When I was preparing for my French citizenship interview, one of the sources that I studied was the Livret du Citoyen, the government’s official publication for those who wish to become naturalized citizens. It highlights the country’s principles, values, language, culture, and history. In that last category, under “Antiquity”, the booklet mentions the arrival of the Romans around 50 BC and shows a photo of the theater in Orange that’s still standing—and in use—after 2,000 years, today’s featured photo across the top above. We’d visited other cities like Nîmes and Lyon that have substantial Roman ruins but since Orange was included in this authoritative text as an essential piece of history, we quickly added that to our “must see” list.

Continue reading “Roman ruins in Orange”

Someday we’ll have to publish a post about some of the French village names that sound funny to native English speakers. There could be a mature-audiences-only version but we’d prefer to keep it G-rated by including Sassy, Misery, or taking a train trip where you might be “Going to Die”. One dear to my heart, of course, would be seeing “Billy” that’s actually near the two towns in today’s post, although it no longer has an active station. Last week we talked about our time in Vichy and since we had the chance to take a couple of day trips it sounded like fun to visit a place called Nevers and how could we go wrong with what one guide calls Moulins: “a charming city that beautifully blends history, culture, and art.” These gargoyles agree.

Continue reading “Never say Nevers + Moulins-sur-Allier”

Many internet sites agree that in France there are approximately 45,000 châteaux, a category that can include castles, manor houses, large estates, and smaller fortified residences. The French government has a formal, legal classification of Monuments Historiques that includes some of these châteaux plus, perhaps, another 40,000 historically significant churches, abbeys, prehistoric sites, Roman ruins, bridges, and fortifications, for example. Narrowing that down further, there are about 100 of these properties across the country that are managed by the Ministry of Culture’s Centre des Monuments Nationaux, and thanks to friends and blog readers J & D, we discovered a pass that gives us entrance to most of these, some of which are accessible by train.

Continue reading “A monumental deal”

If you saw last week’s blog post you’ll know that we spent about a week on the northwest coast of France in the Pas-de-Calais departement in the city of Boulogne-sur-Mer. The object was to have some time to visit a part of the country that previously we’d only glimpsed from a railway carriage on our way from London to Paris, initially from a ferry port or years later after passing through the Channel Tunnel on the Eurostar. Once we’ve arrived in a city by train, our favorite method of transport is on foot, so we chose some destinations that were easily walkable from the station.

Continue reading “Carcassonne of the north + a favorite village”

We knew of Boulogne-sur-Mer because on trips from the US to England years ago, it’s where we would arrive by ferry whenever we could “sneak” across the channel to get a taste of France. Once the Channel Tunnel opened, however, taking a train directly from London to Paris in a little over 2 hours, and maybe back that same evening, just made more sense. In those days, whether by ferry and train or later just by train, our destination was always the capital, so that coastal part of the country, known as Pas-de-Calais, remained unexplored by us. Now that we live here, there was time to go back to see what we had been missing in the port city and in the surrounding area.

Continue reading “Boulogne-sur-Mer + Wimereux”

A bit of poetic license gives us today’s title since the Belgian city of Liège actually has an accent grave but “siege” is a true part of its history. Given that there’s evidence of 9000 years of human habitation in the city, there have been plenty of opportunities for invaders to take over, notably in the 15th century and again in WWI. All of those conflicts meant that much of the city has been destroyed over the centuries yet museums have flourished to maintain a link to the past. The guidebook we were following suggested starting with the cathedral since it was one structure that has remained fairly intact and can provide a tangible historic connection.

Continue reading “We siege Liege & Namur”