Angers Off The Beaten Path

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The Galerie David d'Angers, located in a deconsacrated church, shows scupltures by the Angevin artist David d'Angers (1788-1856). Although they are very beautiful, the author simply copied them from originals. These photos depict:
1) Johann Gänsfleisch, better known as Gutenberg (circa 1390-1468), the inventor of movable pressing types;
2) a scene from Le Cid, the most important masterpiece of French dramatist Pierre Corneille's (1606-1684);
3) a scene from Tartuffe by Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, alias Molière (circa 1622-1673);
4) maybe Charlemagne (Charles the Great, 742/747-814), king of the Franks;
5) maybe Gavroche, a character of Victor Hugo's novel Les misérables.
I would be happy if you could help me identify better these two photos.

The jardin des plantes ("botanical garden") is the largest and the wildest park in Angers. There is even a pond with swans, as you see from this photo. For more pictures, see my travelogue.

Bouvet Ladubay makes sparkling wine in the Loire region. They have red, white and rose varieties. The same day we visited Rochemenier and Fontevraud Abbey we came here to tour their eight kilometers of underground caves and taste their sparkling wines. The wines were excellent and the tour intriguing. I remember seeing huge crates where they held several bottles, but these crates were not still, they were on motorized pedestals that rotated them automatically after a few days so that the sediment never settled. I suppose this makes a better wine. Bouvet Ladubay is located near Angers in a town called St-Hilaire St-Florent and is close enough for a day trip by bus.

When you visit Musée Jean Lurçat to see Le Chant du Monde, don't miss the gardens. On addition to the gardens you will see much evidence that the hospital was spent almost 100 years as The Museum of Archaelogy as many bits and pieces are scattered around the grounds.

This is one of the last large hospitals built in the 12th century. It was used as a hospital until 1854. It nearly fell victim to urban renewal, but was designated a landmark in 1871 and became the archeology museum in 1874.
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In 1957 it became the home of the Jean Lurçat tapestries as well as other tapestry-related exhibitions. It is well worth the effort of crossing the river from the chateau side of the Maine, not just for the tapestries, but for the building and its grounds.

The Abbay de Fontevraud has a very long history that begins in the 11th century with man named Robert d'Abrissel who came to Anjou to live as a hermit and gathered followers and eventually the blessing of a pope and somehow through quite a long story ends in Henry Plantagenet his son, daughter and wife Eleanor of Aquitaine being buried here along with other members of the royal family. Four statues, three of stone, one of wood, of the four are preserved in the Abbey and can be seen today. The architecture itself is incredible. This is but one picture of the abbey a friend of mine took. They were remodeling when we came to see but we were still able to have a French tour of the whole abbey and the grounds outside. Worth the trip from Angers, it was about a half hour or forty five minute bus ride, I can't remember.

This was one of our excursions during the month I studied there. It is outside of Angers a little ways and the French countryside surrounding it is just beautiful. We were given a guided tour from a French guy who mumbled a lot and was hard to follow and a wine tasting at the end. I remember a few things from the tour that we learned about the wines, mostly things like a cabernet can age up to 20 years and most white wines will only age 5 years or less. Also, we were given a chance to listen to the inside of a barrel of wine as the fermentation process was going on. You could hear a bubbling noise coming from inside the barrel. It was pretty neat. The wine tasting was of course the best part. They are closed on Sundays.

Between the Chateau D'Angers and The St. Maurice Cathedral you will find narrow cobble stone roads and old buildings that make up the medieval quarter of Angers. This shot was taken up against one of the houses in this maze of cobblestone roads. We all thought the plant life growing up the wall was neat and figured the owner of this house wouldn't mind us posing for a picture.