Visiting The Cave

Our drive-by shooting of the chateau at Chinon actually required parking at a cave just outside of town. They didn't have any cave art, but they did have wine and a stained-glass window.

I think it was actually a wine outlet store

Entrance

Interior

More interior

At the end of the first long hall there is a video presentation

Another hall; the aroma is wonderful

Another hall

And another

Interesting stained glass

And, of course, a play-place for the kiddies, while Pere and
Maman get smashed tasting les vins

Drive-By Chateaux-Shootings

So we think that in our previous travels we have covered the basic chateaux of the Loire. Our slides from 79, 86, 89, 93, and so on, would suggest so. We visited or revisited a few more, as subsequent posts will show. But for some, we just took pix as we drove by.

A chateau, on the Loire

Ditto; well, a keep, that is, a partial chateau; notice it's a really BIG river

Saumur

Montsoreau

Part of Chinon

More of Chinon

Still more of Chinon

Vicki at Rigny-Usse, one of the fewer than 10,000 European castles said to have
been the inspiration for Minnie Mouse's castle

Azy Le Rideau; in whose aire we camped like true Europeans, occupying the
last square mm of space

River at Azy Le Rideau

And, one of the better ghost-sign assemblages around

Hospital St. Jean/Musee Jean Lurcat

As I said, the camping aire in Angers is within a few hundred meters of everything. After our morning and afternoon tours, I took a walk around the neighborhood, and mostly the Medieval Hospital St. Jean, which is now the Jean Lurcat museum of contemporary tapistry.

In the neighborhood, someone has made a contemporary
house from the city wall

In the St. Jean/Lurcat garden

Ditto

In the medicinal garden

Absinthe

More of the old garden

Everywhere you look, there is something
worth looking at

The great 13th century  hospital

Current temporary exhibit at the museum

More of the garden grounds

Inside the great hospital/museum; perhaps the largest
secular Medieval building I have seen

Apothecary

A block away, a shrine for the poor

And the 14th century hospital storehouse

With its contemporary but presumably Medieval-like
vaulting; now available for receptions; a wedding reception
was going on as I stuck my head in; everyone receiving
rose plants as they left...

Walking back to the aire, the chapel of the Hospital

Best Medieval House Ever, So Far

So you round the bow of the cathedral and enter a beautiful square and there before you...

Is the House of Adam, a late Medieval structure, now, at
street level, a gift shoppe

But what really catches your eye are the wonderful carvings
rising in the wood from street to the sky

Thus

And thus

And thus

And thus (my favorite)

The south side, more weathered

The west side, less

And facing the cathedral, the Pride of Angers...

Angers Cathedral of St. Maurice

Next was the cathedral of Angers, St. Maurice, another Plantagenet structure, impressive, but not quite Gothic.

Previous posts have shown some of the
exterior; here the nave and particularly
the four part vaulting; Gothic in so many
ways, except the height...

Altar, apse

Nice clerestory windows

The transept rose windows...

Are both of the Apocalypse...even in the 13th century,
the Office of Tourisme knew what was going to work in
Angers; "stick to your knitting" they were saying...

If nothing else, the organ loft in Angers is
among the greatest we have seen

Those four carved figures holding it up are about 3x normal
size...

Southeast view of the great towers, from the
former cloister of Roman origin