Day 33: Chatelleraut to Poitiers

September 28, 2023

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Our ride to Poitiers was through very sedate countryside and towns, without a lot of excitement going on. One sign of this was that even the magpies, who never stay still long enough for a photo, allowed this one shot:

Even chateaus were quite sedate, like this one in the distance. It had me wondering, what would they who might live or have lived there do for fun, stuck out in wherever? Dodie suggested they could ride or hunt in the forest.

We did spot hunters in the distance, usually with a couple of dogs coursing about. What might they be hunting? Pheasants? Foxes? Rabbits? we have no idea. I zoomed in on the fellow below, hoping to see him carrying a dead something. But no. Unless those are pheasant feathers at his waist?

Another very gradual change that happened today was the apparent conversion from slate roofs to those typically southern rounded tiles. After a while, it seemed every house had these.

Starting to feel like the Med, though we are still quite far away.

In the middle of nowhere (OK, Aillie village - no doubt the centre of the universe for someone with a house there) we came upon a small dolmen, or rock monument.

This image of our route, near St Georges Baillargeaux , is typical for the day. Quite nice!

Just before Poitiers, in a small park, this large - hay wagon?

When you get to anything new - whether a hotel, or perhaps a whole town, it takes a while to get a sense of what it is all about. In time, of course, it becomes old hat and you have learned all the ins and outs. Maybe that is the time to leave. With very little idea of what the city of Poitiers was all about, we began to scan the scenes to try to get a grip on it. From far in the distance, it appeared as a bunch of tall white apartment buildings. And as we got closer, tall white apartment buildings they were!

We carried on, and now Poitiers looked like convent buildings on ridges above a river.

Or maybe mills at the river level?

Dodie and the GPS of course pushed us onwards, deeper into Poitiers, until we landed at the covered marche, adjacent to the Notre Dame La Grande church. We took a bench there to eat our sandwiches, and I asked "Is this the centre of Poitiers?" It turned out that it almost was. In fact we were off to the side of the Notre Dame church, and I can now say that the front of it is a place where you could stick a pin in the map, and have one end of the central district. The other end is at the Hotel de Ville, 1/2 km away. That whole district is essentially car free, which is great. 1 km from the Hotel de Ville is the St. Pierre cathedral, isolated to the east of downtown with no commercial activity around, but supported by a pile of other nearby churches. At the end of this post you can see our walking track as we swarmed about the whole area, in a 4 km circle.

The covered market and the Notre Dame church, on the edge of the commercial district.

As we sat sat with our sandwiches, we were joined by some wasps of unusual size. They were about an inch long. They were not belligerent. I shooed two in the air with the back of my hand, and they just sort of bumbled away. anybody with an ID?

The Ste Maure goat cheese produced some comments yesterday. Today I tried the sort of generic goat cheese Dodie picked up at Monoprix, and found it also good, kind of addictive.

Looking at the details of the cheese, there are some interesting points. They are at pains to confirm that the origin of the milk is France. The cheese was made at Perigueux, which is 200 km south of here, on the l'Isle river, not too far from Bordeaux. The label warns that the factory also has cow's milk on hand - could be a downer for purists? And finally, the scary one - the cheese contains "natural goat flavouring" (arome naturel de chevre). How do you extract natural goat flavouring?

We (and the wasps) had been dining in a square along the side of the Notre Dame church, and this turned out to be the boring side. At the front, there was much interesting carving, in sort of cathedral style, but with some additional filigree flair. The basic church was built in the 11th century, but the front façade is from the 12th, in a Romanesque style. There is some evidence that it may have originally been painted. There are three levels - the bottom with scenes from the old and new testaments, then statues of apostles, then Jesus at the top, and over his head, representations of the sun and moon. As we see, that Jesus is highly weathered, and a pigeon is having to stand in.

The front of the Notre Dame La Grande church.

Inside, we found the church to have some unique features. It was quite dark, but that added to the atmosphere. The first thing was the painted columns, each one different. We have only seen painted columns a bit like that at the Basilica of the Holy Blood, in Bruges.

There were also some coloured carved statue scenes, which seemed unique.

Parts of the ceiling were frescoed, continuing the painted columns theme. But then the main feature, as in many churches, was the impressive stained glass.

Rather than having attractive colored glass patterns, the glass here was made to tell stories, with depiction of figures rather than shapes. This style of glass is not made from fragments, but is painted.

A striking glass panel tell the story of Jeanne d'Arc, who interrogated at Poitiers in 1429, by the French, not the English. At the very bottom Joan is shown leaving with the king, for Chinon. This painting was done shortly after the beatification of Joan, in 1909.

A final feature we can mention is the statue, Notre Dame des Clefs. You can read its story below. Isn't it amazing how early baby Jesus' learn to do that hand signal?

Beyond the church is the beginning of that car free commercial district. It also features some classic houses, like the half timber one above the pharmacy.

We have arrived at the Hotel de Ville, which is fronted by a really huge empty square. At the sides are buildings with very attractive architecture too.

Walking now towards the cathedral, we encountered the . This is just one of many medieval stunning buildings litered around the town. This one was part of the palace of the Counts of Poitou - Dukes of Aquitane. It was started around 1104. Gothic windows and outside statues got added in the 14th century.

The Maubergeon Tower. The name has something to do with the presence of the Merovingians here, in the early Middle Ages.

Even as pedestrians we can attract Routes Barrees. We were able to make our way through this.

The cathedral is in the distance (still).

Aha, the St Pierre cathedral! (from 1150)

The stained glass is a most attractive part of this cathedral.

This central cruxifiction stained glass is famous - or at least it shows up on all the postcards. The anatomy of the Christ figure looks a little weird, but its not my camera - the postcard looks exactly the same.

A lot of restoration work is ongoing. Posters describe what they are up to.

There is lots of explanation about the restorations posted.

Quite a transformation. I assume its more than Brasso!

These statues are slightly more than life size. But they also have extra big feet, though it can not be seen in this photo.

An old city can have strange surprises. In the 1st century Poitiers had one of the largest amphitheaters in Gaul. We ran into a remnant of it, looking very rough, between houses.

But viewed from above, the street layout still reveals the ampitheatre shape.

So that was 4 km of circling around downtown Poitiers. We have a basic idea of it now. Time to leave!

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Today's ride: 52 km (32 miles)
Total: 1,805 km (1,121 miles)

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