Bordeaux
Our family had been to Bordeaux once before, in 2011, and really enjoyed it, despite the brevity of our visit. In 2015 we returned there, again for only a day, which is much too short a time.
This time, though, we stayed in a different part of Bordeaux than we had previously. It was still walking distance to the area around the St. André and Hôtel de Ville where we spent most of our time on our 2011 trip, but we approached those places from a different side.
More after the jump
The first night, though, we stopped at Hôtel de Ville and Cathédrale Saint-André de Bordeaux because they were near restaurants we knew would be open. While these attractions were closed for the day, we still enjoyed seeing them at night.
The next morning, we started our walk around Bordeaux at the Garonne River. There stood the Porte Cailhau, a medieval gate to the city. When Bordeaux was walled, this gate was the entrance from the side of the Garonne River.
This gate was built both as part of the city's defense as well as a monument to the victory of King Charles VIII at Fornovo (um, yes, victory---at least that is how they saw it). There is a sculpture of this king on the facade. I had read that this was the first honored likeness of a French king in Aquitaine, which would make sense since Aquitaine had only been annexed by the French crown in 1453.
On the side facing the city, a remnant of the city wall remained.
Inside we paid our admission and were given an English-language version of the little museum's signage. We scaled the spiral steps; we do seem to spend a lot of time on spiral stairs on our European trips.
Inside there were a few small exhibits, one about the history of the building, and one focused on the stone quarrying and masonry involved in reconstructing Bordeaux following World War II. Myles was very interested in the videos and tools displayed. What bits I saw explained how Bordeaux's almost uniform look came to be.
Brigid was more motivated to get to the top of the gate tower. From there we could look out across the Garonne River. To the right was the Pont de pierre, a bridge built during the Bourbon Restoration.
With the river to our backs, we could look out to Place du Palais, so called because long before this tower was built, the palace of the Duke of Aquitaine stood here. It was once the home of Eleanor of Aquitaine, too. It stood until 1800.
Outside Porte Cailhau, there were plaques embedded in the sidewalk that I thought explained the significance of Place du Palais in way that I hadn't thought before. The marriage of Eleanor to Henry II had the unexpected consequence of binding Aquitaine to England for three hundred years. Also, I think I liked John Lackland's name in French better. Sounds a little less like a schoolyard taunt. Jean sans Terre.
From there we started walking toward Basilique Saint-Seurin. We took a brief detour to Église St. Pierre after we stumbled upon this marker about El Camino de Santiago (or, as they say in French, Chemin de St. Jacques). We could afford the time to take a quick look at the facade.
Brigid really wanted to see the pointing Saint James. He is the third one up on the right, outer arch.
And then we happened upon the Porte Dijeaux. Built in the 1700s, this triumphal arch was built near the Western Gate named for Jupiter (Porta Jovis) during Roman rule of Gaul. The path of this street, too, had been planned by the Romans. There's something seeing an ancient boundary that was once definite now just swallowed into later development that tickles my imagination. It reminded me in some ways of places like Zhangjiakou, where the Great Wall once defined the boundary of two warring countries, and now the modern city sort of spills all around it.
Finally we reached Basilique Saint-Seurin. It was here, the tradition goes, that Charlemagne laid Roland's Horn on Saint Seurin's tomb before he proceeded on the Pilgrimage to Compostela himself.
I had several reasons to visit this particular church. Two were the connections to Charlemagne and The Way. Another was that the original church dated back to Charlemagne's predecessors, the Merovingian, and the crypt under the church was part of a church from that era. The current building dated to the 13th century. The grassy plaza honoring the Martyrs of the French Resistance was adjacent to the Church, and under there archaeological excavations have found the earliest Christian graves in Bordeaux. The site below was usually open for tourists, but, unfortunately, not at the time we were there.
In a city full of Gothic churches, this Romanesque Revival entrance was not what one might expect. It depicted both St. Armand and St. Seurin flanking the door, above which was a scene of Seurin arriving to Bordeaux and being received by his predecessor Bishop Armand.
Through that door was an actual Romanesque Portico. I took this picture with a lens attachment on my phone to fit more of the columns and arches in the image. The columns are actually straight.
There were actually several ways in and out of the basilica. The most dramatic was this on the southern side of the transept. The Gothic tympanum depicted the Last Judgement and the Apostles.
Inside the church we noticed a few men that we believed/hoped were Santiago pilgrims. They were individually deep in prayer in different parts of the church and carried with them large backpacks and bedrolls. This is a stop on the French route to Compostela, after all.
We ourselves stopped at the thirteenth century chapel of Notre-Dame Bonne Nouvelle (Our Lady of Good News). There were candles that needed to be lit and prayers to be offered up.
