cartoonists and the Cité Internationale appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

Chambery swelled with civic pride when the fourth of its four elephants returned last summer. A carnival atmosphere filled the center of this valley city of 58,000 at the base of the Alps. Bands played. Artists created miniature elephants. A tremendous mechanical pachyderm wowed the crowd. A costumed parade marched down rue de Boigne from the Castle of the Dukes of Savoy to the Fountain of Elephants.

There they were, the four of them, their new iron cast dazzling in the light, home at last after an absence of seven months. Affectionately known as les Quatre sans culs, the Assless Four, since only their fore portion is visible, they faced the crowd in each direction. Mayor Michel Dentin, his deputies and several thousand people of all ages gathered around, flush with admiration for the newly restored emblems of the city.

There was a time, however, when the man at the top of the pedestal that soars above the Fountain of the Elephants was the pride of the town rather than the pachyderms: General and Count de Boigne (1751-1830).

De Boigne was a mercenary who had made his fortune and his titles by selling his military and governing skills to various powers of Europe and the Indian sub-continent, especially in the Maratha Empire. He eventually retired from a life of adventure and settled back, via a stint in London, to his hometown of Chambery. Here he donated sizeable funds to charitable organizations, including to build a home for the aged and the indigent, and for projects to embellish the city. A municipal theater was built. So was the arcaded street that bears the philanthropist’s name, the street the elephant parade marched down.

After his death, Chambery would return the favor with a monument honoring his philanthropy and his military glory. De Boigne stands dressed as a general on a pedestal nearly 15 meters high. Yet it’s the cast-iron elephants that have become the symbol of the city worthy of celebration. As a sign of the popular desire to support the elephants, €160,000 of the €1 million restoration project came from donations.

“The elephants may not be the most profound historical element in Chambery, but sometimes an amusing piece of heritage is what one needs to enter further in depth into what makes up this peaceable city,” said Gerard Charpin, communications officer for the Chambéry Tourist Office. “Perhaps Chambery’s greatest symbol of heritage isn’t a monument at all but rather the sign that one might not even notice upon entering the city: Villes et Pays d’Art et d’Histoire” (Cities and Territories of Art and History).

30 Years of Villes et Pays d’Art et d’Histoire (VPAH)

Villes et Pays d’Art et d’Histoire (VPAH), meaning Cities and Territories of Art and History, is a label that’s easy to miss, particularly for foreign visitors unaware of its significance. Yet it brings together the wide variety of points of historical and architectural interest in Chambery, as it does in the 183 other towns, cities and territories (i.e. communes or grouping of communes) throughout France that hold the state-award label. The VPAH label was created under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture in the spring of 1985. That winter Chambery became one of the first towns to receive it. The city formally celebrated the 30th anniversary of its label in January, though with far less fanfare than the festivities that surrounded the return of the elephants.

As a name, Cities and Territories of Art and History is less seductive than a moniker as Les Plus Beaux Villages de France (The Most Beautiful Villages of France), the name of an association of 153 village and the signal that a visitor is entering a village or small town with two listed or classified monuments along with movie-set charms. Nevertheless, VPAH holds out the promise to residents and visitors alike that here one will have the opportunity not only to see but also to understand the history and significance of local heritage and architecture.

The VPAH label represents a joint engagement between the State and the municipality or group of communes to promote an understanding and preservation of local heritage and architecture. The label-holder undertakes to make significant efforts to engage local residents of all ages in local heritage, architecture and urban planning. This is done through guided tours, documentation, exhibitions and colloquia. Visitors can benefit from these as well.

A Vector of Identity

Heritage is given its broadest meaning for the purposes of the VPAH label. It includes natural, industrial and maritime heritage, as well as the memory of residents. Chambery’s Mayor Michel Dantin has called the label “a vector of identity.”

What is Chambery’s identity? It is the culmination of many components, eras and populations that create a city that sees itself a peaceably place in the valley at the base of the Alps.

Geographically, Chambery now appears to be on the edge of the map of France but for centuries it was the center of a duchy that straddled the Alps with Chambery and then Turino (now Italy) as its capital.

Duchy since 1416, Savoy was annexed to France, as was Nice, in 1860. Its firm attachment to France was part of a remodeling of the map of the Alps that soon involved the unification of Italy. Within the castle complex, now the prefecture of Savoy, at the opposite end of rue de Boigne from the elephants, the 15th-century chapel of the dukes of Savoy once housed the cloth purportedly showing a crucified Jesus that has become known as the Shroud of Turin. It remained there from 1502 to 1578 when the dukes moved it to their new capital across the Alps. A copy of the shroud can be seen in the recently restored chapel.

In conversations with elected officials, tourist officials and cultural leaders, it’s evident that they would like Chambery to live up not to its ducal grandeur but to the reputation that the philosopher and novelist Jean-Jacques Rousseau gave it when he called Savoyards “the best and most sociable people I know” and wrote of his stay here from 1736 to 1742: “If there is a little city in the world where one can enjoy the sweetness of life in a pleasant and secure society, it is Chambery.”

Quality Tourism and Programming for Families

To see VPAH as a mere reflection of a classification of historical monuments is to ignore the community-wide dimension and intention of the label. As Mayor Martine Berthet of Albertville, an Alpine town that has held the label since 2003, has said, “The label enables the recognition that Albertville’s historical and heritage-related richness largely goes beyond the context of the medieval city.” The same can be said about Chambery.

Alexandra Turnar, Chambery’s Deputy Mayor for Culture and Housing, the elected official responsible for overseeing Chambery’s proper application of the VPAH label, says that the label and the efforts it implies work on many levels.

“Tourism related to old stones may sound old-fashion,” she says, “but this isn’t simply nostalgia, it’s also turned toward the future… It isn’t just the sights that are important but how we live with this heritage and architecture today and how we will live with it tomorrow… For those visiting from outside of Chambery, it is a sign of a quality tourism, of intellectual tourism, where every age finds its place.”

