Day 73: Angers

April 19, 2024

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We had been in Angers once before, and our visit then had followed our usual pattern. We rolled into town, probably crossing on the new bridge, and got a room in a hotel right near there. That is near the chateau, which is good, but the chateau was closed. So we peered down into the moat, said one "wow" , went to sleep and then left left town. That's how I remember it, anyway. If I were a serious guy, I would check the blog and see.

This time around, we were set to repeat the same stunt. The only difference was that the hotel (The Continental) was a little deeper into the town. This exposed us to how beautiful and interesting the place really is, resulting in our booking in for an extra day.

To find out what we should look at on that day (today) we got a hold of a map from the Tourism Office, detailing 14 "must sees". Here is where the pendulum risks swinging too far the other way. Given a list with 14 items, Dodie (especially) is going to try to tick them all off, as having been seen. Fortunately, when the must sees are in a medium sized European city like this, they will all likely be from the middle ages, a time when towns were small, and conveniently enclosed by walls. So one can often walk around the whole thing quite handily.

In the case of Angers, the tourism people also helpfully painted a turquoise line on the ground. If you follow that, you're set.

Turquoise line or not, the Grampies will always first gravitate to a bakery. There are many in town, and we just jumped into the first one we found.

Something we liked about this bakery was that a lot of the product was out with the customers, and not behind glass. Maybe this would make the health authorities mad, but it gave the place a more organic feel.

Our first objective was to walk to the old bridge, a good choice since nothing else would be open as yet. The walk took us past some of the old buildings, a peek at the cathedral, and a chance to appreciate some of the angles and views of the architecture.

This guy with the cell phone was standing in my shot. You get to appreciate how immobile some people can be, when you are waiting for them to move off. I jokingly asked Dodie to go push the guy away. But she only gently told him he was in the shot.

The man apologized, and moved away, to be replaced by a bike. Bike is ok!

Much later I came back again, to show some detail of the carving on these buildings:

We got a first peek at the cathedral, up a street that was under construction. A small sensor point and shoot camera does not handle high contrast well, so I struggled to show something of the cathedral without having the street be black.

This is called the Villebon tower. It is a small remainder of the original city fortifications. See how it is jammed in among modern buildings.

More old "fachwerk" buildings. The town has these and of course old stone buildings. Later we would come across the oldest in each category.

We arrived at the old bridge, the Pont de Verdun. I have a unilateral, undeclared, not serious, project of photographing every medieval bridge in western Europe, either before or better than Scott. However, Scott isn't the only factor in making the shot. Somehow there is Dodie too. I like the exposure just below, where the bridge may be little dark, but detail can be seen on the buildings behind. Dodie says the bridge was not that dark, and that she prefers the second shot. What is your vote? You could participate in this survey with a comment, or with the "heart" icon.

Often a bridge or a gate is named after the place it leads to. For example, the famous Menin gate in Ypres, the one with the big war memorial, is the way one goes to the town of Menin, Belgium. Menin is 22 km east. But Verdun, as in Pont de Verdun is 600 km east, and you would not even cross this bridge to get there. So what's the story?

There is a statue on the bridge, depicting Nicholas-Joseph Beaurepaire. Beaurepaire was not born here and he sure didn't die here, but he did rise in rank in the army, around here. His claim to fame was that after the Revolution (1789) other European states attacked. The Prussians laid siege to Verdun (600 km east, eh) in 1792, and after some bombardment the residents were ready to surrender. But Beaurepaire was in charge of the French garrison there, and he refused to surrender. Instead, he apparently committed suicide , and was declared a hero of the revolution for it. So that is how he got his statue on a bridge in Angers, called the Pont de Verdun. I think!

Looking to the walled town from the bridge, with one of the 17 towers of the chateau just visible.

From the bridge one can walk up the "Saint Maurice" steps to the cathedral. Do you prefer the lighter or darker cathedral??

The reason for the name of the steps is pretty clear:

Lots of interesting walls, height differences, and buildings can be seen from Montee St Maurice.

In front of the cathedral, archeological work is underway. A sign basically says no photos. In the shot just below, Dodie is inadvertently distracting an archeologist. This allowed me to record the worksite, without approval from Dodie, I might add.

Archeology dig by the St Maurice cathedral.

My initial impression inside the cathedral was of very complex stained glass, composed of many small scenes. This applied to the two rose windows and to the tall windows behind the altar. My approach was to just absorb the "ambiance" of this, and to focus on the one image at the centre of one rose window (turned out to be the North Window).

