Visiting Reims

The highlight of my visit to Champagne was, of course, the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Reims. It is an overwhelmingly ornate gothic cathedral, highly influenced by Notre Dame de Paris, which was built just slightly earlier. I have decided that gothic cathedrals have to be some of the most difficult subjects to photograph. From the outside, it's difficult to capture the size of the building while retaining the details of the sculptures, all of which tell stories. On the inside, it's usually dark and the aspect ratios of the features are not camera-friendly. So, for the whole story, you really need to look at the website of the cathedral. If you read French, there is a ton of historical information, and if you don't, just click on Voir tous les albums photos at the bottom of the page.

One of the distinctive features of the cathedral is the set of tympani above the entrances. Usually, these are carved in stone, but in Reims they are stained glass. In my photo, you can see that the cleaning of part of the cathedral has just been finished. Like other gothic cathedrals, the stone was originally painted in vivid colors, to gild the lily.



Of course, thanks to fire and wars, most of the statues were severely damaged or lost, so the current statues are replicas, while the originals rest in the neighboring Museum of the Palais du Tau. The most recent destruction of the cathedral was during WWII, and this site was then chosen for the celebration of reconciliation between the French and the German governments, in 1962.

One of the sculptures, called the Ange au Sourire (Angle of the Smile) is considered a uniquely beautiful example of medieval art. I suppose the sculpture does have a fluid quality not usually seen in statues of saints posed like wooden soldiers. The parish's website even gives a prayer suggested for meditating while contemplating this angel:



My translation of the prayer originally by Jean-Marie Guerlin:
You, the Angel of the Smile, messenger of God, the stone-cutters knew quite well how to express on your face the very smile of God, to tell to all who contemplate it, how much God loves them, how much he is close to them! You, the Angel of the Smile, have braved all the destruction to be, among us, a sign of joyous hope and tenacity, of reconciliation among people.

Destruction of religious art seems to be a recurring theme as I visit the cities of France, and one cannot help but be sad when one imagines all the beauty that is lost to the world through violence. I guess it helps to put a hopeful spin on things, that they might change and we might not have to repeat the cycle ad infinitum.

There is a lot more history in Reims, because it was a pretty major Gallo-Roman city, and in fact the first cathedral on the site of Notre Dame de Reims dates back to the fifth century! Hopefully I'll get a chance to go back and see the museums, and drink more champagne!

For lunch, I do recommend the Brasserie du Boulingrin, 48 rue de Mars, +33(0)3 2640 9622. On that site(a bit off the tourist track) since 1925, they serve a broad variety classic French brasserie fare, including platters from their oyster/shellfish/lobster bar. My lunch menu was 17.50, for appetizer (warm lentil salad with sausage), main dish (cod brandade wrapped in crispy filo pastry), dessert (hazelnut cake), wine (red, white or rose), and coffee. The restaurant seemed very popular, and not only with travelers.

Dijon - Sans Moutarde

Last Saturday, on my trip to Burgundy, we arrived in Dijon at night, and ended up wandering around the streets in the rain. The former ducal palace is lit up at night, and the plaza in front of it had fountains with lights that change color and intensity. The next day we went up in the tower, which dates from the 15th century. The semicircular design of the plaza was by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the architect of Versailles, in the 17th century. It was pretty foggy, so we couldn't see much past the buildings immediately around us, but it was a pretty nice tower, anyway.




A large part of the palace itself was made into a fine arts museum, of which the most famous room is the Salle des Gardes. There are three tombs with recumbent figures, John the Fearless with Margaret of Bavaria, and Philip the Bold, as well Burgundian tapestries and altarpieces.




When I visited there was an exhibition of movie costumes going on, dispersed throughout the museum. Most were gorgeous robes and dresses from French period films which I'd never seen, but they chose their most famous gallery for the display of a couple costumes from Harry Potter. Nice.



Dijon has many beautiful churches, the most famous of which is Eglise Notre Dame, only because it is right on the tourist circuit marked on the sidewalk by arrows and an owl logo. At the church, the marked path takes you to an owl sculpted into the side of the church, and the legend is that, upon touching this owl, one can make a wish and it will come true. Apparently, a lot of people have tried it, because that poor owl was pretty worn down.




Although Notre Dame is the most famous church in Dijon, it is not the main cathedral, which is the Cathedrale St.-Benigne. My camera died, so I don't have any photos, but the most interesting aspect of the church is actually what is now underground. There is ongoing archeological excavation of the site and a collection of artifacts, some paleolithic from the sources of the Seine in Burgundy. Because the original foundations of the abbey there date from 1000 AD, they are now underground due to the construction and accumulation of earth around it . The crypt of the cathedral is even older, and features a rotunda of three circles of pillars, echoing the tomb of Christ in Jerusalem, a type of rotunda of which only 8 are known in the world.