“Intellectual” tourism certainly doesn’t preclude the pleasure of simply getting lost in the historic alleyways that run through the old town or from using Chambery as a jumping off point for excursions into the Alps for hiking or skiing or further along the valley to splash or bike or hike around Lake Bourget. Instead, it signifies that resources—exhibitions, brochures, guides, oversight, training of guides—are available to educate visitors and residents alike.

While applauding the quality of programming that introduces local school children to the city’s heritage, Turnar, at 34 a young parent herself, seems especially pleased to see “families increasingly involved in visiting and learning about our heritage.”

“Previously, Chambery was very turned toward a tourism of consummation. With respect to families that meant that we wanted activities to keep the children busy. Now there’s more of an effort towards and interest in transmitting our heritage, our knowledge and our memory of Chambery and of Savoy… Families are essential in transmitting heritage.”

Heritage and Architecture Interpretation Center

One of the obligations of the label is the creation and operation of a Heritage and Architecture Interpretation Centre or CIAP, which is partially subsidized by the state. Chambery’s CIAP is housed in the 16th-century Cordon mansion in the city center. The CIAP and its programming serve as one of the primary sites for educating children as well as adults about the city.

“The label recognizes work done of a long period of time as well as ongoing, forward-looking work,” says Sarah Dietz, who oversees the CIAP under the umbrella of Chambery’s Tourist and Congress Office. “Our task is to show how the story of the city is told, through architecture, daily life, history, monuments.”

Chambery’s CIAP, as that in other VPAH towns, is an appropriate starting point for both those seeking an in-depth approach and a light overview of the history of Chambery. Entrance is free. Documentation in Chambery is available in English. Chambery has no regularly schedule guided tours in English, though they are available upon request.

Beyond the Interpretation Centre, the visitor’s curiosity then leads to any number of major points of historical interest in the city: Saint Francis of Sales Cathedral with its surprising décor trompe l’oeil décor, among the largest such surfaces of the 19th century in France; the Beaux-Arts Museum; the Castle of the Dukes of Savoy; Les Charmettes, the house where Rousseau lived with his benefactor and lover Madame de Warens (thereby gaining his view of the sweet life in Chambery), and the Fountain of the Elephants, of course.

“The label isn’t simply a notion of quantity, of how many visits we organize, but also of quality,” says Dietz. “It translates the engagement of the city with respect to its heritage, its architecture, its urban planning and its population. It enables public awareness of urban developments. It is a part of public policy.”

Chambery’s Locomotive Roundhouse

Chambery’s locomotive roundhouse, la rotonde, a rare element of the railway system of yesterday still in use today, is a prime example of the evolving notion of what constitutes heritage. In 2012, just over a century of its being put into service, a portion of the roundhouse was opened as a second Architectural and Heritage Interpretation Centre, allowing for guided tours. With an internal diameter of 108 meters beneath a metal fame, the roundhouse is an impressive early 20th-century construction with 36 tracks that allows for storage of 72 locomotives.

On May 26, 1944, Chambery’s railway installations are hit by American bombers in order to prevent the movement German troops from to/from Italy as the Allies prepared for the Invasion of Normandy. About a third of the town were destroyed, but de Boigne and the elephants survived, furthering their symbolic value in a wounded city.

Despite effective destruction to the railway network the aerial bombing of 1944 also did surprisingly little damage to the roundhouse itself, which was fully restored in 1948. The structure also survived the threat of demolition in the early 1980s when the National Railway Company SNCF planned its demise in view of the cost of renovation. Those plans were thwarted by the efforts of railwaymen and in 1984 the roundhouse was listed on the supplementary inventory of Historical Monuments.

While still in use for maintenance and service by the French National Railway Company SNCF, the portion dedicated as the CIAP allows the general public to be inform and awed by the powerful locomotives. That dedicated as a portion is also used by the Association for the Preservation of Savoyard Railway Equipment (APMFS), which restores and maintains in working order a number of historic locomotives. The SNCF has authorized the association to use them for occasional tourist outings.

Other Heritage Organizations in Chambery

Chambery has a deep tradition of preserving and promoting their heritage sites. The Chambery Tourist Office was created in 1896. Les Amis de Vieux Chambéry (The Friends of Old Chambery), an independent association for the protection, preservation, restoration and acquisition of elements that historic and artistic value in the city and in the department, was created in 1933 and currently has over 600 members. While the association isn’t directly involved with the VPAH label, the label “gives more weight in defending major issues such as the protection or preservation of various buildings or monuments that are the focus of our attention,” says Michèle Chappius, the association’s president.

La Manivelle, meaning The Crank, Chambery’s club for vintage car collectors, has existed since 1972 and now has 120 members. It organize outings and events through the year, including a rally to visit their sister club ASVA Turino in view of Chambery’s historical relationship with the city on the other side of the Alps.

Serge Gross, president since 1998, the owner of an MG TA 1938 and a 1967 Jaguar, among other vintage vehicles, said that “Every amateur collector has a special affection for England.” British cars, he said, account for about 25% of those of the club’s members. The club’s major public event is the organization of Chambery’s Auto Retro fair, which attracts 7000 visitors over the first weekend of December.

The VPAH Network

The VPAH label itself must now be renewed every 10 years. Chambery is due for renewal in 2017, so preparing the renewal application is one of the projects that will be underway this year along with developing new sightseeing circuits and creating new opportunities for families to explore the city’s heritage. “We’re confident to have the label renewed,” says Turnar, “but one can’t miss the boat.”

With 186 labelled towns, cities and territories across France, label-holders have a lot to learn from each other. A national association that combines municipalities with the VPAH label and those with preserved and protected sectors “enables professionals in the heritage sector to exchange practical information and to reflect on various themes,” says Dietz.

In February, network participants from throughout France came to Chambery for a day of study on the theme of heritage sites belonging to companies, such as Chambery’s roundhouse with respect to the National Railway Company SNCF or hydraulic sites belonging to electric company EDF.

“We’re proud of what we have in Chambery,” says Turnar. “We’re proud of our history as Chamberians and as Savoyards. But the VPAH label isn’t just something we have where we can say, ‘There, we have it, now we can focus on something else,’ but rather a constant calling into question of what we are and where we’re going. Yesterday’s tourism is not today’s.”

