Lyon – Days 3 & 4 (Musée des Tissus)

It is now time to go to the Musée des Tissus! The travel schedule being what it was, this was the very last thing I planned to see, and yet it is one of the highlights of my trip!

The Promised Land – and what a great sign: the warp and weft of fabric

I’ve spent the last two days (Sept 23rd & 24th) at the library of the Musée des Tissus. My mission has been to get an idea of what information is in the library here. Getting information written in French (or on a French topic) can be somewhat difficult when in the U.S. The inter-library loan system there is a wonderful thing, but it can only get things that are held by libraries in its access network. Often, works written in French are not in too many U.S. libraries. The Bibliothèque Nationale (national library of France) has a lovely on-line catalog. But that library is a bit complicated to get into (a trip in the future, no doubt). However, I knew that this library at the Musée des Tissus existed (from a previous trip to the museum), and I knew that it was open to the public. What I did not know was what they had (or did not have) with respect to my research. This seemed especially important as some of my research now involves figuring out 16thC textiles. As I had not been able to access their library on-line, a visit seemed the best solution. Here’s the reading room of the library, where I’ve spent a good bit of the last two days….

A font of great textile knowledge

This has been a wonderful experience! I have been able to check various works that I have wanted to see, found one or two new ones, and gained what I think will be useful information for various aspects of my research. I was even able to purchase a textile vocabulary book published by CIETA (Centre International d’Étude des Textiles Anciens). I had found a copy of this at Cornell’s library, but I have needed to look up other things since then. So I am very happy to have my own copy! Anyway, much to work on when I get back home! And best of all…..Several weeks before I left, I initiated contact with the library to let them know I was coming. At that time, I recognized that their website had undergone a radical redesign. All I really thought then was “I’m glad the website is so much easier to use”. What I didn’t realize was that this new website now provides some on-line access to their library holdings…and I didn’t even know this until today, when a class of students was in getting some sort of orientation. While I was sitting there doing work, I could hear their professor telling them how they could access the library’s holdings on-line….what? on-line? really? How cool is that? When I got back to my hotel room (and internet access), I checked it out, and, lo and behold, I did find a place to search the catalog. Whether this search facility is going to be useful remains to be seen. But it is wonderful that it exists (and boy am I glad I didn’t know this until after I got here 😉

Because I’ve just spent my time sitting in that chair by the little yellow purse (in the previous photo), I don’t have much in the way of photos to share. Instead, my research notebook is bulging with new information to process and I have some photocopies from a magazine that I’ve tried several ways to get my hands on. Life is good. On my walk to the library this morning, however, I did come across today’s “bit with the dog”: these faithful canines waiting for their human to come out of a store…the boucherie (butcher store). You can’t tell in this still photo, but the black dog’s tail was wagging…in anticipation, I suspect.

Human, remember to get some ground sirloin for your faithful dogs!

On the food front, I have just been eating the hotel breakfast and lunch. The museum library closes from 12:30 to 2pm for lunch. So I have been exploring lunch places nearby. Yesterday’s lunch was a lovely crêpe filled with lots of spinach and two fried eggs, accompanied, of course, by a boule of cidre brut (hard cider). Today, I had a lovely salad that had, over a huge pile of greens, 2 halves of a potato (in its skin), each with a slab of goat cheese on top. I only got through one of the halves! And I think those potatoes were cooked in some kind of broth (butter?)…or maybe potatoes just taste better here? My lovely green mint tea ended the meal because then it was time to get back to work!

Tomorrow morning (Thursday) I will spend a bit more time in the library. And then I’ll begin my trek back to Paris. Whether I am heading for a plane flight, is, however, still up for debate. Air France is in the midst of a pilot’s strike. So at this point, I don’t know if I’ll have a return flight to get onto on Friday. And it’s still to far in the future to find out whether my flight has been cancelled. So the next day or so might be kinda interesting as I figure out how to get home….oh no, do I have to stay in France? Though I must admit, I am ready to get home, see my beloved and my dogs, and process all the information that I’ve gathered on this wonderful trip. I don’t know whether I’ll have more blog entries for you or not…depends on how long I end up staying here. If all goes according to the current plan (an unlikely possibility), I will only be here for one more day. Whether I get the chance to do another entry is unknown. But in any case, it’s been a great trip…..Thanks, Jim, for making this trip possible. And thanks to you all for following along! Au revoir!

Lyon – Day 2 (Museum of Fine Arts)

My main purpose for being in Lyon is to go to the library at the Musée des Tissus (Cloth or Textile Museum). However, it is closed on Monday’s. The Fine Arts Museum, however, turned out to be open on Monday’s but not Tuesday’s. So the Fine Arts Museum was just the thing to plan for this day (Monday, Sept 22nd). The trip to this museum involved me learning the use of Lyon’s metro (underground). But that proved to be pretty easy. One French metro is, in many ways, like another. The trick is to have collected euro coins (not bills) so that you can use the ticket machines.

Turns out, this museum had a whole lot of 18th and 19th century art. So not too many 16thC treasures were found. One doesn’t know this until one goes there. A few interesting things, though…a lovely early-16thC gown (Flemish), and some wonderful bronze sculptures by Honoré Daumier of politicians of the time (mid 1800s):

Work attributed to that world-renowned painter, Adriaen Isenbrant

Honoré Daumier busts (1831/1832) – great faces!

Other 16thC finds included a lovely room of medals and coins, many of which have images of 16thC royalty (most notably Anne de Bretagne, France’s queen from 1488 to 1514]. I’d seen several of these in a book, so it was great to see them in person. Unfortunately, the light in the room and the fact that they were under glass meant that my photos really didn’t turn out. I wasn’t too stressed because I do have images at home for most of these from the book. And, speaking of book, I saw a wonderful book in the museum’s book store that hase even more lovely images of these medals. It cost a worthy sum, so I just took down the title and will try to borrow it through inter-library loan. The most interesting find was a set of Limoges plates by Pierre Reymond. These had images in the center depicting different months of the year. Several of these images had ladies in French Hoods! My photos came out OK, which was good, because of course that wasn’t something the gift store deemed worthy of reproducing (in book or postcard…sigh, again). But I have the artist’s name and a potential book title to track down…

Month of September: Limoges plate (1562) by Pierre Reymond

And then there was the classic example of how 19thC painters have left us with a grossly permuted idea of what people in the 16thC (and other centuries as well) wore. Here is a painting of Thomas More (for more info on Thomas More, click on this link), in prison just before being executed for not changing spiritual allegiance from the Pope to Henry VIII (sorry the picture is so fuzzy).