The altar, with windows behind. They are not visible, but also feature many small images.

I was happy enough with that, and we left the building. Outside, Dodie said "What did you think of the fifteen signs of the end of the world?" "Whua?" was my not too erudite reply. So I marched (or got marched) back in for a closer look.

There was indeed a display board inside, showing the rose window and naming the signs of the ending of the world, as they are arrayed in a circle within the stained glass.

On the board, we see for example that one circle depicts the sea igniting in flames, and the next one counter clockwise is general earthquakes. If you are interested in these details, no need to squint at my photos, the cathedral has it all laid out at this website.

Two of the disks in the Rose Window: Flames and Earthquakes

It turns out that the end of the world is a bit of a theme for today, and that is not just from checking the Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran news. We will soon go to the chateau, to see the amazing Apocalypse Tapestry. That one features the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, plagues, the devil, and such, and differs from the iconography of the cathedral. But both of these are major additions to my knowledge of the end of the world. To this point, my only reference has been Monty Python. Monty Python? Yes, let's check in with that (5 minute video), to be ready for our ultimate visit to the chateau:

Welcome back from Monty Python, if you made it through. We are ultimately heading for the chateau, but it seems there is another bakery on the agenda, and (oh, no) another visit to FNAC!

Back into the interesting streets of Angers.

This fellow was one of several out in the streets today, raising money for Medecins Sans Frontieres. We tried to give him 5 euros in cash, but he had to refuse. Apparently they will only accept a bank transfer, and they seem to prefer a monthly ongoing commitment. The young man showed us on his credentials, where it says "No Cash or Cheques". Ok, we are just more used to the Salvation Army Santa model, or the grocery asking if you want to add a donation to your order.

Our reason for the bakery was to pick up yet more sandwich, to have for lunch sometime soon. The system in this bakery is to have the fillings assembled, and then to mate this with the baguette type of you choice when the time comes. That's good, because it gives baguette flexibility (they had four types) and the baguette does not have a chance to get soggy.

They also have bagels! btw. Crudites are not really crude. The word means raw vegetables.

Of course, I am always attracted and amazed by the pastries:

Another one of the "must sees" was something called the "Maison Bleue". This is an Art Deco building from the beginning of the 20th century, covered with blue tile. We got there to find it covered in cloths. The reason is that to protect it, it got covered in canvas, around 1979. The canvas trapped moisture and wrecked the tile. So for the past year they have been fixing it. We did manage some shots around the veils, including the blue bakery at the ground floor.

Nearby, a cargo bike of very heavy duty design. We saw several of these, by various makers but all heavy duty.

A bit of a detour happened at the Jardin des Beaux Arts. It's an area with a bit of a confusing mix of the St Aubin abbey, the Toussaint Abbey, the Barraut mansion, the Beaux Arts Museum, and the city Library. The main thing that interested us was that in this garden the famous Comice Pear was developed.

Some of the buildings of this complex quarter.

The sign says they had hundreds of pear and fruits growing here. Today there are only a few, but that does not diminish the fame.

We came then to the Chateau. The design of this evolved over the centuries (since the 9th), but the basic idea has remained - there is a ring of what now is 17 huge towers, made of slate and limestone in horizontal bands. The towers used to have "hats" but these were removed to accommodate cannons. The tower ring is surrounded by a deep dry moat.

As we approached the edge of the moat and looked down, we were pleased to see a beautiful knot garden:

There is only one (or two) entrances to the chateau. This main one features a draw bridge, which castles should all have.

Inside the rings, the rings except for one are no longer visible, and you have in a fairly simple layout. There is a chapel, with attached Royal residence, some gardens, and the relatively new building that houses the Apocalypse tapestry.

This simple layout, however, does not make the place simple, and we quickly found all the information and all the stuff was overloading our circuits. We began in the chapel. Then in the residence was not royal beds and stuff but two complex exhibitions - one about medieval books and one about Jules Verne, and other famous local authors.

One high tech thing in this ancient place was a computer system that was displaying a famous cross, in 3D. The cool thing was that by touch one could rotate the object to any orientation, even looking underneath it.

Part of the residence - a "fortified gate"

At various points in the buildings there were scale models, or posters, showing how the chateau looked in history. The poster below shows the towers still with their hats.