As to tomorrow, cue the elephants. Following the successful celebration of their return in 2015, a second elephantine celebration took place on the 1st of July 2016. A new annual event seems to have been born in Chambery: The Elephant Festival.

Chambery Tourist Office, 5 bis place du Palais de Justice. Tel. 04 79 33 42 47

City Lodging in Chambery

5* Petit Hôtel Confidetiel, 10 rue de la Trésorerie. Tel. 04 79 26 24 17.
In the old town at the foot of the ducal castle, a stylish contemporary 5-star boutique hotel.

4* Le Cinq, 22 Faubourg Reclus. Tel. 04 79 33 51 18.
A contemporary boutique 4-star hotel between the train station and the elephants. Small indoor pool.

4* Mercure Chambéry Centre, 183 place de la Gare. Tel. 04 79 62 10 11.
A reliable 4-star chain hotel across the street from the train station.

3* Hôtel des Princes, 4 rue de Boigne. Tel. 04 79 33 45 36.
A central and pleasing hotel between the elephants and the ducal castle. Small spa.

Country Lodging near Chambery

4* Chateau de Candie, 533 Rue du Bois de Candie, 73000 Candie Tel. 04 79 96 63 00.
Midway between Chambery and Bourget Lake. Gastronomic restaurant L’Orangerie, noteworthy whether spending the night or not, especially in weather with dinner on the terrace.

4* Domaine des Saints Pères, 1540 Route de Chartreuse, 73000 Montagnole. Tel. 04 79 62 63 93.
Several miles south of Chambery, a lovely manor with a grand view up the valley. Small outdoor pool. Chalet-like restaurant.

Chambery’s Neighbor Aix-les-Bains, a Newcomer to the VPAH Label

Currently, 186 cities, towns and territories across France hold the label Villes et Pays d’Art et d’Histoire. Of Chambery’s relative neighbors, the lakeside towns of Annecy and Aix-les-Bains also hold the label as do, as do Albertville (site of the 1992 winter Olympics) and the rural and mountain territories of Hautes-Vallées de Savoie, Vallée d’Abondance and Voironnais. The complete list of VPAH cities, towns and territories throughout France can be found at www.vpah.culture.fr. (Also see www.an-patrimoine.org for more about how the association of VPAH towns and territories and towns with preserved neighborhoods stick together.)

While Chambery is now an old-hand at carrying the label, Aix-les-Bains, a town of 29,000 alongside Lake Bouget 11 miles north of Chambery, is a newcomer, having received it 2014. “It took four or five years to prepare the application for the label,” says Beatrice Druhen-Charnaux, a guide with the Aix-les-Bains Tourists Office whom Mayor Dominique Dord appointed to develop the application for the label. Durhen-Charnaux says that by enabling programming for both school children and adults VPAH can nearly be considered “a label of social engagement.”

Whether on a daytrip from Chambery or on a longer stay, visitors in Aix-les-Bains architectural evidence of the town’s significance as a 19th-century spa town as well as current sporting activities related to the lake and the mountains. Boats take visitors across the lake to Hautecombe Abbey, a burial place for the House of Savoy since the 12th century. Humbert II of Savoy, the last king of Italy, was buried here in 1983.

© 2016, Gary Lee Kraut

A previous version of this article appeared in the February 2016 issue of The Connexion.

The post Chambery: Civic Pride and the Four Assless Elephants appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The removal occurred on Dec. 17, leaving the city’s most emblematic monument both dry and naked.

Chambery’s Fountain of Elephants may not embody the pinnacle of local architecture, the General/Count de Boigne, the mercenary-cum-philanthropist to whom it is dedicated, may not represent the summum bonum of virtue, and it isn’t as though the city has no other attractions. Nevertheless, in the absence of photogenic signs of Chambery’s role as the former seat of power of the House of Savoy, beyond its flag, the Fountain of Elephants is as fine a symbol as any of this most pleasant small city of some 60,000 inhabitants.

Furthermore, the fountain’s got a great and evocative nickname: “Les Quatre sans cul,” meaning the assless four. Only the head and forelegs of the four elephants exist. For now though, through the winter of 2014-15 and well into spring, the four will not only be without derriere but absent altogether. Two of them may need to be completely recast.

Here’s a video showing the dismantling of the elephants.

Who was General de Boigne?

Born in Chambery, Benoit Leborgne (1751-1830), later known as Comte and General de Boigne, had a storybook life of a soldier, traveler and hometown benefactor. As a soldier he worked under various states and organizations, alternately Irish, French, Sardinian, Russian and Indian. In 1796 he left India to live in London before returning to Chambery in 1801.

Having gathered a sizeable fortune along the way, particularly while at the service of the Maratha Empire of India, he donated significant funds to charitable organizations and for projects to embellish the city, including for the construction of homes for the aged and indigent, Chambery’s theater and the arcaded street that now bears his name. It was therefore fitting that Chambery would return the favor with a (not-too-expensive) monument to his memory, created by Pierre-Victor Sappey and inaugurated on Dec. 10, 1838.

American planes bombed Chambery on May 26, 1944 in order to prevent Germans troops from going to/from Italy during the final days of the Allied preparations for the Invasion of Normandy. The railway station and about a third of the town were destroyed, but de Boigne and his Assless Four survived, furthering the fountain’s symbolic value in a wounded city.

This is the first major restoration to the fountain since the early 1980s. The anticipated total cost of the operation is 1.2 million euros, with 40% being paid for by the Regional Department for Cultural Affairs (DRAC), 19% by Savoie/Savoy (the department) and the rest by the city and by private donation.

Already in the fall of 2013 the statue of the philanthropic general atop the column that soars over the fountain was removed for a thorough cleaning. The column and pedestal having been solidified in the meantime, the general soon returned with a golden bronze sheen that was then treated to return him to the patina of old age. It’s likely though that few Chamberians missed de Boigne during his absence since it’s the elephants that are the true stars of the monument.