Thomas More by Claudius Jacquand (1827)

Now this event occurred in 1535. I can definitely tell you that the gowns that these ladies are wearing are more in line with the 1550s or 60s, that the chemise that is filling in the neckline of the woman in red is more from the 1570s, and that the headdress on the woman in yellow is pure invention (the one for the woman in red isn’t too bad but isn’t from 1535!) !! Sigh….

Woman in red (detail – Thomas More painting)

Woman in yellow (detail – Thomas More painting)

But the museum did provide an excellent specimen for today’s “bit with the dog”:

Sculpted by Georges Gardet around 1894

For dinner, I chose a restaurant that was listed in my Michelin Guide as being run by the same family for 3 generations….and it was close by the hotel. I have a lovely wine that I’d never had before, from Côte de Brouilly, which is in the southern part of Beaujolais, just a bit north of Lyon. My meal consisted of: AMUSE-BOUCHE – 2 little pieces of smoked salmon with a tiny dollop of cream that had dill mixed into it; ENTRÉE – “ballotine de lapin et noisette, coeur de foie gras”, which was a slice of rabbit “boxed” in (ballotine=box) with its “coeur” (heart) of foie gras, kinda like a terrine, but the rabbit was not minced, and served with an apricot coulis…Yummy…and not as overly rich as foie gras can sometimes be; PLAT – slices of Albacore tuna that had a lovely pesto sauce around them and were served with a package that was “wrapped” with lengthwise slices of zucchini and whose filling was cooked eggplant; FROMAGE – a lovely mix of some robuchon, chèvre, rochefort, and a 4th one whose name I forget; DESSERT – Opéra of pistachios (layers of chocolate, pistachio cream, and cherry jam) served with a small scoop of cherry sorbet; it was lovely, but I confess, it was too chocolately for me to really enjoy). HOT BEVERAGE: a lovely green gunpowder tea. I was really, really full, causing not such a great night of sleep. Such sacrifices I make, huh? But I am almost caught up with the blog…..!

Lyon – Day 1 (Vieux Lyon)

Sunday (Sept 21) was my first full day in Lyon. The plan was to take a guided tour of a 16thC house in Vieux Lyon, called Musée Gadagne. When I checked in the U.S., I did not see a way to make a reservation for the tour. However, when I checked here in France, it did appear that reservations needed to be made and that, probably, none were left for this day. Since the tour wasn’t scheduled until 3pm, I decided to get myself to the museum well before the tour to see if I could weasel into it. Well, let me tell you about the Journées du Patrimoine….this translates roughly to “Days of our Patrimony”. It is a weekend every year when France emphasizes its “patrimoine” by providing special tours of buildings and historic sights and opens up some historic sites not usually open to the public. The word “patrimoine” is one with much more depth of meaning than its English translation. The “patrimoine” is the history of France, not just history in a “dates and places” sort of way, but also in the “how things were done in the past” way too. Here, “history” is so visible and covers much a long period of time. The French are very proud of this history and feel that it is very important to learn about it so that it can be passed to future generations. For them, keeping the past known is an important part of moving into the future.  It is a difficult concept to describe, one that I am not completely sure of myself.

Anyway, the weekend of September 20th/21st were this year’s Journées du Patrimoine. The bad news was that of course I wasn’t going to find room on the tour on the 21st because everyone was out enjoying the Journées and had booked the tour. The good news was that the museum (which describes the history of Lyon) had waived its admission for the Journées, so since I now had some time on my hands, I decided to check it out (and to at least see the inside of the 16thC building). The museum was very interesting! When we were in London last year, I was surprised how much I enjoyed learning about the history of London in the History of London museum. So too did I now enjoy learning about the history of Lyon. And, thank goodness, they did have some information about the lovely (16thC) rooms too. Here is a picture of the wonderful spiral staircase (called the l’Escalier d’Honneur) and the “Salle Renaissance”. A 16thC guest to the house would have walked up the spiral staircase and entered into this room.

L’Escalier d’Honneur

The “grand salle” of the house: note the beautiful fireplace at the end and the lovely windows – on both sides

Whilst investigating the museum’s book shop, I found a tour book of Vieux Lyon and decided to use the rest of my afternoon in the exploration of this architecture (a lot of which is 16thC). This is where the 2nd benefit of it being the Journées weekend came in. Many of these old buildings have beautiful courtyards, entered through a passage behind their front door. In the guidebook, it mentions when a given door is open, so that you can walk through (some only in morning, others in afternoons, etc.). But because it was the Journées weekend, almost all of these doors were open all day and had people going through them pretty constantly (a benefit when the doors are be somewhat obscure). So I got to see quite a few of these lovely courtyards on my walk through Vieux Lyon! Oh, and did I forget to add that after walking through the museum, my feet were tired and my tummy empty. So I stopped at a café for some lovely hot mint tea and a crêpe – lightly filled with honey and with two little steamed figs on top! Now onto the walk through Vieux Lyon….

I thought I’d try to give you a (quick) summary. The fronts of the houses come in many varieties (first 2 photos). I, of course, am especially fond of the very Renaissance-y ones (3rd photo).

Pink tower on the corner of 22, rue Juiverie

Lovely galleries of 60, rue Saint Jean

Now that’s Renaissance influence…14, rue Lainerie

To start your journey, you go through a fairly innocuous-looking door, and often down a fairly dark corridor…..

Door to 52, rue Saint Jean

But once you enter back into the light, you are standing in a beautiful little Renaissance courtyard. Around you, you might see a gallery, a spiral staircase, tiered hallways…..