The old bridge. I think this shows one fewer arches than my photo.

The chapel and residence after WWII damage!

My photo of the restored version, today.

For the Book and the Jules Verne displays, I only took a couple of photos - way too much information!

From the walls nea

r the "mill tower" one can look out to the river and the part of the town beyond. That neighbourhood is called the Doutre. It was only developed after the 11th century.

The large building holding the Apocalypse Tapestry must be very high tech behind the scenes, to control temperature and humidity, but the tapestry itself exudes antiquity. Low light made my overview shot fuzzy, but it is also inadequate because it does not show how the tapestry also continues around the corner.

The tapestry is read from left to right, with alternating blue and red panels. Obviously, every inch of the thing has been studied and documented, but for me it's just the feel of the thing, that I can absorb in the few minutes. There are parts of the story that are generally familiar, maybe from the movies: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Seven Seals, and so forth.

A film demo on how the tapestry was made.

Of all the many panels, I randomly chose a few to record. I have little idea of what I chose, but I am sure Google Lens would reveal all abut any part of this.

This ne attracted my attention with the "Star of David"

I took this closeup to reveal the woven pattern.

A touch screen computer was running through the panels, and I noticed my Star of David one go by. As I say, every bit of this thing must be on record somewhere and extensively studied.

We left the chateau and began to pass through the oldest part of the town, on the way to our hotel.

This is the oldest timber frame building in Angers.

We passed some students who were doing a treasure hunt type exercise, in which they were to find things in the old town, such as that oldest house. We of course were already "experts", so when Dodie heard them puzzling over one, she gave them the answer.

Yes, this is the place, as Dodie had said.

The kids were so enthusiastic, innocent, and sweet. When they found out we spoke English, they said to one of their number "You are best in English class, try talking to this lady". Unfortunately, he was too shy.

The boy in the puffy jacket seems amazed at Dodie's presentation on how to find stuff.

We actually visited some more places and did more stuff, before returning to our Hotel Continental. But I am betting that you the reader have had enough fun with us in Angers already. For my part, I am going to try out the bath tub. If I make it out, we're off toward Saumur tomorrow, passing through the slate mining region.

Today's ride: 10 km (6 miles)
Total: 3,536 km (2,196 miles)

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Jacquie GaudetMost image editing software (there's probably one that came with your camera) will allow you to brighten dark zones and lighten bright areas (as long as they aren't completely devoid of information). This is even applicable to jpeg files, though there is more information to play with in RAW files.
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3 weeks ago

John FlecknerAnger visit brings back fond memories. I loved the textile and the end of the world scenario. And a few minutes with Monty P is always well spent. I also recall entering Anger from the East through a slate mining area with bike path and lots of interpretation.
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3 weeks ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo John FlecknerWe hope to find the bike path through the old slate quarry today. We came along it years ago, also from the east.
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3 weeks ago

Keith KleinHi,
I could easily spend more time in Angers. There’s so much to see.
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3 weeks ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Jacquie GaudetI have one called Photoworks that actually does well with automatic correction while offering sliders for exposure, contrast, and about ten other variables. However as far as I can see, changes apply to the whole image and not regions. There are a slew of "AI powered" apps on offer and I tested a lot. None seem to do a darn thing.

The computer we have with us is chosen for small size and weight, and it's processor is slow. Consequently, even Photoworks takes forever to load and to do the job.

The camera has an interesting feature in which it will bracket the exposures. It can offer two, up to six exposures plus and minus from the auto exposure choice, and with various spacings, as far out as three stops. This could be good, but generates a surplus of shots to discard.

That P950 I am thinking about still has a poor 1/2 inch sensor, but with the bracketing it somehow stores all the trial exposures in a group, in a way that helps to manage and delete them.

Btw my current camera will also try multiple focus points on request. What a headache to have 120 base shots in a day and then multiply by 4 or 8 or whatever for exposure and focus bracketing.

I have already cut the image sizes way down to accommodate lousy hotel internet!
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3 weeks ago

Jacquie GaudetTo Steve Miller/GrampiesI take photos on tour two ways: shooting RAW with my camera and processing with Lightroom, or quick shots with my iPhone. The latter I often adjust using the “Photos” app on my phone, straightening, cropping, bringing up shadows or toning down highlights. It’s the shadows and highlights adjustments you want—they apply to the whole photo, but the amount of adjustment varies by the darkness or lightness of the pixels.
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3 weeks ago