The elephants will begin their trek back to the fountain in May 2015, when they’ll return to their slots surrounded by restored bas reliefs telling about de Boigne’s military exploits and his benevolence toward his hometown. The full project isn’t expected to be completed until June, however. Then the water will again spout from their trunks and the city will once again be whole, if assless.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

Chambery is 2:50 by train from Paris. By car, Chambery is 1 hour from Lyon, 45 minutes from Geneva or Grenoble, 30 minutes from Annecy. For official tourist information see www.chambery-tourisme.com.

Also see this article about Chambery on France Revisited.

The post The Assless Elephants of Chambery Head Off for Restoration appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

***

Before asking yourself whether you want to be, or not to be, in Moulins, you’ll quite naturally ask yourself, as I once did, “O Moulins, Moulins, wherefore art thou Moulins.” For Moulins is an unlikely destination in the hinterlands of France that’s difficult to situate on the map. Being told that the towns of Bourges, Vichy, Nevers, Autun and Montluçon are within a radius of 60 miles only vaguely helps.

Ah, there you are, Moulins. Come, let’s away.

The thought of taking the train 2.5 hours from Paris to visit a museum dedicated to theatrical costumes did little in itself to get my travel juices flowing. Yet, accustomed to following the rails southeast and southwest from Paris, it felt strangely venturesome to ride due south beyond the Loire. I say there is no darkness but ignorance. Actually Shakespeare said that. But I was ignorant of Moulins, capital of the department of Allier and of the former duchy of the Bourbon family known as Le Bourbonnais. So I took this trip as a challenge to discover something new for myself while exploring an unheralded region.

Moulins has since 2006 been home to the National Costume Center, Centre National du Costume de Scène or CNCS. In the world of theater, the CNCS is unique in its devotion to preserving, studying and exhibiting exceptional and histsorical theater costumes and elements of theater sets. Much of the collection comes from three founding institutions, the Comédie Française, the National Library (BNF) and the National Opera of Paris. The center also receives donations from costume designers, theaters, acting companies and artists and their heirs. Its vast collection of 10,000 costumes and another 10,000 articles largely remains in the on-site reserves. Choice items are then brought out thematically for evocative, even dramatic, temporary exhibits mounted twice yearly.

In 2014 the CNCS honors the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth with the exhibition Shakespeare, l’étoffe du monde (the fabric of the world), presenting costumes, mostly from French productions over the past century, of some of the bard’s most emblematic plays.

The exhibition begins by introducing visitors to the world of Elizabethan theater, then displays in a dozen rooms the diversity of Shakespeare’s world through the costumes of kings, queens, soldiers, jesters, witches, cross-dressing actors and assorted ghosts and spirits. The exhibition runs through Jan. 4, 2015.

Information about this and upcoming exhibitions can be found here.

O, had I but followed the arts!

It’s rare for France’s Ministry of Culture to allow a national collection to stray far from Paris, but the relative obscurity of theater costumes and the knowledge that the conservation of the vast collection required significant space, led to its removal from the capital region. For Moulins, a service town with a population of 27,000, 40,000 with the suburbs, the center’s creation here in 2006 was a coup that placed it on the cultural radar of the map of France.

Moulins is capital of the department of Allier and of the former duchy of the Bourbon family but had no particular historical relationship with theatrical costumes, unless one counts the uniforms of the cavalrymen who occupied the exhibition building when originally built as barracks in the late 18th century. The architect Jacques Denis Antoine (1733-1801) also designed the old mint (Hôtel des Monnaies) in Paris near Pont Neuf on the left bank of the Seine.

The CNCS is a 20-minute walk from the center of Moulins, on the left bank of the Allier, past the terns nesting along the river from April to early August. (The name Moulins refers to the mills that were once here.) On the approach the building appears rather sparse and uninviting. But the CNCS is appropriately theatrical in the presentation of its exhibitions, and there’s a nice airy brasserie inside.

While much of the CNCS’s public space is dedicated to its temporary exhibitions, the center also presents a permanent exhibition of the Noureev (Nureyev) Collection. That exhibition displays artifacts from the life and career of Rudolf Noureev (Nureyev) (1938-1989) the danceur étoile who, in the 1980s, danced with the Paris Opera Ballet and became its director (1983-1989).

In addition to its exhibitions, the CNCS is an important resource center open to stage professionals, researchers and the general public.

Shall I compare thee, Moulins, to a summer’s day?

Perhaps not, but the sun needn’t be at its peak for the curious traveler to visit a lesser-known region such as Moulins and its surrounding.

* * *

The building blocks for making a day or more of Moulins and the surrounding area of Le Bourbonnais include the following:

National Center for Theatrical Costumes and Scenography, Centre National du Costume de Scène. Tel. 04 70 20 76 20. Open daily 10am-6pm (until 6:30pm in July and Aug.). Closed Dec. 25 and Jan. 1. Tickets: 6€ for entrance to both the temporary and permanent exhibitions. Free for children under 12. For several weeks between exhibitions only the permanent collection is visible.

Moulins Tourist Office. 11 rue François Péron. Tel. 04 70 44 14 14

Choice café: Le Grand Café, 49 Place Allier. Tel. 04 70 44 00 05. An Art Nouveau café-brasserie whose 1899 décor is listed as a historical monument. Open Mon.-Sat. 8am-11pm.

Choice restaurants:
– Le Grand Café (see above)
– Le 9/7, 97 rue d’Allier. Tel. 04 70 35 01 60. Olivier Mazuelle serves fresh market fare in the center of town. Closed Sat. lunch, Sun., Mon. dinner.
– Le Trait d’Union, 16 rue Gambetta. Tel. 04 70 34 24 61. Trait d’union, meaning hyphen, refers to the link that chef Vincent Hoareau seeks to create a link between classicism with modernity. Closed Sun., Mon.
– Hôtel de Paris (see below).

Choice hotel: Hotel de Paris, 23 rue de Paris. Tel. 04 70 44 00 58. A 4-star hotel with 32 rooms and suites, AC, spa, gastronomic restaurant (opening Sept. 2014), brasserie. Member of Chateaux & Hotels Collection.