Gallery in courtyard of 8, rue Juiverie

Spiral staircase in courtyard of 23, rue Juiverie

Tiered hallways with vaulted ceilings in courtyard of 28, rue Saint Jean 

And if that wasn’t enough, there is one with its staircase in a beautiful pink tower:

Tower in courtyard of 16, rue de Boeuf 

There were many other lovely sights…too many to show. I arrived back at the hotel foot sore and hungry. It turned out that on Sunday evening, many of the interesting restaurants that I had scouted out the night before were closed. So I went back to the Tunisian one again. This time, I had a the “brik” was filled with a fried egg and tuna; followed by couscous (bowl 1), veggies in broth (bowl 2) and a platter with a bit of lamb & chicken; finally, sorbet for dessert: two flavors I’d never had – one scoop of fig and 2nd of lemon with thyme! First day in Lyon “est fini”!

P.S. I forgot to include today’s “bit with the dog”: a sign for a bar/café in Vieux Lyon:

Sign for the “Smoking Dog”

Traveling to Lyon

The goal of Saturday (Sept 20) was to get myself from Avignon to Lyon via regular (non-TGV) train. The train did not leave until 12:30, so my morning task was to take myself off to the Musée du Petit Palais. The research-related “excuse” for including Avignon in this trip was that in the 1990s, the Musée du Petit Palais put on a exhibition about silk brocades. I have seen the exhibition catalog, called “Les Brocarts Célestes”, and it has some truly lovely photos of 15th & 16thC brocades in it. Unfortunately (as I said in my introduction to the trip), neither my attempts to take photos of the book images, nor attempts to find the book itself, were a resounding success. Hence, my desire to see if arriving at the source of the exhibit would yield a copy of the book. Alas, this turned out not to be the case. As the woman at the museum stated “Il n’existe plus” (it doesn’t exist anymore). So I will have to continue my quest to located a used copy. Because this quest was unsuccessful and the cathedral there was closed for restoration, I was done with my morning tasks sooner than expected. So I just took myself off to the train station to wait (got a good bit of knitting done).

The train ride to Lyon basically followed the Rhône River. The Rhône passes through Avignon on its way to the Mediterranean Ocean. Its course is basically a straight north/south line from Avignon, forming the Rhône Valley in the process. At Lyon, the Rhône bends 90 degrees to the east and the much smaller Sâone River comes in from the north. So Lyon is at the confluence of these two rivers. (In fact, my hotel here is located in the Presqu’île section of Lyon, which means “peninsula”, but which literally translates to “nearly an island”. Here is a photo of a 1575 map of Lyon’s presqu’île. You can see a big road cutting north/south across it…a little less than halfway down this road, on its righthand side are 3 blue-roofed buildings….that’s about where my hotel is.

Map of Lyon’s Presqu’Île around 1575

Anyway, on the trip up the Rhône Valley was quite beautiful. The train is running up the east side of the Rhône River. This is an area that I would like to see with a car at some future trip. It is fascinating to watch the landscape change as you head north. First there are weird rocky “mountains” to the east. I haven’t found the name of these yet. Just north of Valence, the terrain changes to bluffs on the east side of the river. These bluff are quite rocky and they hold lots and lots of grape vines. This could be one of the sources of Côte de Rhone wine, a wine I have been enjoying frequently during my meals in the south. As one continues north, the soil seems to become less rocky and the vegetation more agricultural (stuff other than grapes). South of Vienne, the low hills on the west side of the river become covered with vines. One can see barges pulled by tugboats, kinda like the semi truck as it pulls its trailer. These barges are moving freight up the river, much as it would have been done throughout time.

Once in Lyon, I managed to get myself and baggage off the train. Next task was to figure out the transit system enough to get to my hotel. Lyon has a complicated network of trams (above ground) and metro (underground) and, of course, no straight path to the hotel. But I got that figured out too. So by the time I got me and my bags to the hotel, it was time to just sit, cool off, and unwind. I did discover the wonderful Internet service and got some of the blogging backlog worked on.

I walked around the hotel area a bit, looking for a place to eat. In the process, I discovered the Café Tricot (the Knit Café), which was closed, but seemed to have tables, chairs (so presumably some sort of food or beverage) and lots of yarn. What a great idea! I stopped close by at a Tunisian restaurant for dinner and had a lovely meal of brik (basiically a quesadilla cooked in a skillet with hot oil; this one had goat cheese and minced mint leaves in it), followed by a tajine of chicken with lemon confit (which is a whole lemon that is cooked so that you can eat the whole thing – I gotta figure out how to do this!), and, for dessert, a “sablé aux amends et la cannelle”, which was a many-layered confection (bottom layer=thin white flour sablé cookie; next, a circular “cookie” of ground almonds – not as fine as flour but not paste either – and cinnamon, it tasted kinda like gingerbread), served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I ended the meal with, you guessed it, Moroccan/Tunisian mint tea.

I decided on an early bedtime to recover from the day! And now I only have two more days to blog until I am caught up…..

Avignon – Day 2

First day in Avignon (previous blog entry) was taken up with seeing the “lay of the land” of La Vielle Ville (Old Town). The second day (Friday, Sept 19th), I spent a good portion of it taking the self-guided tour of the inside of the Palais des Papes. One enters through that large “porte” that was visible on yesterday’s picture of the “front” of the Palais:

Main “porte” (gate) of the Palais des Papes. Those double tours above were part of what was restored in modern times to return the Palais to its 14thC appearance

As a 14thC visitor, if you have made it this far and still haven’t figured out who the important person is that lives here, the porte is letting you know – the arms of the pope display:

Note the papal “hat” in the arms

Through the porte (after paying for one’s ticket) and one enters the Cour d’Honneur, the inner courtyard of the Palais Neuf. The second photo shows a great picture of a “top view” of the Palais des Papes along with the self-guided tour. One follows the path of the white arrow first (bottom floor) and then the blue arrow (one flight up).

Cour d’Honneur: south (on left) and west (on right) walls

When you stop and really look at the statuary in many medieval buildings, you can see an attention to detail that amazes. The Palais des Papes is no exception. Here are some examples of stone denizens found here:

The sublime…..

…the fierce…..

…and the sweet.

Walking through a dark wide passage, you enter into the courtyard of the Palais Vieux, called the Cour Benoit XII. Benoit  (Benedict) XII was the 3rd pope at Avignon (1334-1342) and it was under his papacy that the existing episcopal palace at Avignon was torn down and what is now called the Palais Vieux was built onto/into the Roches des Doms.