When you say Dijon, everybody thinks of mustard, but now I will always think of the treasures of Christian religious art there. I didn't have any really special food in Dijon, but I suppose a blog entry about traveling to Burgundy would not be complete without someone eating Escargots de Bourgogne, so I'll show you when I ate them (clumsily) in Paris. I didn't have any in Dijon because I wasn't hungry after my enormous lunch in Vezelay and spending the large part of the day sitting on a bus.




The best thing about eating escargot has to be the rich sauce of parsley and melted butter, which is probably a magic sauce that might make anything taste good. Although escargot are offered to tourists all over the place, I think it pays to go to a nice place because snails can turn tough when they're not cooked right, or maybe if they're not fresh. At Le Bousquet, on Avenue Bousquet, 7eme arrondisement near the Eiffel Tower, they were delicious.

Chablis and Vézelay

Besides being the wine capital of lower Burgundy, Chablis has its origins as a medieval village. There are even some houses remaining from the middle ages, and two round towers reconstructed in 1778 to replace those of the original fortifications around the city, built in the 1400's. The "Porte Noël":


During the 9th century, monks from St. Martin-des-Tours, fleeing the Norman invaders, brought their relics of St. Martin to Chablis, and they were eventually placed in the Eglise Saint Martin, which was then was reconstructed beginning in the 13th century. Above the door on the south side, you can see a cross decorated with fleur-de-lis and animals, and the door itself is covered with horseshoes and strap hinges from the 13th century. These were brought by pilgrims as offerings to St. Martin, at that time the patron saint of horsemen.

Our next stop was the gorgeous hilltop town of Vézelay. In the 12th century, it was a very important religious and commercial hub, as the starting point for one of the pilgrimage routes from France to Santiago de Compostela, in Spain. From the abbey at Vézelay, St Bernard preached the call for the Crusade, with King Louis VII among the parishioners. Later, King Philippe-Auguste and Richard the Lionhearted met here before going on the Third Crusade. So, it's very apparent that the town was a major religious center, and therefore fitting that the basilica at the summit was enormous and richly decorated. Of course, the Huguenots and the Revolution disposed of a lot of the beautiful carvings and sculptures, but what remained was carefully restored in the 19th century, especially the architecture and the interior doorways and pillars.


In fact, when I entered the basilica, I was reminded a little of the feeling I had when going into the St. Peters in Vatican City, especially when I saw the huge doors from the narthex to the nave:


The tympanum of this doorway is really stunning, picturing Christ enthroned, with his apostles around him, and people of every sort being called, below Jesus and to the upper left and right, the overall message of the work being that the word of God is intended for the whole world.

The crypt houses a piece of a relic from Mary-Magdalene, although our guide emphasized to us that relics are more of a matter of faith than of the physical world.



That didn't stop someone from stealing another of the church's relics of Mary Magdalene, just three years ago. I guess that means the worshippers will have that much more faith.



I had a delicious and very reasonably priced (entree, plat, dessert; 13,5 € ) lunch at a restaurant in Vézelay called Les Glycines, which means The Wisterias. The terrace is indeed covered in wisterias, but they bloom in the spring, so it was just greenery for us. The portions were hearty, and the piece of local Charolais beef that I had was very flavorful and juicy, crowned with a rich, buttery 'Morvan-style' sauce. No one in my group had space in their stomach for the dessert of tarte aux pommes , so we took it to go. When we finally got around to eating it, we found unexpected delight in a creamy almond paste layer hiding under the apples. Yum! Yay for French food outside of Paris!

St. Malo

On Sunday, I visited St. Malo, in Brittany. It is an old city whose name is derived from St. Maclow, a Welsh monk who came to the island in the middle ages and began converting the people to Christianity. Because of its location on the coast, it is a prominent port and has a significant military history, beginning with the conflicts with the English and Dutch sailors, and more recently being occupied and subsequently bombarded by the Germans during WWII. After the destruction in the 1940's, St. Malo was beautifully restored and retains a lot of charm within the walls of the old city. The first picutre is what the view along the coast towards St. Malo was like during the morning, near high tide. The next two are some pictures from later in the day, when the tide was low and the sun was shining. The last one is of me, sitting on the ramparts overlooking the sea.
  

