Oh the places I've been: France

I've now lived in France for a total of 5 years (I announced this last year as well, but my maths was wrong). So I think I know the place fairly well. And yet, other than a day in Avignon, I've never visited Provence (if we don't count the Côte d'Azur as Provence); out of the entire South-West, I've only spent a weekend in Toulouse; I thought I'd just squeaked into seeing a tiny bit of Brittany with an overnight trip to Saint-Nazaire, but turns out it's not in Brittany after all, and I've never set foot in Normandy. Geez, when you put it like that, I really barely know the place at all!

So I suppose I'm the last person that should be writing a little listicle about places to visit in France, but hey. The places I have been, I tend to know pretty well, so here are some perhaps lesser-known destinations I've enjoyed over the years.

Beaumont-Hamel

Let's start out with one that's probably unfamiliar to most. Long, long ago, when I first lived in France, I used to work as a tour guide of sorts, accompanying British school children around northern France. Amongst many cemeteries, memorials, farms and chocolate shops, one of the places we visited was the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial in the Somme. This is a little piece of Canada in France (it actually, legally is) where friendly and knowledgeable Canadian guides (if you know any young Canadians, you can actually apply to do this) take you through the terrible battles that happened here.

I've never been big on military history, but this place really brought it alive and helped me to understand a tiny bit of what it must have been like and why so many people died. On July 1st 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the British (including the Newfoundland troops) lost almost 20,000 men, with nearly 40,000 more casualties. Absolutely mind-blowing, and with the WWI centenaries coming up, a good place to visit if you want to get some perspective on the war. There are other good WWI sites to visit in the region (Thiepval, Ypres, Vimy Ridge etc.) but this one stood out for the quality of the guided tour, which is probably free (I'm not sure, being there as part of a school group, but I would guess so).

Musée National du Moyen Age

Source

Home of the famous Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, but probably not top of people's Paris lists regardless. I am big on the Middle Ages, however, so I loved it when I visited back in 2010. Apparently the exhibition space for the tapestries has recently been given a "relooking", as the French would say, so if you haven't been yet, now is the time to check it out!

Angers

While we're on the subject of tapestries, I've got to give a shout-out to the Apocalypse Tapestry in the Château of Angers, which I checked out back in 2012. This is amazingly old, amazingly complete (there are missing bits, but 71 huge tapestries still survive) and just all-around amazing, actually. They're packed with interesting symbolism, reflecting not only the Biblical accounts of the Apocalypse, but also the troubled times they were made in (war, famine, pestilence, etc. not being exactly uncommon at the time).

Blois

As we all know, you're spoilt for choice when it comes to châteaux in the Loire Valley, and I've been to a fair few of them. Chenonceau is probably the most spectacular, and the gardens at Villandry definitely deserve a mention, but I thought I'd give a shout-out to the château of Blois, which probably gets my vote as the most underrated of the Loire châteaux. I visited with my parents in early 2011 and it gets points for not only being pretty, but also making an effort to have things to see on the inside, as opposed to some which are basically empty shells.

Chinon

Home to my favourite rosé wine, it's a charming little town in its own right, and my favourite of the small Loire Valley towns I've visited (I've been there maybe 5 or 6 times). It has an old-school castle; a nice main square, good for noshing and people-watching; a hilariously kitch wine museum; lovely river views; tons of old buildings, and did I mention the wine?

Walking the Côte d'Azur

Cap d'Ail - if this looks familiar, it's the background image of the blog

Okay, this is more of an activity than a place, but while thousands flock to the Côte d'Azur every year, I think not so many walk along the coastline, and I can tell you they are missing out! I lived in Nice for 7 months in 2009-10, and my favourite activity became walking along the coast whenever it was nice weather and I had free time (which was a lot, since it's Nice and I only worked 12 hours max a week). I walked the whole coast from Nice to Ventimiglia in Italy, and quite a lot in the other direction towards Cannes. And wow, is it beautiful! If you'd like to try, it's easy to do as well - just follow the coast (the only tricky part was Monaco, too many damn private beaches) and the buses are so frequent that whenever you get tired there'll be one along within the next 20 minutes or so. Makes me miss living in Nice, I'm glad I got out and made the most of it though, in spite of (or because of) being terminally poor (see: worked max. 12 hours a week).