La Cour Benôit

After Benoit XII, the next pope was Clement VI. He decided that the Palais Vieux was just too vieux, and he had the Palais Neuf built. At the same time, modifications to the Palais Vieux were made too. For example, a cloister was added in it to provide living quarters for staff (a lot of that needed for a pope) and guests. None of my photos don’t do it justice (too many people around), so if you want to see it, follow this link. In the Palais Vieux is the Consistoire (Consistory). This is the room where the Assembly of Cardinals would  be convoked. If I got my directions right, the pope would have been seated “in state” against the wall at the end of this photo.

La Consistoire – where the Assemby of Cardinals was held

Now, this room had all kinds of interesting information… about the buildings, like here’s a drawing of the stonemason marks on the north wall of the Tour Saint-Laurent (way cool!):

Stonemason marks in the Tour St-Laurent

…and information about the papacy as well. Here’s a map of all the places in Europe that owed allegiance (and taxes) to the Pope in the 14thC:

Sources of papal revenue in the 14thC

Onto the next floor. Here we start in the Grand Tintel, which is a huge room that sits above the Consistoire. This was a room for assemblies and festivals. This amazing roof was built between 1414 and 1419, when the Tintel was rebuilt after a fire destroyed it.

[photo 752]

Le Grand Tintel – the great assemby room

The door visible in the wall at the end of this photo leads to an antechamber, where people would wait for their personal audience with the Pope. And, from there, to the Pope’s chambers. These chambers are covered with frescoes that are incredibly beautiful. Unfortunately, photography is prohibited. And the souvenir books that I purchased that did have images I could show you, I have cleverly sent back to the U.S. already…sigh. But here’s a photo on the Internet from the Studium (also called the Chambre du Cerf – Room of the Stag – because of the hunting theme of the images) and today’s “bit with the dog”. To see an incredible array of these images, try entering “chambre du cerf avignon” into Google and click on Images. The images are really amazing! The Pope’s chambre (private room/bedroom) is also decorated. It’s harder to find a good image of this one, but try this one – it’s slightly overexposed, but you get an idea of the intricate patterns there.

So the tour has done a really good job of saving the best to last. You see the amazing images on the walls of the Pope’s personal chambers and then you enter into the Grande Chapelle , where the Papal Mass would be given. The dimensions of this room are really impressive and to think that it too was probably decorated and certainly filled with the treasures of the Church. While the Pope could enter this room from his apartments, everyone else would have come from the Cour d’Honneur, up the Escalier d’Honneur, an imposing double staircase, and to the Grande Porte (which is being restored from the damage done during the Revolution and beyond):

L’Escalier d’Honneur, leading up to the Grande Chapelle

At the top of the l’Escalier d’Honneur, the Grande Porte, through which you enter the Grande Chapelle

Once through the doors, you would be in the Grande Chapelle. This was built in 1351 as part of the work done by Pope Clement VI.

The western end of the Grande Chapelle: you can barely see the opening for those big doors you came through on the right.

The eastern end of the Grande Chapelle, with the alter… the room at the right being where the Pope would put on his vestments before the service

All in all, a most amazing tour of a most amazing building! The day’s goal also included getting another box of stuff sent off to the U.S. So I decided that lunch would have to wait and got the mailing done – it is always a bit of an undertaking. After that, however, I was truly starved. But a meal was out of the question, as I had made reservations at a trendy restaurant for dinner that night and didn’t want to eat heavily beforehand. So I “suffered” by stopping at a Salon de Thé and had a chocolate éclair and some green tea…I know, I know….but someone has to do it.

The dinner was at a restaurant called “Les 5 Sens” (The 5 Senses). It was (I am sorry I keep using this word)…amazing! The room was beautifully decorated, very trendy with the colors of the walls simplifying yet bringing together the accent color of a red-rose red. But onto the food…AMUSE-BOUCHES: two sets of “amuse-bouches” (appetizers, I suppose is the mundane translation): 1) 3 little canapés (my favorite was a puff pastry “roll” with tapenade in the dough); 2) vichyssoise w/ a dollop in the shape of a mussel shell that was made of puréed potatoes and leeks. BREAD: Then the usual offering of bread, but this was either triangles of olive bread rolls or nice crusty bread rolls (I choose the olive bread). ENTRÉE: (which is the French word for what you have first, an appetizer) a nicely browned scallop with 2 little cannellonis that are filled w/ some sort of soft cheese that has roasted red pepper and green onions in it, sitting in a lovely broth that had little bits of cauliflower and a celery leaf in it, with little croutons over top, and – the pièce de résistance: a “cloud” of “sea form” – probably very lightly whipped egg white. PLAT: (main course) thin slices of duck – fairly rare on the inside, but with a nice brown crust on the outside; duck has been marinated in red wine enough to taste the wine, and on top it has some sort of “granola” bits. This was served with a purée of potatoes (which was actually browned on top, so it was like having a “potato pancake” on one side) and another of carrot, and with a lovely cooked mushroom. DESSERT: a “5 senses” specialty – fruit of the day = strawberry…..a cheesecake layer cake: two thin “slices” of cheesecake with strawberry glaze/jam “frosting” between them and on the top, sitting on a crunchy crust; a strawberry coulis sauce over that; sitting on top: a small scoop of strawberry sorbet and a tiny scoop of some kind of pink fluff that might have had pistachios in it too; and here the “pièce de résistance” was a nest of spun sugar threads. HOT BEVERAGE: more mint tea!! Needless to say, I waddled home…my stomach full enough that I did a bit of packing and reading before I was ready to sleep (poor me)!

And that’s it for that day! I am sorry to be so behind in this blog, but there is so much to do and internet only wants to work when it wants to work! À bientôt!

Travels in the south of France – Avignon, Day 1

I have spent the last 2 days in Avignon, home to the popes of the Catholic Church from 1309 to 1377 (according to Wikipedia). My hotel there, while quite adequate in other ways, did not have the type of Wi-Fi access that WordPress liked, so no blogging…But I’ve just made it to Lyon (and acceptable Wi-Fi), so I’ll try to catch you up.