La Barque

There is a style of sailboat, perhaps a bit old-fashioned, which was at one time quite common on Lac Léman, called a 'barque.' As you can see from the photo, each mast is crossed at an angle by another mast which holds the sail and can be tilted to adjust for different wind conditions. They're beautiful boats, and occasionally some people hire them for short pleasure cruises on the lake. Unfortunately this one did not have its sails out. There are some models in the Musée des barques et traditions du Léman, with photos online.

This picture was taken by Jean-Claude Brosse.

Lac Léman Part 4

How could I spend a weekend in the Alps without eating fondue? Cheese fondue is indeed called Fondue Savoyarde because the cheeses that are the best to use come from that region. Compared to what I have had in Paris, the cheese was more flavorful and there was more pepper in this one --it was definitely more tasty.
  

Lac Léman Part 3

Perhaps you will notice that I have figured out how to put the accent in Léman, so now you have the proper spelling of the name of Lake Geneva, which is where I also had the chance to visit the Château de Chillon.

The castle is built on a rock just offshore so that there is a natural moat, and it is a pretty fun complex of passageways and courtyards. It was raining, so hiking would have been a tough way to spend the day, but spending the whole afternoon exploring the castle was easy to do. Besides having an advantageous strategic position, the castle has apparently inspired a number of writers who spent time living there in the early 1800's. Lord Byron spent the summer of 1816 there and wrote 'The Prisoner of Chillon,' a poem based on the life of a 16th century Swiss political prisoner. While he was getting inspiration in the old prison, Mr. Byron did a little of his own graffiti on one of the pillars of the prison, but apparently the Swiss don't mind so much because they put up a plaque to memorialize him.

Lac Leman Part 2

While I was in the Haute Savoie, which is the department where Evian is located, it was difficult to decide to plan a hike, because of the threat of rain. The threat was not that it might rain, but in fact that the rain might never stop. Thanks to polymer science, everyone could put on rain jackets and so we did take a little walk in Switzerland. On the way down to the shore from the mountains we met some nice sheep being delivered to a farm.

What I didn't know before is that Switzerland is in fact not part of the European Union and that they also use their own currency instead of the Euro. It was all the more disappointing, then, that when we crossed the border they barely even looked at us, and they certainly didn't put a stamp in my passport. I could have asked for one, I suppose. I didn't want to stir up any trouble.
The Swiss are known (by the French) for doing things slowly and without a lot of agitation. This could be cultural or genetic, but we also discussed that it might be due to the fact that it is legal in Switzerland to grow cannabis as long as you make it into a tea rather than smoking it.
Despite the clouds and precipitation, there were some nice views across the lake. All of these pictures were taken by Jean-Claude Brosse, because unfortunately mine are lost in cyberspace.

Lac Leman Part 1

Last week, I had to admit defeat in my effort to make plans to leave Paris for the long weekend, but fortunately a labmate saved me by inviting me to spend the weekend with her family, an invitation which I happily accepted. Of course, Paris has Paris-Plage and all the museums, but when half of the town is out of town, one feels like one must be missing something. So I, being one of the luckiest people on the planet, spent the weekend on the shores of Lac Leman, often known to English speakers as Lake Geneva, in the Alps. It was really great. The photo below, taken by my labmate's father, shows the lake and the villages of Thonon (the part which sticks out into the lake) and Evian (the part where it looks like someone took a bite out of the coastline is the harbor.) Evian is the source of the famous bottled water, and receives money from each sold, so they have a cute lakefront garden walk. They were also having a festival of mechanical street organs while we were there. My pictures from Evian got lost in cyberspace somehow, so you'll have to trust me. I'll keep on posting pictures from my trip in the coming days.

Parc Asterix

A couple weeks ago, when it was still hot an sunny but starting to cool down, I went to Parc Asterix with a couple friends from the lab. It is a theme park based on some comic book characters called Asterix and Obelix. The stories are set in 50 BC and they tell the tales of these two warriors as the travel throughout Europe and North Africa, revealing a lot of tongue-in-cheek caricatures of cultural stereotypes. The humor is typically French, but has found a broad audience through translation into Spanish, Italian, and, to a very limited extent, English. In fact, Disney bought the rights to distribution of a few of the Asterix and Obelix movies, but I think it will take a genius to make French humor translatable to Americans, who have a whole different set of stereotypes about Europeans. Anyway, I had a really fun day, even though I wasn't converted into being a fan of the characters. The most fun parts were 1. Spending time with my friends, 2. The roller coaster, although reminded me that I'm getting old because I didn't seem to enjoy it as much as I did when I was a teenager, and 3. The Dolphin Show, because dolphins are so beautiful, although of course I don't feel good about dolphins in captivity.