There was so much I loved about this little chapel. I loved that the floor of the church is now above it. I loved the posture of Mary with the Child Jesus balanced on her obvious hip. I loved the roll of intentions laid at her feet. As always, I loved the plaques of gratitude.
The stained glass windows were largely the work of Joseph Villiet in the 19th century, who also created some of the windows at St. André.
Under the main altar was the sarcophagus of St. Seurin, the martyred fourth bishop of Bordeaux.
The kids were unsure about going down the dark stairs, but we went under the church into the crypt.
This crypt held several Merovingian sarcophagi. Many, many more examples like these were found in the archaeological work that I mentioned above outside the current footprint of the basilica. Since we could not get into the larger site, this was enough.
In this crypt was the tomb of St. Fort, believed to be the first Bishop of Bordeaux (the first known written record of a Bishop of Bordeaux was of Orientalis at the Council of Arles). His feast day is May 16, and Bordeaux parents for centuries would bring their children to this crypt to ask St. Fort's intercession for their children's strength. The practice had diminished more recently, though there was evidence that St. Fort was still honored in some way.
Neither Myles or I could bear to remain in this crypt for very long. We tried to blame it on the subterranean air. Both of us felt something strange among these tombs. It would make for a lovely ghost story, likely. I felt a heaviness around my heart, very much the opposite of the lightness I feel when I am elated. It was as though my heart were being constrained somehow, and my heart would be unable to leave. The rest of my body would then be stuck along with my heart. After a very few minutes, Myles and I both decided we had to make our escape while we still were of mind to do so. It never felt quite sinister, but rather just....heavy. Like I said, it would make for a lovely ghost story.
Once we returned upstairs, the weighted feeling disappeared, and we returned to enjoying what time we had left in Bordeaux.
We wanted to get back over toward St. André one more time, so we followed the scallop shells that were in the pavement as part of The Way.
The Cathedral was not open for tours on weekdays in November, so we had been really lucky to visit Bordeaux during the summer in 2011. This trip I still got to see some of the gargoyles in daylight.
The Tour Pey Beyland was also not yet open from the midday break, so we did not get to scale it. But it was something to see Our Lady of Bordeaux glowing golden against the rain clouds.
We have been to Bordeaux twice now. Both times as we left I looked over what we actually got to do compared with what we could have done. I wonder if I made every one else miss some Most Important Thing. However, there are 362 monument historique in Bordeaux; in all of France only Paris holds more. No matter how often we return to Bordeaux, and how long we visit the city, it would be very hard for us to see it all. The challenge is a motivation to travel to Bordeaux again.
This time, though, we stayed in a different part of Bordeaux than we had previously. It was still walking distance to the area around the St. André and Hôtel de Ville where we spent most of our time on our 2011 trip, but we approached those places from a different side.
More after the jump
The first night, though, we stopped at Hôtel de Ville and Cathédrale Saint-André de Bordeaux because they were near restaurants we knew would be open. While these attractions were closed for the day, we still enjoyed seeing them at night.
The next morning, we started our walk around Bordeaux at the Garonne River. There stood the Porte Cailhau, a medieval gate to the city. When Bordeaux was walled, this gate was the entrance from the side of the Garonne River.
This gate was built both as part of the city's defense as well as a monument to the victory of King Charles VIII at Fornovo (um, yes, victory---at least that is how they saw it). There is a sculpture of this king on the facade. I had read that this was the first honored likeness of a French king in Aquitaine, which would make sense since Aquitaine had only been annexed by the French crown in 1453.
On the side facing the city, a remnant of the city wall remained.
Inside we paid our admission and were given an English-language version of the little museum's signage. We scaled the spiral steps; we do seem to spend a lot of time on spiral stairs on our European trips.
Inside there were a few small exhibits, one about the history of the building, and one focused on the stone quarrying and masonry involved in reconstructing Bordeaux following World War II. Myles was very interested in the videos and tools displayed. What bits I saw explained how Bordeaux's almost uniform look came to be.
Brigid was more motivated to get to the top of the gate tower. From there we could look out across the Garonne River. To the right was the Pont de pierre, a bridge built during the Bourbon Restoration.
With the river to our backs, we could look out to Place du Palais, so called because long before this tower was built, the palace of the Duke of Aquitaine stood here. It was once the home of Eleanor of Aquitaine, too. It stood until 1800.
Outside Porte Cailhau, there were plaques embedded in the sidewalk that I thought explained the significance of Place du Palais in way that I hadn't thought before. The marriage of Eleanor to Henry II had the unexpected consequence of binding Aquitaine to England for three hundred years. Also, I think I liked John Lackland's name in French better. Sounds a little less like a schoolyard taunt. Jean sans Terre.
From there we started walking toward Basilique Saint-Seurin. We took a brief detour to Église St. Pierre after we stumbled upon this marker about El Camino de Santiago (or, as they say in French, Chemin de St. Jacques). We could afford the time to take a quick look at the facade.