In previous visits to France, I have never made it to Avignon to see the Palais des Papes (Papal Palace). Part of that was because the time period for this phenomenon is 14thC (not 16thC – a person has to have her priorities!) and partly because I never really did understand why the Church split into two. On the second point, I am now a bit wiser. I refer you to the Wikipedia entry for a summary. For my SCA friends, I am thinking that I would like to do a Medieval Studies on this building(s) and its history sometime maybe in the winter.

I have to say that Avignon is pretty amazing! I came in on Thursday (9/18) around noon on the TGV (train à grande vitesse = high-speed train). For those of you who haven’t seen these creatures, they are pretty cool. Here’s two “engines” nose to nose:

After an inauspicious introduction – the walk from the train station to the hotel was not particularly attractive, despite passing through the ancient city gates. But, as I had time to use up until the room was ready, I took guidebooks in hand and went for a walk around the outside of the Palais des Papes. I have to say, I was very impressed with it, in spite of my earlier reservations. It is a massive building, or more accurately, collection of buildings. And that it has survived all this time, since the 14thC! Of course, most any large, ancient building in France was used, during the Napoleonic era (or sometimes later) as either a prison or military barracks. The Palais has the glory of being both. Yet, again, as with many ancient French buildings, it has been lovingly restored to the time of its glory.

The complex is very imposing, designed to be a worthy home to the head of the Christian faith. Also, due to the reasons for the Pope leaving Rome, it was designed to be militarily defendable as well.

Palais des Papes – from the front. Somebody really important (and wealthy) lives here!

And the owner is willing to protect what he’s got: arrow slits above the gate. These slits are everywhere on the building!

Before heading out, I was in need of sustenance. So I stopped at La Couscouserie, where I had a lovely lamb tajine (Moroccan “stew”). Cooked with the lamb were prunes, dried apricots, golden raisins; and over the top were orange slices, slivered almonds, and some sesame seeds. Served with it was a bowl (trough really) of couscous. Yummy! And lovely hot mint tea afterwards!

Walking around the complex, one sees all kinds of neat angles of pieces against other pieces, and against the sky. I took lots of photos – not as many as at St-Germain, mind you – but still, lots of photos. I’ll share just a few….

The first sighting!

The walls of the building are literally built out of the rock called “Roche des Doms”

When you’ve gone around the bottom of the first of the two complexes, the Palais Neuf (new), you start climbing up the Roche des Doms, where the Palais Vieux (old) is. To ascend, you take the Escaliers Sainte Anne (who must have been in very good shape):

You climb…..

…and you climb…and you keep climbing

But when you finally reach the top, the view is incredible! You are at the top of the Roche des Doms. Extensive gardens at the back of the Palais Vieux are behind you and the Rhône River is in front of you. Across the Rhône is Villeneuf-lès-Avignon, with some beautiful buildings of its own (next trip).

Lots more garden than this, but it gives you an idea. Trees, flowers….

…and denizens!

The Rhône River flows past Avignon, on its journey from Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean Sea!

Fort Saint André (1364-1368) in Villeneuf-lès-Avignon, across the river, 49 km away

At the west end of the Roche, it is possible to climb down to river-level again. I did so into the Tour des Chiens (today’s “bit with the dog”):

Looking back south to the Palais Vieux

Climbing down to the Tour des Chiens

Once down at river-level, I was able to see the famous “Pont d’Avignon” (for those of you who took French class and had to learn the song). It was visible from up above too, but I have to limit the photos somehow. And then I was able to walk around the ramparts (city wall) that is still largely intact.

Le Pont d”Avignon…and those aren’t grey sheep in the foreground…that’s all lavender!

And I did a goodly amount of Provence-themed shopping: bright colors in pottery, pictures, and linens (my weakness – I now have 6 Provencal napkins). But the feet were getting pretty tired at this point. So back to the room for a rest. Then back to the Place de l’Horloge (Clock Place) for dinner at a brasserie: chicken fricasée in a basil cream sauce with egg noodles. It was relatively simple, but quite good. I’d like to see if I could try to make this one at home.  Even so, I didn’t eat it all, so that, for the first time in days, I could go to bed without an uncomfortably full tummy. And for dessert?….sorbet (did I mention that I love sorbet?).

The next day I took the tour inside the Palais des Papes. Lots more incredible sights. Lots more photos. But I think I’ll save that for the another blog entry. Time to sign off, rest a bit, and then commence the quest in search of dinner. À tout à l’heure (=”later”)

Finishing up in Paris

Well, tomorrow (Thursday) morning, I leave Paris and take a TVG (high-speed train) down to Avignon. Today has been spent running various errands: looking for a particular of an art magazine (no luck); trying to cash old francs to dollars (also, no luck), These attempts were unsuccessful. However, in my wait for the Banque Française to open, I wandered around the area, looking for something interesting to eat and came upon Mamie Gateau – a delightful little café that served fresh lunch tartes (i.e. quiche) and patisseries. I had a wonderful lunch of tarte with zucchini and Provençal spices (rosemary & thyme) and a bit of nutmeg and slices of goat cheese on top. Yummy! For dessert, I had the lemon tarte, which had real, exquisitely made meringue on top and very lemony custard beneath – a real “lemon meringue pie”! It was amazing. My last task was to lighten myself of some of the books that I’ve been collecting by sending a 7kg box back to the U.S. Now, I think, it’s off to the Restaurant Polidor, which has a reasonable robust beer selection…and it is within walking distance! But it doesn’t open for another 50 minutes….so let’s try to get this blog caught up in the meantime….

