Le Tour 2005 - A Virtual Cultural Trip

Château de Saint-Privat



Built of a Gardon's spur on the site of a Gallo-roman villa, this castle (11-18C) welcomed King Charles IX, Catherine of Medici, Henri III and Henri de Navarre, afterward Henri IV, in 1564. The first reformed religion meetings were held in this Mecca of Protestantism (Prophets' room) where Louis XIII signed the Alais' peace in 1629 (Peace room). The romantic gardens planted with centenary trees are echoed by a formal garden fitted with a nymph grotto and livened up by dancing and glassy waters.

And at the end of this day, I think we may go ... to a destillery, for change





Link (in French only) to Distillerie de la Verveine du Velay

Salut - see you later.

Salut, Walter!

Here's to you! (With Bitter Orange, if you don't mind :wink: )

Saturday, the Tour will be just and only in and around St. Etienne, an industrial city



with everything, a nice French town has to offer

nifty wrought iron ...

Let's go to visit a small village, just 8 km away: Rochetaillée







And those, who haven't seen enough from the Loire river, might like to walk some parts of the upper Loire valley for the last time ...

So we are coming to PARIS (on Sunday, the Tour will arrive there for the final stage).




What's worth mentioning about and in and around Paris .... what isn't already known or had already been posted hundred times (e.g. in last year's thread)?

Let's visit some chateaux around Paris, which aren't on the list of most tour operators!

The first one is rather new (but not too far e.g. from Versailles):



Château de Monte-Cristo
Pavillon d'accueil
78560 Le Port-Marly


This whimsical neo-Renaissance residence was built in 1844 for Alexandre Dumas by the architect Hyppolite Durand. The façades are sculptured with medallion portraits of writers. Above the entrance door, that of Alexandre Dumas goes with the inscription 'J'aime qui m'aime' (I love whom that loves me). The landscape gardens are embellished by grottoes, cascades and rockworks, and conceals a neo-Gothic pavilion named 'le château d'If', the writer's study. It houses a museum dedicated to his work.

The next one is a little germ, and not only rather unknown but not crowded with tourists as well (which has a lot do with the opening hours: only Wednesday afternoons as well as the afternoons on weekends :wink: )

Domaine de Villarceaux
95710 Chaussy



This estate is composed of a 13C manor, altered in the 17C and famous for having sheltered the romance of Ninon de Lenclos with Louis de Mornay, 'grand louvetier' (wolf hunting officer) to King Louis XIV, and of a second one, known as 'le Château d'en haut' (the upper castle), built between 1755 and 1759. The latter's reception rooms are adorned with 17C tapestries. Both are surrounded by prodigious gardens: gardens on water, vertugadin edged by statues (18C), half-moon basin, medieval terrace.

The third and last castle presented here, is a bit more frequented by tourists, but there are good reasons to do so:

Château de Vincennes
Avenue de Paris
94300 Vincennes

Vincennes, with the Louvre, is the only castle to have had such a long existence. Charles V and Charles VI turned it into a place fit for governing and administrating the kingdom.




The château of Vincennes, which succeeded an earlier fortified hunting lodge on the site, consists of four principal buildings?-the keep, the chapel, and two pavilions?-enclosed by an enceinte with nine towers. The magnificent and well-preserved keep, the finest surviving in France, 170 ft (52 m) in height, was begun under Philip VI, completed under Charles V (reigned 1364-80), and used thereafter as a royal residence until Versailles was built. The chapel, not completed until 1552 but in Gothic style, has a Flamboyant facade and a great rose window. The two pavilions?-the Pavillon du Roi and the Pavillon de la Reine?-were built by Louis Le Vau, under the direction of Cardinal Mazarin, during the third quarter of the 17th century.

After the court deserted the château, it had a checkered history, being used as a porcelain factory, a cadet school, and a small-arms factory. In 1791, during the Revolution, the Marquis de Lafayette saved it from destruction. Napoleon converted it into an arsenal, and in 1840 it was turned into a fortress. The army was removed in 1930 and restoration started, to be interrupted during World War II when the Germans had a supply depot there; in 1944 part of the Pavillon de la Reine was destroyed by an explosion.

The château has many associations with French history. Four kings of France died there?-Louis X, Philip V, Charles IV, and Charles IX?-as did Henry V of England and Mazarin. During the reign of Louis XIII it was used as a state prison, and its prisoners included the Great Condé, the Cardinal de Retz, Denis Diderot, and the Comte de Mirabeau; the Duc d'Enghien was shot there in 1804.

The Bois de Vincennes was enclosed in the 12th century and, as a royal hunting preserve, was the reason for the château being built there.

Villarceaux is quite a handsome domaine...

Let's walk now a bit, along the promenade plantée.



The walk is along an ex railway track that's been planted up with all manner of roses, and various other beautiful flowers, shrubs and trees. It's so peaceful you could almost forget that you're in a city - except that you're looking into one or other of the appartment blocks that line the route. Some of the blocks are very architecturally interesting too. At various points along the way, you can look down on the city streets below.



Eventually the path opens out into more of a park - the Jardin Reuilly, which is also really beautiful with it's cool, curved, wooden bridge, waterfall, flowerbeds and tiered garden overhanging the street.

Want to feel a bit like being in London?

Then enter the gates



to the Parc Monceau.

The beer was very cold and wonderful to drink. The pommes à l'huile were firm and marinated and the olive oil delicious. I ground black peper over the potatoes and moistened the bread in the olive oil. After the first heavy draft of beer I drank and ate very slowly. When the pommes à l'huile were gone I ordered another serving of cervelas. This was a sausage like a heavy, wide frankfurter split in two and covered with a special mustard sauce.
I mopped up all the oil and all of the sauce with bread and drank the beer slowly until it began to loose its coldness and finished it and ordered a demi ...

By Ernest Hemingway in his book A Moveable Feast, on the occasion(s) of his visits to the Brasserie Lipp

After having had this rest in an art deco surrounding, let's explore what more to see in this style

By architect Jules Lavirotte


12, rue Sedillot Paris 7e


29, avenue Rapp Paris 7e

[My personal favourite - therefor another photo]





151, rue de Grenelle Paris 7e

Ceramics by Alexandre Bigot


14, rue d'Abbeville Paris 10e



31, rue Campagne Première Paris 14e


We leave the art deco period with a look at these wellknowm symbols

I'm sure that you know all the most important museums in Paris.

So let's visit some others, like the

Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain





New building of the Cartier Foundation designed by the architect, Jean Nouvel (1994). The Foundation promotes and supports contemporary art. Exhibitions of contemporary and international artists, orders and acquisitions of contemporary works of art, international circulation of works through exhibitions and donations. Programming of living shows. Garden landscaped by Lothar Baumgarten.

To much art?

The Musée du Vin (Rue des Eaux - 5 square Dickens , 75016 Paris) might be an alternative



Installed in the old cellars of the Abbey of Passy (fourteenth century), the museum presents the history of wine in France and the main wine-producing areas. Objects, tools, wax models. Tasting.

And finally:

Petit Musée de l'Argenterie

Ateliers du Cuivre et de l'Argent - Viaduc des Arts, 109/113, av. Daumesnil , 75012 Paris



An original collection, the testimony to a forgotten way of life and refinement. Presentation of a multitude of objects linked to tableware, wine, tea, tobacco or fashion: the moustache spoon, the marrow puller, chop holder, the "bourdaloue" and the pomander, the skirt-clip or the fork-knife for one-armed people, most now obsolete. Access to the museum after the visit of a living workshop where french plate pieces are made. Projection of a film on copper working.