Villas Ephrussi and Kerylos

While we're on the Côte d'Azur, there's actually a ton to see in terms of museums and so on, which again people perhaps don't automatically think of when they think of the French Riviera. The ones that stick most in my head are two lavish and beautiful 19th-20th C villas on Cap Ferrat, the villas Ephrussi and Kerylos. Ephrussi was home to one of the Rothschilds, and Kerylos was built as a reconstruction of a classical Greek villa by a rich guy (who, in my opinion, squandered its amazing location, but that's by the bye). 

Strasbourg

So, Strasbourg hardly counts as off the beaten track, but it definitely earns a spot as one of my favourite places I've visited in France. From the awe-inspiring cathedral to the cute canals of Petite France, it really is a lovely place. And the food - miam miam! If you go, don't miss the painted St Pierre le Jeune church, I'm a real sucker for a polychrome church. 

Poitiers

I was going to finish there, but "polychrome church" reminded me how much I enjoyed Poitiers (which also has one). And a 5th century Baptistry, imagine that! I didn't really have any preconceptions of Poitiers, but it seemed like there was some historical treasure around every corner, I'd gladly go back for a longer visit. 

So that's definitely not all the cool places I've been in France (Reims, Dijon, Chartres, Chamonix, to name a few), but they're some that stick in my mind. Those of you who've lived and travelled here, where are your favourite places? We're hitting up Rouen at the end of the month, and I'd love to get to Bordeaux, Brittany, Lyon, Mont St. Michel, amongst others, but I know there's so much out there to see!

Poitiers

I already told you where I was on Monday night, but if you asked me on Monday day the question my blog perpetually poses, the answer would have been 'in Poitiers'! I was determined to go somewhere over the Toussaint long weekend, especially since I have my new 12-30 discount card for the trains. I looked into a couple of mid-range destinations where it would have made sense to do it as an overnight trip, but I couldn't find any hotel rooms cheaper than about 35 euro, which seemed just a leetle bit high to bother with. So I settled on Poitiers, which is about 45 minutes on the train from Tours, and I saved 20 euros on the ticket which made me a happy bunny. I knew nothing about Poitiers other than a vague sense that it was a historic place and had ties to Eleanor of Aquitaine and a couple of suggestions from blogger Eyelean at A Landscape Selected at Random. So I turned up about 11 am ready to explore!

My first impression was "wow, hilly!" I didn't realise until now, but evidently my brain (and my calves) have adapted to living in super-flat Tours and having expected Poitiers to look much the same, I was literally surprised to have to climb a flight of steps from the train station up into the city. (Where they were digging up the road, which is exactly like Tours!) I had no clue where I was going from there, and I first wandered into the neighbourhood around the Préfecture, which seemed to be mostly 19th-century buildings. With the buildings made of the local white tuffaut stone and the pavements and even the road surfaces white to match, I had the impression that the whole of Poitiers had been recently waterblasted, but turned out it was only that neighbourhood.

The whitewashed-looking 19th-century part of Poitiers, looking back from the Préfecture towards the town hall


Just hangin' out

After a bit more aimless wandering, I managed to find the tourist office where I picked up a map, a brochure of the city's sites and filled up my water bottle (aces). I don't know how many tourists Poitiers gets, but they seem to do a good job of putting information plaques up on lots of buildings and outside the main landmarks, and they have three tourist walking routes which are helpfully marked out with painted lines on the pavements - much easier to follow than trying to trace it out on a map. I was impressed! I think Tours could do a better job in this department - there are lots of old half-timbered and stone buildings around which are clearly medieval or Renaissance, but there is no information about most of them.

11th century palace of the Ducs of Aquitaine. I think everything in Poitiers was built either in the 11th, 15th or 19th centuries

I started out with the Notre-Dame-la-Grande church, which Eyelean had told me was well worth a look. It dates from the 11th to 13th centuries and is beautiful from the outside, but I loved the inside! I love painted churches! Unfortunately, I had checked my camera in the morning, and since I didn't have any battery warning, I decided not to charge it. Next time I'm going to do it just in case, because halfway through the church, the battery died. After letting it rest a bit I managed to get a few more photos later in the day, but I was a bit bummed out by that. On the other hand, I feel like sometimes I take too many photos and forget to just really look at things, so maybe it's for the best.