Others sight in Moulins:
– Maison Mantin (Mantin Mansion). The home of an upper-class resident (a bourgeois) of the late 19th-century left more or less as it was and according to his will.
– The flamboyant Gothic Notre-Dame Cathedral of Moulins and its late 15th-century/early 16th-century triptych of the Virgin of the Apocalypse.
– Le Jacquemart, a15th-century belfry.

Near Moulins:

– Souvigny and its Romanesque abbey church containing the tombs of the Dukes of Bourbon.
– Saint Menoux Church, another beautiful Romanesque church, and its legend that sticking ones head in the hole of the saint’s tomb will render the simple-minded more intelligent.
– Bourbon-l’Archambault, an old spa town containing ruins of a fortified castle.
– Vineyards of Saint-Pourçain, a little-known appellation using Gamay and Pinot Noir for the reds and rosés and Chardonnay, Sauvignon and Tressallier (a local grape) for the whites.

See this companion article about sights, food and drink in Moulins and the surrounding region: Tasted, Tested in Allier.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Moulins (Auvergne) and the National Costume Center appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

While working on my first guidebook to France in the early 1990s I met Gerard Charpin, the foreign press attaché of Chambéry, capital of Savoy (flag in photo) in the Rhone-Alpes region. By the time I arrived in Chambéry, in the valley of the foothills of the Alps, I’d been on the road in the region for about a week. Hearing that during that time I’d had an intensive schedule of visiting castles, churches, museums and old towns, Gerard was horrified that I hadn’t taken a break from visiting les vieilles pierres, old stones.

We were both in our early 30s, too young, he felt, to truly want to spend a full week of it. So after showing me the vieilles pierres of the historical center of Chambéry—the former castle of the Dukes of Savoy, their chapel that once housed the Shroud of Turin, the cathedral, the alleyways of the old town, the Fountain of Elephants—Gerard took me to an indoor aquatic park that had recently opened by a mall on the edge of town. He brought an extra bathing suit for me—we were about the same size then.

Conscientiously trying to describe a town that few readers of that ‘90s guidebook (and possibly of this article) ever heard of, I figured that the water slides at the mall were less significant than Chambery’s role as the historical seat of power of the House of Savoy until they moved across the Alps to Turin in 1563, “leaving behind their ducal castle to dominate the town.”

That guidebook-like quote is from my own long-out-of-print guidebook. I continue: “Below is not an old town of princely buildings but one of solid, practical construction. Yet a false order reigns on the main streets, for behind the somewhat austere facades of the old town are narrow, hidden alleyways that twist past elegant little courtyards, painted archways, and open staircases, before emerging on an unexpected side street.”

Apparently Gerard did a good job of showing me those old stones. But it’s the water park that I now remember most from that visit: leaving the old town to drive to the mall, the buzz in the changing room, choosing between the green and the black skimpy bathing suits that Gerard had brought, wading in a pool surrounded by joyful strangers, the slides, and Gerard repeating for the third time that he couldn’t believe that I’d spent the entire week visiting vieilles pierres while I thought it odd to be swimming by the mall in Chambery.

Though I didn’t return to Chambery for a number of years after that, I came across Gerard again and again at travel fairs and press events in Paris. Occasionally we would have a drink or dinner together. We became friends. He invited me to visit him in Chambery but I kept sidestepping his town when traveling south from Paris or into the Alps.

Logistically, Chambery is an easy town to sidestep, which isn’t to say that it should be avoided but rather that trade, train and tourist routes don’t naturally pass this way unless heading through the Alps to Turin, Italy. It’s a low-key town, a find of sorts, known more as a place where people live than visit, and Gerard has an attractively low-key way of talking about it, whether to encourage people to visit or simply to speak about where he lives. He rarely relies on superlatives to do the work for him. But he claimed to have a magnificent view of the mountains from the terrace of his apartment and invited me to see.

I finally returned to Chambery one long weekend about seven years ago to visit Gerard. Gerard is a kind and diligent host, but the magnificent view that he promised failed to appear. For three days the city sat in a foggy gray. We were now in our 40s, so it didn’t matter that the aquatic park had long closed.

On Sunday afternoon, after satisfactorily accomplishing the French ritual of market (there’s a great one at Chambery) and lunch, we drove to Grenoble, about 45 minutes away, with the intent of visiting the Beaux Arts Museum there, though we managed to enjoy the town without it.

On the way back to Chambery, a shift in the clouds told Gerard that once home we would find blue skies and snowcapped mountains. But when, back on his terrace, Gerard pointed in the direction of the winter ski slopes and the summer hiking grounds where he now owned a chalet without electricity, I couldn’t even distinguish Gerard from the potted plants for the mist.

That evening we went out for raclette, an Alpine meal melted cheese and warmed cold cuts, as a reminder that the mountains were out there somewhere.

I’ve returned to Chambery again more recently, in research mode this time. Gerard is still responsible for promoting his town. I, after a break of several years to focus on Paris projects, still write about France.

On a guided tour of the historical center of Chambery, Florence, my guide, showed me the chest-high plaque indicating the height of the flood of January 18, 1875. We were both surprised to realize that today’s date was January 18.

Florence told me another date, May 26, 1944, when Americans planes bombed Chambery to stop Germans from going to/from Italy during the final days of the Allied preparations for the Invasion of Normandy. The railway station and about a third of the town were destroyed.

On my own I walked away from the center of town for about 20 minutes to reach Les Charmettes, where the writer and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) spent time while in his 20s in the home of his protector and mistress. Walking by a stream on my way back to the center of town I decided to reread Rousseau when I got home.

It was January, as I’ve said. The weather was spring-like in the valley, winter bright in the mountains. My visit corresponded with a visit of the area organized for s small group of Italian tour operators, whom I joined for a tour of Aix-les-Bains, 11 miles north of Chambery. Aix is a fin-de-siecle town formerly turned inward to his hot springs. While the springs are still used for medical purposes and the old stones are a pleasure to see, contemporary travelers mostly look outward to Lake Bourget, France’s largest natural lake, and upward into the pre-Alpine hills and mountains.