Yesterday (Tuesday, 9/16), I was a truly adventurous traveller: I took the EuroStar (chunnel train) over to London for the day, so that I could see the exhibition “The Real Tudors: Kings and Queens Rediscovered” at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG). The exhibit was quite small and did not allow photography, but the exhibition was very interesting. The NPG has a project called “Making Art in Tudor Britain”, which is undertaking to look at the Tudor art with the latest scientific analysis. The exhibition was the result of the analysis and in a few cases the restoration of some of the really famous Tudor portraits found at the NPG. So the information was quite interesting and, fortunately, the exhibition book seems to do an excellent job of presenting the information. I think the most fascinating parts for me were: a) just to see these famous portraits up close; b) to see the amazing clarity restored to Queen Elizabeth’s Phoenix portrait as a result of its restoration (the previous link is also the NPG’s summary of this project). The details of the embroidery on her gown are so much more vivid now! And the cloth of one of the famous portraits of Queen Mary Tudor (Elizabeth’s predecessor) was so detailed you could see the threads going across! So it was worth the hop across the channel. But because the exhibit was kind of small, I had time to fill before my reservation at the NPG’s restaurant for afternoon tea. So I went to the National Gallery, which turned out to be right next door. And here were an amazing number of “famous” works of 15th & 16th century art (well, it had lots of other stuff too, but I didn’t go see them). Lots of painting by an Italian artist, Giovanni Battista Moroni – there must have been six or seven of them. One of his famous ones (for us clothing fiends of the 16thC) is called “The Tailor” and shows what an (Italian) tailor of the mid-16thC would have looked like:

“The Tailor” by Giovanni Battista Moroni, 1565-70

And the National Gallery’s gift shop let’s you pick paintings in their collection and have an image printed (not for free, alas). So I did just that for “The Tailor” and will now have one to hang in my sewing room! I also got to see Holbein’s “The Ambassadors“, which is cited in all kinds of contexts in works about the 16thC. It is a big painting and the colors and detail are beautiful. And there were several paintings with useful pictures of headdresses, so progress on that front, as well! And, of course….there was the bit with the dog, a (I thought the Golden Retriever wasn’t “invented” til the 1800s, but Piero di Cosimo painted this around 1495…so somebody’s wrong 😉

“A Satyr mourning over a Nymph” by Piero di Cosimo

I went back to the NPG just in time (well, a tiny bit late…blame waiting on the printer for my “The Tailor” print) to make my reservation for afternoon tea. It was in their restaurant on the 3rd floor, whose entire exterior wall is glass. This means you get a lovely rooftop view of the city of London, looking south towards the river. You can see the top of the Tower of London and behind that, the tower of Parliament. And being an idiot, I forgot to take a picture of the view! Sorry about that. But a lovely tea was had: little sandwiches of cucumber, chicken salad, smoked salmon, and a lovely little toast with carmelized onions and a slice of goat cheese (yummy!); next tray up were two little scones and a little pot of strawberry jam and another of clotted cream (yeah!); top tray had mini pastries. By then I was getting a bit full so I only ate the tiny eclair and the little fruit tart with custard. All this with nice hot tea and where they didn’t put the milk in before the tea had steeped (unlike some places in the U.S.). I scooted back to the train station, waiting a bit for the EuroStar back to Paris. A little bit of a panic as I was out of Metro tickets and was planning to buy was I needed for the rest of my stay here with the credit card. But that nasty ticket machines would not take my credit card, nor would they accept bills. I was finally able to find enough coin to purchase just the one ticket I needed to get back. And so I was back in my hotel room by 11pm that night. An exhausting, but fun day.

The day before that (Monday, 9/15) I was able to make it to the 16thC château, Saint Germain-en-Laye. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make it there during this visit because I didn’t know how much time the Archive research would take. But since that work went relatively quickly, I had Monday “free” and bolted for St Germain. This château sits in the western outskirts of Paris. In the 16thC, this château was far outside the city gates, in the royal forest of Boulonge (Bois du Boulogne). The château has been restored to its (mostly) 16thC configuration, when it was built by François I. In the room that sells tickets sits this great model of the château as it would have looked in the very late 16thC. You are looking at it from the Seine river and the buildings in the foreground are the “newer” part, added to the grounds by Henri II and finished by Henri IV. The chateau sits at the very back/top of this model.

And this is how the chateau looks (though this picture is taken 90 degrees counter-clockwise to the view of this model).

Now it is the home of the Musée d’Archéologie – i.e. lots of prehistory and early history stuff. I confess that this subject doesn’t do much for me, so it’s easy for me to stroll thru the rooms, ignoring the exhibits and concentrating instead on the architecture.

King’s “chambre” – the window to the left looks out onto the lovely gardens seen in the first photo of the château

The picture above is the King’s “chamber” (bedroom), which would have been a way more public space that our bedrooms today. It was an honor to be part of the King’s daily dressing and undressing ritual in this room. Only those closest to the King’s would be permitted to enter. In the 16th, the King’s bed would have here on the wall behind you. The wooden pillars at the left would not have been there (nor would the carpet ;-). The wooden wall wasn’t there because behind it is access to a “tower” room, which the King used as a small “cabinet” (office). Off the tower room would have been a passage that allowed the King to go down to the gardens without having to go through the public rooms and people that would always have been there.

And this picture is of the ballroom. This type of room was new to buildings of this time. It has beautiful large windows on both sides and is a large, common “pleasure” space. On the other side of the wall at the end is the château’s chapel. In the 16thC, there was a private access for the King to enter from this room. Alas, the chapel was closed during this visit because they were preparing for an upcoming exhibition. Alas!

I can go on and on about this building. I took about 100 photos of it. But the internet is fighting me and I must get going to eat, so I can get to bed at a reasonable hour. I have to wake up at 6am (aaaahhh) to start my preparations for tomorrow’s travel. A revoir from Paris…and on to Avignon….

A tour of 16thC Paris

What I forgot to include in yesterday’s blog were the pictures that I took of the “microfiche hive” at the Archives Nationales. Here live those lovely manuscripts that I was viewing:

Looking “west” down the rows of microfiche readers

Looking “east” towards the front desk (in back of photo)

On the agenda for today (Sunday), a guided tour of Le Marais, a district of Paris (modern 3rd arrondissement), where some 16thC architecture still exists. The Musée Carnavalet organizes the tour, as it is the official “museum of the history of Paris”. The guide did speak English but as the other two members of the tour were French, she spoke French. I understood about 95%, which is an improvement over past years. The tour was very interesting. The Hôtel Carnavalet itself is a 16thC building, a “hotel de ville” (town house). It is famous for having been where the authoress Madame de Sévigné lived. She wrote very chatty letters to her daughter in the country describing life in Paris. She wrote 3-4 per week, over the course of 10 years! That’s a lot of letters! Her family decided to publish them after Madame’s death. They provide a very interesting insight into life in the upper society of France. Some subset of these letters is a staple of any class on French literature of the 17thC. Here’s a 16thC part of the Hôtel Carnavalet:

Courtyard of the Hôtel Carnavalet

One of the really cool things that the tour guide showed up was a piece of the original late-12thC/early-13thC wall that surrounded Paris. It was built by king Philippe-Auguste to protect the expanded city and included over 625 acres, bigger than Paris was then! Every 230 ft, the wall had a tower and periodically it had portals as well…a big wall! And this one only held Paris for about 200 years, when King Charles V had to build a new one! Anyway, here’s the extant wall:

Looking to the right – remains of tower at far right

Looking to the left

The guide then took us up a small alley that had extant 16thC buildings that “normal” people lived (probably middle class). This picture tries to give you a feel of the 16thC street:

 

The most famous 16thC architecture (though late in the century) is the Place des Vosges. This is one of the most beautiful “Places” in Paris. In the mid-16thC, it was the setting for the royal palace called the Hôtel des Tournelles. According to Wikipedia, this “palace” was actually many buildings spread over several acres outside the city wall. Here’s a 1550 image from Wikipedia:

Area of Hôtel des Tournelles around 1550

However, when King Henri II was mortally wounded in a tournament (1559), he was take to Hôtel des Tournelles because it was the closest royal building; he died there. A combination of it being “old-fashioned” and the place where her husband died, Catherine de Medici had it torn down in 1563. Its remains served many purposes after that (including being a dueling site). Then in the first decade of the 1600s, Henri IV gave the pieces of the land to his noble to build their hôtel de villas. This is what we see now.

The walk ended there in the Place des Vosges. So I took myself back to the bookstore of the Centre des Monuments Nationaux and came away with several lovely books. I then returned to the Hôtel Carnavalet to take a look inside its museum. Found a lovely fragment of stained glass with a French Hood and a cool model of the Île de la Cité in the late 16thC:

Taking a roundabout route back to the Metro stop, I decided that lunch was in order and stopped at a lovely little café, Le Sévigné, and had the requisite Croque Monsieur (the French version of a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, but, as with most French food, way better). The café was across from one of the many small parks throughout Paris, where these lovely flowers were enjoying the sun:

And with that lovely image, I am ready to sign off once again. Dinner plans are uncertainly, given that late lunch. Perhaps a gyro over in the Left Bank? À demain….

Round 1 of Research — done!

As you have no doubt guessed, blog posting has taken a back seat to the busy-ness of the days here.  But I’ll try to catch you up.  Round 1 of research is now done. I spent parts of the past two days looking at 16thC manuscripts at the Archives Nationales. On the whole, the results were very satisfactory. Lest you think that my “work” here is nothing but an excuse to get to France, I thought I’d show you a picture of a handwritten page number… Can you tell me what page it is?

A folio number of a 16thC manuscript

I’ll let you off easy…it’s 289. The thing to remember is that the person writing is doing so with a quill pen. His/Her goal is to write as much as possible without picking up the pen from the paper (decreases ink blots). So the first “piece” of the number is: (two ones tied together and then a line up to a “c”) = 200. Next piece is (the four “i”‘s) combined with next piece of (two “x”’s) = “quatre” “vingt” (4 twenty) = 80. Last piece is (ix)=9. Easy, right?

Yesterday (Friday) began relatively early…I got myself to the Archives about an hour before the day before. Even had time to stop on the way to pick up a lovely “potato cake”: big pastry filled with some sort of soft cheese and cooked potatoes flavored with dill. Here it is, half eaten after the day’s research. And another picture of the courtyard of the Archives Nationales, where I did consume one half of said potato cake.

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Friday’s research allowed me to finish up with the 1st of the three manuscripts, King François’ account for 1541. I then was able to get through the 2nd one, which was Queen Éléonor’s account for 1544. Thankfully, this one was only 40 folios long (that’s 80 pages: one front page & one “verso” for each number). I even had a bit of time to start in on the 3rd document, Queen Catherine de Medici’s account for 1556! A successful day. With Archives closed, I decided that because I had missed checking out the Louvre bookstore (due to the amazing fact that the room was ready when I checked in, so I slept instead of going), I would head that way. One can enter the Louvre bookstore without standing in the line for the museum by going through Le Carousel du Louvre, a fancy shopping center, which can be accessed through the Metro. An “inverse pyramid” sits in its lobby. In this photo, the entrance to the Louvre is just out of the picture on the left.

This bookstore has been significantly remodeled from past years. During last year’s visit with my beloved, it was under construction, so the full contingent of books was not available. But construction is now complete. Can’t say that I am overly fond of the result, as the entire bottom floor has now been given over to the sale of glass, ceramic, etc. reproductions. Books have now been relegated to the 1st floor and I think that some weeding had to occur for them to fit into the new space. Very sad. I did not find anything that I had to have except a few of the beautiful glossy art magazines that had articles about Anne de Bretagne (Anne of Brittany, Queen of France from 1498-1515). Could it be that I have all relevant 16thC works?……Naaahhhh!

Went home to rest the feet and then out to one of my favorite places to eat in Paris: Chez Fernand. One of my favorite things there is the salad of haricots verts (small green beans). And one of my favorite meals just happened to be on special that night: filet of beef with sauce au poivre (black pepper sauce) and gratin dauphinois (a casserole of layers of finely sliced potatoes, garlic, nutmeg, and cream). It was incredible!! Finished with sorbet scoops sitting in their own pasty crust “bowl”, which was most convenient for breaking into bits and scooping out the sorbet. I went home very full of food.

Today (Saturday) was another busy day…or maybe the time zone change finally caught up with me. Anyway, by the time I got back to the room at 5:30, I crashed….and I mean literally. I just stretched out across the bed and melted into the mattress. After about 45 minutes of sleep, I rotated 90 degrees so I could be on the pillow and slept another hour. But I felt refreshed when I finally woke up…and hungry. So what filled this day? In the morning, I was still full from dinner. Eating breakfast just didn’t seem worth it. After confirming that the Archives were indeed open until 4:30 on Saturdays, I decided to take care of some organizing, finally getting out by 11am. I decided to try to locate a place that said it sold a history magazine that I couldn’t find in the Louvre and that was another one focused on Anne de Bretagne. Who knew that 2014 is the 500th anniversary of her death? Alas, no luck with that search nor the other one I had undertaken, but I walked through the 7th arrondissement, a wealthly area with lots of lovely window shopping. So I was able to get some gift shopping done.

