Day 16: Angers

August 25, 2024

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Michel FleuranceRed line : Looks like a very strange animal to me.
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1 month ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Michel FleuranceGrampies drunk on patisseries?
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1 month ago

(A camera note: after three days in purgatory at the bottom of the clothes bag, the Lumix ZS-60 was invited out to see if it still wanted to pursue its "zoom system error". As it happens, it forgot about it, as mysteriously as it had developed the problem. So it's back in business! There may be some hope in this report for other Cycleblazers whose ZS-60's have packed it in.)

Angers is a beautiful and interesting city, with really a lot of walking area in the city centre, great architecture, and about a dozen must see things - mostly buildings. Well OK, if we take the tourism office's pamphlet for kids, there are eight things to see.

We bagan by walking over to the tourism office, which is right by the Chateau. Dodie had had the great idea of going on the little white tourist train, a fun activity for kids, and a boon to old timers by saving a lot of walking. The little white train leaves from the chateau/tourism office area, so that was our target.

But first, some mandatory post cards get sent home. You can see the one showing sleeping beauty. Cam and Joni, this is the very one you will be getting!

Here we are at the chateau - backside. There are seventeen of these towers, forming the fortified enclosure.

Inside Tourist Information, there is a selection of interesting materials.

A whole book about the cave dwellings, from the region we just left.

History type books, usually too complex for us!

Nowe look at this one. It intrigued me with some kind of promise of gpx files. We bought this one!

Joe and I were staring at the moon, while waiting for the little train to go.

Ok, we off on the little train. It sure makes you look like a tourist to ride one of these. But guess what, we ARE tourists.

This building, perpetually swathed in covers, is called the Adam house. It's an original timber frame building richly covered in sculptures and decorations - if one could ever see it!

After looking up at buildings along the river Maine, between the chateau and the cathedral, the little train crosses the Maine to the district on the other side, known as the Doutre.

The Doutre has lots of what I might call second tier intresting buildings, like a giant walled convent, a former hospital, and a tall ornate monument to .. something.

OK, so it's "Saint Lawrence mound's Blessed Sacrament burial vault" ?

A view oif the cathedral, as we head on back

Next stop, the chateau. That's the draw bridge coming up.

Two particiapants pose for the chateau photo, while two emulate sunflowers and will not face the camera.

A really elaborate gate within the chateau grounds.

The chateau chapel. It's wall are so cobbled together, but it's beautiful.

Now in the Chateau giftshop, there is again a wide variety of really good and interesting books. The big thing in the chateau is the "Apocalypse Tapestry", a huge woven artwork mounted in a long climate controlled gallery. The tapestry was commissioned in the 14th century and comprises six groups of seven panels, woven from wool. The panels depict scenes from the Book of Revelations. The gift shop has a wealth of excellent books all about the Tapestry.

I picked up a book like "Au Temps des Chevaliers" and showed it to Joe, commenting on how interesting it looked, but only partly tongue in cheek mentioning it could be too complex for me. Joe thumbed through it, "C'mon Grandpa, a seven year old could read this". "Maybe so", I thought, "If he had his glasses!".

A typical panel - The Conquerer on the White Horse

From the chateau, looking over to the Doutre neighbourhood.

Long flight of steps leading up to the St Maurice cathedral, known of course as the St Maurice steps.

The Little Train materials had included an ad for the gelato shop Amorino, and this was effective, because we headed directly over to it. Amorino is a chain founded in Paris that has now gone multinational, with hundreds of outlets. Their success makes sense, because their quality and selction is great, and they have a terrific technique of forming your gelato cone into a flower, with petals of various flavoured gelato. Within the limits of the number of possible petals, you can ask for any number of flavours at the given price.

Amelia also got the whipped cream option!

From Amorino, our team split up for a bit. I had learned that there could be ducks at the Jardin des Plantes, while the kids had spotted a Cat café, being a tea house with many cats in residence. The narrative, then, follows the Grampies for a bit, as we go off looking to photograph some ducks!

Sights along our way:

The naan that these fellows were bringing out looked really good.

Notre Dame des Victoires church has good looking materials and design

This was an African restaurant. Don't know how they got the name.

Great colours at the Jardin des Plantes. It is very peaceful and beautiful here.

Most of the ducks we saw were probably Mallards.

Dodie saw this the other day, and is itching to put it into our bird list for this year. It will be 24214 Kingfisher

Heading home now, and still seeing lots of stuff:

The Wiki on this: "The Sacred Way or National Sacred Way is a historic French strategic road that connects Bar-le-Duc to Verdun , numbered RD 1916. It was the main artery of the Battle of Verdun .Referred to simply as the road , the departmental road linking Bar-le-Duc to Verdun was the vital logistical artery of the Place de Verdun . It was named the "Sacred Way" by the writer Maurice Barrès , in reference to the ancient Roman Via Sacra leading to the triumph.This road had to be constantly maintained, because trucks transporting equipment and troops passed by it non-stop at a rate of one vehicle every fourteen seconds on average. During the summer of 1916 , 90,000 men and 50,000 tons of munitions, supplies and equipment used it every week to fuel the furnace at Verdun "

This blue mosaic faced house (The Blue House) has also been draped forever, but little bits peek out.

We made a stop for some galette, which is a form of crepe. We took a seat at one of the restaurant's tables and put in our order. While waiting, I looked over their menu board, seeing that a bottle of Coke costs 2.90 euros for 330ml, or almost 20x the Canadian Walmart price when buying 2L. But to add to the story, 2.90 is the discount price, for a takeout. If you sit at their outdoor table and drink the coke, it's 3.50! Strange again, when our galette came, we found that the whole darn restaurant is basically a take out, with the product coming in a paper wrap. But again, so typically, this French business weirdness is balanced (more than balanced) by the actual galette being super great!

Suitably bolstered by galette and Coke, we took a turn through the cathedral. It sure is lovely, with wood carving and blue stained glass.

The rose windows are special, with the north one, for instance, depicting elements of the end of the world. I looked closely for Trump or Harris, but could only find mundance things like the oceans going on fire.

We made a donation for a candle, which we would light for our daughter. There were several chapels about, where candles were burning and where those placing the candles were presumably looking for intercession from the saint to whom the chapel was dedicated. I wanted to find a powerful saint for our candle, but they all seemed to be sort of second stringers that I had never heard of.

At one chapel, I somehow missed seeing from afar who the saint was, so I walked down to where the candles were burning to see. It turned out to be St Sacrement. OK. But as I returned from the candles, I was accosted by a church official, who pointed out that the chapel was not for "visiting" but only for "prayer". "That's what my purpose was", I said. But he only repeated himself. "I don't think you understand", I persisted. So here I was having a theological discusion in the cathedral, about the nature of prayer. Cool.

While I was fluffing around interviewing saints and debating theology, Dodie selected Saint Maurille. Saint Maurille is credited with a fair list of miracles, including resurrecting a child. The story of this is very complex, hard to follow, even after I read it in English, here: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurille_d'Angers

Leaving the cathedral, we encountered two more interesting things before returning to the hotel. One was the shop selling a confection called a quernon, which is a blue candy made to represent the slabs of slate for which Angers is famous. The shop was closed, but we'll be back tomorrow!

Cointreau is/was made in Angers. Consequently you can find Cointreau ice cream, and cakes, in many places.

Joe's Take:

its a bird its a plain its a chiken on a motercycle or is it a hot air balloon🕵️

Today's ride: 13 km (8 miles)
Total: 368 km (229 miles)

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