Hundreds of black-feathered white-beaked ducks (fulica atra) saw us off as we embarked for a beautiful morning cruise to the Abbey of Hautecombe, necropolis of the House of Savoy (counts, dukes and finally, briefly, kings of Italy), where we were greeted by cormorants. Bourget is a long, narrow lake. I wondered aloud whether it was possible to rent bikes at Aix-les-Bains to cycle all the way around and was told yes, 74 kilometers (46 miles), which immediately inspired me more than the thought of rereading Rousseau.

As with Chambery, the mountains begin on the edge of Aix-les-Bains. I took the photo above when we went up to the Grand Revard, the closest mountain from town, just a 30-minute drive from Aix-les-Bains (equally accessible from Chambery). Gerard lent me a pair of ski pants as he had a bathing suit 20 years early. We skied for a couple of hours on the gentle pre-Alpine slopes (1550 meter/5000 feet).

I returned the ski pants to Gerard back in Chambery when I went over to his apartment to finally see the promised view from his terrace. There, lo and behold, was the Massif des Bauges and the Cross of the Nivolet facing the town. The white-crossed red Savoy flag fluttering atop the old stones of the ducal castle.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

Chambery Tourist Office, 5 bis place du Palais de Justice. Tel. 04 79 33 42 47. Closed Sundays except in July and August.

Aix-les-Bains Tourist Office, Place Maurice Mollard. Tel. 04 79 88 68 00.

Chambery is one of the points of entry to the French Alps of the Savoie/Savoy region. The official Savoie Mont Blanc website provides information about skiing, hiking and other activities in this portion of the Alps.

Chambery Hotels

Château de Candie, rue du Bois de Candie. tel. 04 79 96 63 00. Member of the hotel associations Château et Hôtels Collection and the Esprit de France. Four miles north of the center of town, in the direction of Aix-les-Bains, a 25-room luxury hotel (4-star) partially within the walls of a 14th-century fortified manor. On a 15-acre estate with views of the surrounding mountains. Gastronomic restaurant. Pool in summer. A fine place from which to explore Chambery, Aix-les-Bains and the lakes and hills.

Inter Hôtel des Princes, 4 rue de Boigne,  tel 04 79 33 45 36. A friendly 45-room 3-star hotel for a pleasant stay in the very center of Chambery between the Fountain of Elephants and the castle.

Chambery B&Bs (Chambres d’hotes)

Petit Hôtel Confidentiel, 15 rue de Boigne and 10 rue de la Trésorerie. Tél. 06 22 76 08 85. A luxury (4 corn ears, which are similar to stars but attributed to B&Bs) hotel-like B&B with suites of sleek modern design at two locations in the center of town.

Les Suites de l’Hôtel de Sautet, 6 rue Métropole. Tél 06 16 83 16 64.  Excellent comfort in the 4-corn-ear B&B located in an 18th century mansion on a pedestrian street in the center of town.

La Vie de Bohème, 14 passage Henri Murger. Tél 04 79 70 06 42 or 06 84 35 20 74. Spacious accommodations for a central stay beyond a couple of days or for a traveling family.

Chambery Restaurants

Côté Marché, 60 rue Vieille Monnaie. Tel. 04 79 85 04 35.  Restaurant and gastronomic food shop. Closed Sunday and Monday.

L’Atelier, 59 rue de la République. Tel 04 79 70 62 39 ou 06 11 25 41 45. A restaurant and wine bar. Closed Sunday and Monday.

Le Bistrot, 6 rue du Théâtre, Tel. 04 79 75 10 78. An ambitious young chef in a handsome bistro décor. Closed Sunday and Monday.

Le Saint Réal,  86 rue St Réal, Tel. 04 79 70 09 33. Polished and traditional, a scent of old France. Closed Sunday.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Chambery Revisited: Reflections on a Pre-Alpine Valley Town appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

You know the joke about the researchers and the elephants? A German, a Frenchman, and a Jew go to Africa to study elephants. After spending some time observing the elephants, the three researchers define their projects. The German decides it would be important to study the hierarchical organization within the elephant herd. The Frenchman thinks it would be interesting to study the sex lives of elephants. And the Jew wants to study the relationship between the elephants and the Jews.

I didn’t expect to encounter many elephants when choosing Amiens, capital of the Picardy region, for an easy daytrip from Paris. I simply looked forward to a small-city stroll, a mild aura of discovery, tidbits about a former local celebrity named Jules Verne, an impressed gaze at a colossal cathedral, a pause in a riverside café, and a bite of a local sweet. In short, a daytrip I might recommend to travelers looking for an accessible break from the big city.

So I made a few appointments, did some bedtime research, suffered the personal embarrassment of rereading a brief and banal passage from my own 1993 guide to France (“Amiens has little to offer of interest other than a Cathedral Notre-Dame, but what a cathedral it is…”), and in the morning took the 70-minute train ride to Amiens from Paris’s North Station.

Elephants in Jules Verne

Unguided, a visit to a writer’s home can be a holy bore for the all but the most passionate or studious fan, and the house where Jules Verne lived from 1882 to 1900 is no exception. In the company of an informed narrator, however, a writer’s walls, furnishings and paraphernalia reveal the writing life and the juxtaposition of call-me-when-dinner’s-ready and the mapping of extraordinary voyages of the mind.

The narrator for my visit was Rachel Visse, whose presentation of Jules Verne (1828-1905) flowed so captivatingly and conversationally that I almost felt that she was flirting with me, and vice versa. But perhaps that’s because Verne also appealed to the writer, the traveler, and the teenage map-dreamer in me—though not necessarily the reader in me.

Verne’s Extraordinary Voyages—Voyage to the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in 80 Days, etc.—were international best-sellers that made him a literary superstar by the time he moved to Amiens, his wife’s hometown, in 1871.