Brigid really wanted to see the pointing Saint James. He is the third one up on the right, outer arch.
And then we happened upon the Porte Dijeaux. Built in the 1700s, this triumphal arch was built near the Western Gate named for Jupiter (Porta Jovis) during Roman rule of Gaul. The path of this street, too, had been planned by the Romans. There's something seeing an ancient boundary that was once definite now just swallowed into later development that tickles my imagination. It reminded me in some ways of places like Zhangjiakou, where the Great Wall once defined the boundary of two warring countries, and now the modern city sort of spills all around it.
Finally we reached Basilique Saint-Seurin. It was here, the tradition goes, that Charlemagne laid Roland's Horn on Saint Seurin's tomb before he proceeded on the Pilgrimage to Compostela himself.
I had several reasons to visit this particular church. Two were the connections to Charlemagne and The Way. Another was that the original church dated back to Charlemagne's predecessors, the Merovingian, and the crypt under the church was part of a church from that era. The current building dated to the 13th century. The grassy plaza honoring the Martyrs of the French Resistance was adjacent to the Church, and under there archaeological excavations have found the earliest Christian graves in Bordeaux. The site below was usually open for tourists, but, unfortunately, not at the time we were there.
In a city full of Gothic churches, this Romanesque Revival entrance was not what one might expect. It depicted both St. Armand and St. Seurin flanking the door, above which was a scene of Seurin arriving to Bordeaux and being received by his predecessor Bishop Armand.
Through that door was an actual Romanesque Portico. I took this picture with a lens attachment on my phone to fit more of the columns and arches in the image. The columns are actually straight.
There were actually several ways in and out of the basilica. The most dramatic was this on the southern side of the transept. The Gothic tympanum depicted the Last Judgement and the Apostles.
Inside the church we noticed a few men that we believed/hoped were Santiago pilgrims. They were individually deep in prayer in different parts of the church and carried with them large backpacks and bedrolls. This is a stop on the French route to Compostela, after all.
We ourselves stopped at the thirteenth century chapel of Notre-Dame Bonne Nouvelle (Our Lady of Good News). There were candles that needed to be lit and prayers to be offered up.
There was so much I loved about this little chapel. I loved that the floor of the church is now above it. I loved the posture of Mary with the Child Jesus balanced on her obvious hip. I loved the roll of intentions laid at her feet. As always, I loved the plaques of gratitude.
The stained glass windows were largely the work of Joseph Villiet in the 19th century, who also created some of the windows at St. André.
Under the main altar was the sarcophagus of St. Seurin, the martyred fourth bishop of Bordeaux.
The kids were unsure about going down the dark stairs, but we went under the church into the crypt.
This crypt held several Merovingian sarcophagi. Many, many more examples like these were found in the archaeological work that I mentioned above outside the current footprint of the basilica. Since we could not get into the larger site, this was enough.
In this crypt was the tomb of St. Fort, believed to be the first Bishop of Bordeaux (the first known written record of a Bishop of Bordeaux was of Orientalis at the Council of Arles). His feast day is May 16, and Bordeaux parents for centuries would bring their children to this crypt to ask St. Fort's intercession for their children's strength. The practice had diminished more recently, though there was evidence that St. Fort was still honored in some way.
Neither Myles or I could bear to remain in this crypt for very long. We tried to blame it on the subterranean air. Both of us felt something strange among these tombs. It would make for a lovely ghost story, likely. I felt a heaviness around my heart, very much the opposite of the lightness I feel when I am elated. It was as though my heart were being constrained somehow, and my heart would be unable to leave. The rest of my body would then be stuck along with my heart. After a very few minutes, Myles and I both decided we had to make our escape while we still were of mind to do so. It never felt quite sinister, but rather just....heavy. Like I said, it would make for a lovely ghost story.
Once we returned upstairs, the weighted feeling disappeared, and we returned to enjoying what time we had left in Bordeaux.
We wanted to get back over toward St. André one more time, so we followed the scallop shells that were in the pavement as part of The Way.
The Cathedral was not open for tours on weekdays in November, so we had been really lucky to visit Bordeaux during the summer in 2011. This trip I still got to see some of the gargoyles in daylight.
The Tour Pey Beyland was also not yet open from the midday break, so we did not get to scale it. But it was something to see Our Lady of Bordeaux glowing golden against the rain clouds.
We have been to Bordeaux twice now. Both times as we left I looked over what we actually got to do compared with what we could have done. I wonder if I made every one else miss some Most Important Thing. However, there are 362 monument historique in Bordeaux; in all of France only Paris holds more. No matter how often we return to Bordeaux, and how long we visit the city, it would be very hard for us to see it all. The challenge is a motivation to travel to Bordeaux again.
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