By the time I had “not found” my last magazine source, I was up to the Siene, across from the far-west end of the Louvre. Needing to rest feet and feed tummy (which finally noticed the lack of breakfast), I headed for the lovely park area between the “wings” of the Louvre. Here’s the Seine as I crossed it, looking east:

And looking west (that big glass building is the Grand Palais):

Lunch was the remaining half of the potato cake. Then it was time to get my butt off to the Archives to finish up the research. Several hours of staring at microfiche and I had pretty much printed out the bulk of Catherine de Medici’s 1556 account book (50+ folios). There were long entries of itemized purchases from her tailor and, I think, some costs for these items. The year 1556 would have been when she was Queen, had produced all of her surviving children, and before the death of her husband Henri II in 1559. So she’s wearing (and buying) more than the unrelieved black we see in images of her after her husband’s death (and she lived almost 30 years after his death). She was pregnant until June of that year with twins, who did not survive long after birth. The manuscript if filled with tiny 16thC handwriting, so it will be awhile before I can transcribe/translate it all. But it promises to be an interesting task, especially when I can compare what I find with the information in the article by Isabelle Paresys – the article that alerted me to this manuscript in the first place. It was actually this article that was the cause of me stumbling across the 1532 inventory that I have already started transcribing/translating and describing in this blog.

So that’s the last day at the Archives (at least for this visit) and I have to say, the time was very productive…and fun, in that nerdy sort of way. I took the Metro home – no ambling, due to tiredness I described at the beginning of this day. Dinner was at a lovely Italian restaurant, where I had bruschetta and smoked salmon followed by lasagna, green tea (tea bag, but still green, not black), and a limoncello (lemony liquor goodness). I waddled back to the room.

That’s all for now. Good night from Paris!

And the research begins….

Today was the day to start research. Given that my body had even-less-than-usual desire to move in the morning (because it thought that it was 2am), I really had to pull on my big-girl panties to follow thru with this plan. But follow thru I did. I mapped a path via Metro & feet to bring me to the Archives Nationales, home (hopefully) of 16th-century manuscripts I want to see. The main “tourist” building is quite grand, very classical. But turns out that what I’m looking for is around the corner and in back, in a fairly bland modern building. So I’m only showing you the fancy one.

Archives Nationales – not 16th-century architecture, but still pretty impressive!

Once inside, my first task was to “s’inscrire”, which meant I got a library card!!!  Yeeeesssss! I then had to stash most of my possessions in a locker, bringing only the research files, computer, camera, and a pencil (and the new library card) into the “stacks”. Then up to the 3rd floor (what we would call the 4th floor, because in France, the 1st floor is one floor up…actually makes more sense to me); this is where the hive of microfiches is. I am hoping that I have correctly translated the “libre access” designation on the microfiches that I want: that they will be “open access” and I didn’t have to reserve them. And indeed, the research gods are kind and that’s the case. There on the reader screen appears page after page of handwritten 16th-century text!

The research gods quickly showed that their benevolence is not an extended thing, as I then had to figure out how to locate the pages I was looking for. I went in with a manuscript # and some folio (page) #s. But the page #s were also handwritten and, of course, in roman numerals. This required a crash course in roman numerals (not, alas, something I have been speaking of late). So now finding what page I was on because a matter of figuring out that: a) what are roman numerals again? (thank you, internet); b) the roman numerals were in lowercase; b) they had to be deciphered from the handwriting for stuff like learning that the roman-numeral “v” looked more like a “b”. On top of that, there were what can only be called “Variations on a theme of Roman Numerals”, the biggest one being that after page “lxxix” came “iiiixx” — now what’s with that? Am I not deciphering the page numbers correctly? sigh….research is never easy. To paraphrase Dr Seuss, I puzzled and puzzled til my puzzler was sore. And then I thought of something I hadn’t before…maybe these numbers, just perhaps, don’t start with a 4. In French, the word for 79 (lxxix) is built pretty much like it is in English. But the word for 80 is complete different. Rather than having an “eighty” word, in French the word is “quatre vingt”, which translates literally to “four twenty”. So here is the use of the term way back in a 16th-century roman-numerals= page #: “iiii” (quatre = four) followed by “xx” (vingt=twenty). Pretty neat, once I spent the couple of hours figuring it out. Having performed that task of my quest, I was allowed to locate my pages….and actually able to print some of that beautiful handwriting out! Squueeeee!

So while the day was not quite as productive as I had hoped, it was still pretty exciting. And tomorrow I will not have to spend the time to figure this stuff out…I’ll get another task, no doubt (no guarantee that the next document uses the same pagination). The library closed at 4:30, so then it was that part of the day that must be “used up” before dinner consumption can commence. Today’s goal was more ambling (to work off sitting for 5 hours). I started with a walk around the Archives building. Around the corner is an older portion of the building that, turns out, in the 16thC was the hôtel (“town house”) of the Guise family (major “players” in court & political life of that time). Now that’s pretty cool!

If you look at the left corner of the previous picture, you can see the top of this tower peaking out.

Last two lines of plaque: Hôtel de Guise de 1553 à 1704. I love finding the 16th century!

Further ambling yielded some perfume (which I had decided I deserved) and a view of the Georges Pompidou center, home of a huge amount of modern art. I have to say that my architectural (and artistic) tastes run along the more ancient lines. I find the building pretty ugly and haven’t yet found enough reason to go inside it. A heathen, I’m sure. But for the modern-art lovers out there…

That’s modern alright. Gotta say that seeing the structure of a building on it’s outside is kinda cool!

The rest of the time was spent sitting in a café across from the Louvre sipping a pot of real loose-leaf green tea (a not-easy-to-find thing in France) and then checking out bookstores for current works on the 16thC (some success here). Followed by a quick “pop around the corner from the hotel I’m staying in” to eat Indian food. God, I love this place! Now it’s getting late once again. And I have promised myself that I need to get my *ss out the door earlier to get more time at the Archives tomorrow. Good night, all.