July 14, 2008

WooHoo! It was Bastille Day!

We roused ourselves and clambered over our neighbours’ boats to shore, then headed into town for the parade. Yup, there was a parade. It ran along the river road, complete with Foreign Legion-like soldiers and really cool fire trucks. Oh, and free wine and pastry. Yup, you heard me. Free wine for breakfast. Ain’t France grand. All in all, a cool way to start the morning.

Auxerre is an old city, dating back to Roman times and stuffed full of history. Today was church-a-polooza. Auxerre has three major churches and a number of small — but still pretty damn big — ones to fill our (my) ecclesiastically voracious architecture brains. I can’t really describe them so I will let my pictures do most of the talking.

Cathedral of St. Étienne (11th–16th centuries).  Gothic style, with 11th century crypt houses the remains of the former Romanesque cathedral.

After we left St. Stevens, we wandered up through town (chock full of medieval buildings), saw a medieval clock tower and checked out the exterior of the Church of St Eusèbe which dated back as far as the 7th century with a Romanesque tower and a Gothic nave.

See the round Romanesque arches in the tower?

More wandering ensued. We spied a printer with modernist typefaces, some cool topiaries and a Louis XIII style mansion on Rue Soufflot that had a passage knocked through it in 1907 to make way for a road. Then we headed for the town square for a much needed beer in an outdoor café. At some point Zak had declared enough is enough and wandered off to do his version of tourism: the hunt for fireworks. We wished him well and headed for the next church.

This was also the point where we learned a key difference between  Canadian french and France french. Because Quebecers are (overly?) consumed with preserving the language, they insist on translating everything into french. Thus iced tea is translated into tea glacé; makes sense right? We’ve read it on the side of a can millions of times. Well it turns out that since iced tea is not a culturally French drink, the French in France are not all that concerned about it and have never bothered to translate it. So when Leslie ordered a tea glacé at the cafe, she was met with blank stares. Turns out the natives pronounce it iced tea (with a French accent). Huh.

Then it was on to Abbey of Saint-Germain (dating from 9th century). The website has some great info. The crypt has some of the most ancient mural paintings in France, and houses the tomb of the bishops of Auxerre. The site includes the chapter room (12th century), the cellar (14th century) and the cloister (17th century). This was an abbey (where monks hang out), so it had our first real example of cloisters. One of the more interesting (to me) thing about this edifice is the approach to it is very unassuming. I suppose since it wasn’t meant for public-facing worship the facade was not as important as it would be on a similarly sized cathedral. It was pretty damn fancy from other angles though.

The excavations of the crypts dating from the Carolingian era under the foundations were absolutely fascinating.

Afterwards we we met up with one of the local French greeter cats and C & L got their fill of cat snuggles. Oh and Leslie found her fellow socialists’ association. Then it was on to St. Pierre en Vallée (17th–18th centuries), established over a 6th-century abbey. A neo-Gothic church, it has a tower similar to that of the cathedral. We didn’t stay long.

Then we met back up with the boy and wandered back to the “fireworks” area so he could let loose his pyro.

Afterwards it was dinner, where Leslie confirmed her love for the anchovy pizza (Actually a Neapolitano with anchovies and capers. Can you say salty?). Whole anchovies. Stinky anchovies. I still suspect every time she mentions she wants to go back to France, it’s really for the anchovy pizza. Then it was back to the boat and more wine and crib by candlelight on deck. We were treated to live music from a club across the river, the most memorable of which was a very Vegas-like rendition of Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing. Another make-me-smile memory.

C’s frozen sock art.