Notre Dame la Grande


The main façade


Carved capitals on the façade


The information plaque said the figures here were 'embracing or fighting', which I kind of liked. You could probably use that for the title of a rock album as well.



Inside NDLG


Painted columns in Notre Dame la Grande


This is hard to see, but I swear they've got Christ wearing a beret!


One of the stained glass windows in NDLG


Ceiling fresco in NDLG

After the church, I went and had lunch at the Cafe du Theatre in the square by the town hall. The food was average and the service VERY slow (lunch took over 2 hours) but it was a glorious sunny warm day and I had come armed with 1Q84 on my Kindle, so I was quite happy sipping wine and soaking up the sunshine while I waited for my food. I sometimes have to remind myself to take the time to relax and enjoy things instead of trying to rush about the place, so this was a very nice occasion.

After lunch, I followed the 'blue' route on the pavement around the Episcopal Quarter. This took me first to the cathedral, which is unusually wide and squat from the outside - apparently this is the Angevin (I think) or Plantagenet style, dating from the time of Eleanor of Aquitaine (12th-13th centuries). Inside, on the other hand, it was amazingly light and spacious. I kept thinking that it's exactly what people mean when they describe a space as being 'like a cathedral' - nothing like the heavy gloom I remember from the inside of Notre Dame de Paris, for example (many years ago now though).

It's hard to really see what it looks like. The tower on the right is taller than the one on the left, but neither is very tall, so it just gives a strange sense of being wider than it is tall, not your typical-style cathedral at all


Inside the cathedral - again, this doesn't really do justice to its proportions


12th-century stained glass window of the crucifixion. Unfortunately I could barely get my camera to function at this point, let alone zoom in, but it was pretty neat

After that, it was to the baptistery of Saint John. I was absolutely blown away by this place. It's a small building centred around a baptismal pool from the 5th century, with the rest of the building dating from between the 8th and 11th centuries I think. It, too, has amazing frescoes on the walls, from the 11th century. This was one of those places where I felt really privileged just to be there and to see it. It almost felt to me like places I've seen in the East - in Russia or Ukraine or Istanbul (the Chora church, for example) rather than the usual Western medieval style. I've been feeling a bit "meh, same old" about some places I've been (the inside of Reims cathedral for example) and this was a great reminder that I can still be amazed by new experiences and I am really lucky to be here and to experience all these things that I could never see or do in New Zealand. My camera had totally given up by this stage, so I bought some postcards and photographed them instead! I just had an all-day seminar on copyright and ethics, and so I do realise this is almost certainly illegal. Sorry! They came out surprisingly well though! Go visit the baptistery and buy some postcards.

Exterior of the baptistery (this photo I did take myself)


View of the interior


12th century fresco of the apostles


A knight on horseback


A 12th centuryfresco of a horse. I love this one, it just looks so other-timely, if you know what I mean. No-one would paint a horse quite like that any more.


A knight fighting a dragon


13th century fresco of Christ in majesty

The last place I went to was Saint Radegonde church, built to house the saint's tomb in the 6th century, although the present building dates from between the 11th and 15th centuries. There is a suburb of Tours called Sainte Radegonde, but I didn't know who she was at first. She was a princess from a Germanic tribe who was captured as a kid and later forced to marry a Frankish king (I think one of Clovis's kids, or maybe Clovis himself). Anyway, the info I read in the church said something like she performed her marital duties to the full, but she still wanted to lead a religious life and after her husband killed her brother, she ran away (you would, wouldn't you?) and founded an abbey in Poitiers. Her tomb was despoiled during the Revolution, but it's still there in the crypt and apparently there are some bits of her left. The church also had some nice painted columns, with beautiful decorative capitals showing things like people getting attacked by dogs. That's why we love the Middle Ages!

All in all, I had a really nice day out in Poitiers. It really surpassed my expectations, which I suppose wasn't hard since I didn't really have any, but still. I think I would like to take another trip some time, take some photos in my favourite spots, and see more of the town. After all, it's just down the road really!