Nowadays, the scientific promise and fantasies of the latter half of the 19^th century are less likely to trigger the dreams of 10-15-year-old boys (Verne’s core market) and other armchair travelers; the integrated circuit has tempered the general public’s fascination with mechanics, steam engines, and flying vessels; maps themselves are now less likely to spark the imagination.

Nevertheless, as a pioneer of science fiction and the most translated French writer of all time, Verne remains the rare French author whom Americans not only have heard about but whose works focus on neither philosophy nor infidelity.

Born in Nantes, a city downstream the Loire that renovated its own Jules Verne Museum last year in honor of the centennial of its native son’s death, Verne went to Paris to study law but was soon drawn to the theater. At the completion of his studies he decided to not follow his father’s footsteps into the courthouse but instead devoted himself to writing and increasingly became engrossed in the novelties of science and in global explorations.

These interests first came together in Five Weeks in a Balloon, published to enormous success in 1863 by Pierre-Jules Hetzel. Reflecting the important role played by Verne’s publisher and persuasive editor, Hetzel’s office, library and files are also now presented here along with the numerous reformatted editions of Verne’s work that he published for an avid public.

Verne’s own office and adjoining rooms speak volumes (at least with Rachel as interpreter) about the author’s passion for applied science and technology, of his tremendous, contractual output that brought forth 32 novels while living in this house, and of the international appeal of his work. Posters displayed in the attic demonstrate that Verne’s extraordinary and sometimes visionary adventures, played out by simplistic, driven characters, have been a natural attraction for filmmakers since the early days of cinema.

In tune with Verne’s colonial times, elephants make an occasional, exotic appearance in the novels. Examining those and other beasts one finds a writer who tried to find his personal balance between a belief in democracy and a desire for order, a writer who was naturally discreet concerning the sex lives of his characters, and a writer able to use the anti-Semitic caricature of the ugly, miserly, cheating Jew who is swept along on the comet on which the novel Hector Servadac takes place. Indeed, the house itself affirms Verne’s attachment to the late 19^th-century bourgeoisie.

His celebrity status in Amiens and his sense of civic duty led him, among other things, to champion the construction of the metallic circus that can be seen down the road, which he inaugurated as the town’s celebrated citizen and as a member of the town council. I visited the circus but didn’t see any elephants there.

Elephants in the Cathedral

Nowadays Amiens (pop. 136,000) would be large enough to get lost in were it not for the fact that you need only look for the the Perret Tower, a 30-story blockhouse that was one of Europe’s first post-war skyscrapers, to find your way back to the train station or for the highest steeple to find your way to the cathedral and hence the historic center (and the tourist office).

A statue of Pierre l’Hermit/Peter the Hermit overlooks a parking lot behind the cathedral. He is posed as rabble-rouser inciting the Christians of Europe to drop the tools of the everyday and band together for a higher cause: wresting control of the Holy Land from the Muslims. Echoing Pope Urban II, he preached Dieu le Veux(Deus vult, God wills it) as he played the revivalist Pied Piper and led a growing group of paupers on a long march south. Urban II promoted a more organized campaign led by European (mostly French) feudal leaders, whose conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 would become known as the First Crusade. Roving bands and local leaders in the Rhineland had in the meantime perverted the argument in 1096 by carrying out Europe’s first massive slaughter of Jews.

The presence of the statue of Peter the Hermit could now be seen as inflammatory were it not so historical—Peter had been a priest in Amiens before he took to the road—and were it not for the fact that Christianity doesn’t have much public ambition in France these days. (Back home some fringe group would be petitioning to move the statue to the front of the courthouse before a compromise would be found and the good citizens of the state would unite to pass a constitutional amendment denying same-sex marriage.)

If the First Crusade managed to keep its primary focus on Jerusalem, the Fourth, which peaked with warfare from 1202 to 1204, became a free-for-all of spiritually-challenged destructive profiteering as the Crusaders mistook Constantinople for Jerusalem and confirmed the schism between the Latin and Orthodox Churches. When it comes to the use of force, it appears that Deus vult can also be translated as “Whatever it takes.”

Amiens indirectly benefited from that Crusade when a canon of the cathedral returned with what was said to be the front portion of the skull of Saint John the Baptist. A Romanesque cathedral stood here at the time, but its damage by fire in 1218 was the perfect excuse to join the spiritual arms race with the construction of a new, modern (i.e. Gothic) edifice. The saint’s skull played its part as a fund-raising tool since the presence of such a major relic meant major traffic of pilgrims.

Begun in 1220, Notre-Dame d’Amiens followed in the footsteps of the increasingly vast and high cathedrals then under construction, such as Our Ladies of Chartres (1195) and of Reims (1211). Amiens’ cathedral would eventually be able to boast the largest interior of all the medieval mastodons of France, twice as voluminous as Notre-Dame de Paris (begun 1163).

Its sheer size and the quality and drama of its sculptural work allow for an impressive visit even without a guide. Should your timing coincide with a guided tour, however, you should certainly join.

Along with its architectural prowess, the cathedral reveals a treasure chest of biblical, spiritual, political, and local anecdotes in stone, wood, and glass, all in tip-top condition thanks to restoration work of the 1990s. My guide for the afternoon, Marina Raby, a transplant from the south who has allowed her passion for local history to take root in Amiens, brought my attention to some of Our Lady’s most remarkable details, from the cartoon drama of Hell on the central door to the crying angel behind the choir by way of the central labyrinth, assorted tombs, and a gilded virgin. With Marina’s help, I read in the 16^th-century woodwork enclosing the north side of the choir the events surrounding the beheading of John the Baptist, a story that echoes woodwork on the south side recounting the beheading in 300 of Saint Firmin, Amiens’ first bishop.

The cathedral’s recent restoration brought to light the extent to which the sculptural work on the facade was painted in the Middle Ages. Bringing modern technology to old stones, a free sound-and-light show (after sunset from mid-June to mid-September and again in December) projects a semblance of the original colors onto the facade.

Since the last train back to Paris leaves at 8:09pm most days, in summer you’ll have to miss either the show or the train. The projection begins at 7pm during its December run, when Amiens’ Christmas market may add a bit of an attraction, so those willing to venture north at that time of year can catch part of the show before hurrying off to the station.

Elephants in Paradise

It began to sprinkle as Marina led me through the Saint Leu Quarter, where houses huddle along branches of the River Somme and crisscrossing canals. Former quarter of tanners, millers, dyers and other water-dependant trades of the medieval town, Saint Leu is now a kempt residential zone, significantly restored since I visited 15 years ago. Seen from along the riverbank, the cathedral spreads like a fortress on the hill above the old town. If I hadn’t been approaching the day so dutifully I would have suggested to Marina that we stop at one of the cafés along the river. But as I was late for my next appointment we hurried through a heavy drizzle past the cafés and over the bridge to Les Hortillonnages.

Les Hortillonnages is a zone of “floating” gardens split by narrow waterways and survey lines into a thousand parcels. For centuries the land was given over to crops to be brought to market. Now it is largely devoted to private pleasure gardens and family picnicking, and leisurely visitors are invited to tour the zone on a guided tour on flat-bottom boats.

I’d imagined this as the kind of site that a foreign journalist, intent on advising travelers to a scantly known town, will visit suspecting that it won’t be special enough to mention with much conviction. He sees it to have seen it, to cross it off his list, as he might in visiting the elephant-deprived circus building championed by Jules Verne or in tasting the town sweet, a honey-flour-almond paste macaroon that hits the sweet spot but that falls flat when just yesterday he enjoyed Paris’s delicate, flavored sandwich-cookie variety: I did it, you needn’t, now let’s move on.

The drizzle had turned into a downpour by the time we arrived, and I thought that it would do no harm for my scheduled boat ride to be rained out; I could then head back to those cafés by the river. But shortly the rain stopped, the darker clouds moved on, the boatmen wiped the seats of their flat-bottom boats, and a woman at the reception desk told me, “That’s Monsieur Pelossof out by the boat. He’s waiting for you.”

Nisso Pelossof is the founding president of the Association for the Protection and Safeguard of the Site and the Environment of the Hortillonnages. In case that doesn’t sound important enough, the association has printed a brochure in English declaring that “The Association is entirely responsible for the beaconing of the rieux.” That means that they alone have the authority over signage on the 55 narrow waterways that cut through the 740 acre site. And I was afraid that it also meant that instead of the peaceably dull ride I otherwise expected I would spend the next 45 minutes nodding in feigned interest at the honorable founding president’s lengthy official discourse about community service, historical significance, top soil, and inadequate subsidies.

Nisso Pelossof, a spry, tan, older gent with thick white hair, greeted me at the dock with an enthusiastic handshake. He wore white khakis, a checked blue short sleeve shirt, a sleeveless fisherman’s vest, and a blue watchband.

He introduced me to our young boatman and welcomed me aboard. No sooner did the young man, standing at the stern, push us off from the side than Nisso noticed that I’d glimpsed the crude Nazi numbers tattooed on his arm, and he said, “I went through hell, now I live in paradise.”

It was undoubtedly a well-oiled line, subtle as a herd of elephants, but it had the immediate effect of taking me directly from a daytrip to foreign encounter.

During the course of our 45-minute glide along the waterways, Nisso alternated the story of his own route with indications of flora and fauna, anecdotes about family planting, weeding, and picnicking, and comments on communal union and disunion.

There was his deportation from the Greek island of Rhodes in 1944 at the age of 23… and there was a parcel planted with wildflowers; there was the decimation of his family at Auschwitz… and there was a mallard; there was his transfer from Auschwitz to Mathausan and then to Ebenzee… and there was a man with a hoe beside a woman with a bucket; there was Nisso’s decision not to return “in shame” to Rhodes… and there were some irises; there was the convoy going to France, there were wily struggles of a former deportee in Paris in 1946, there was Nisso the young photographer… and there was a lettuce field; there was his marriage to a French Catholic girl and their move to Amiens to open a photographic studio… and there was the birthing of the association he founded in 1975; there were his daughter taking over the photography studio… and there was a crested grebe by the rushes; there was his son the philosophy professor… and there was the parcel of a man who wouldn’t join the association; there was the death of his wife… and there was a crested grebe by the rushes; there was the writing of his autobiography (to be published next year)… and there were subsidies to purchase the electric-powered engine for these boats; and rounding a bend, as Nisso held my wrist to prepare me, there was the cathedral, as it might have appeared to a 16^th-century traveler approaching the city.

Then the elephant looked me in the eye and said:

“I think that you and I have something in common.”

“I’m Jewish if that’s what you’re referring to.”

“Oh, are you?” he said. “No, I was referring to the fact that you seem to appreciate a good story.”

© 2006, Gary Lee Kraut

Post-note: Nisso Pelossof passed away in 2011 at the age of 90.

Practical Information

Amiens Tourist Office

6 bis rue Dusevel

80010 Amiens Cedex 1

Tel. 03 22 71 60 50

www.amiens.com/tourisme

Trains leave Paris’s Gare du Nord (North Station) about once an hour. A 9, 10, even 11am departure allows for a full day in the city with a return to Paris for dinner.

Maison de Jules Verne

2 rue Charles-Dubois

80000 Amiens

Tel. 03 22 45 45 75

www.amiens.com/julesverne

Open Oct. 15-April 14 Mon., Wed., Thurs., Fri. 10am-12:30pm and 2-6pm; Sat. and Sun. 2-6pm; closed Tues.

Open April 15-Oct. 14 Mon., Wed., Thurs., Fri. 10am-12:30pm and 2-6:30pm; Tues. 2-6:30pm; Sat. and Sun. 11am-6:30pm.

Les Hortillonnages

54 boulevard Beauvillé

80000 Amiens

Tel. 03 22 92 12 18

E-mail. aspsseh@wanadoo.fr

The boatmen give some indications about flora and fauna. An English-speaking boatman may be available. Request when purchasing your ticket.

The post Elephants and Paradise: 10 Hours in Amiens appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.