Vézelay - the Town - Part 1

Lillian :  Vézelay is such a pretty and picturesque little town.

Audrey :  Well, after visiting the Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine our people needed lunch.  They ate under this



at a hotel & restaurant appropriately called Les Glycines.

The scent is heavenly!

Wisteria is not the only purple/mauve flower - Lillian found some lovely irises too

 Lillian : Purple is my favourite colour.
Audrey :  We would never have guessed!  But enough with the pwetty spring flowers - let's see some of the buildings & street-scapes.

A lane with a leaning wall & a new 
copper down-pipe

It is Hilly!

Lillian : Vézelay is really hilly and some buildings are quite wonderfully higgledy piggledy -

We think this is probably the Town Hall

Audrey : Some of the roof-lines are a little bit .. umm .. eccentric!

Lillian :  Ceramic shingles & built in ventilation.









Audrey :  We found a huge door - I think a giant must live here.

Lillian :  It was probably made large so that a carriage could go through.

Audrey : We waited a while, but we saw no carriages or giants.

Come on people, hurry up!

Audrey : This cute little house was wedged into a corner.  We thought it would make a perfect home for a Nursery Rhyme Character or for some Blythe Dolls.

But no-one was home that afternoon.

Vézelay - Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine

Lillian :  While we were staying at Avallon we went for a couple of day-trips - the first was to Vézelay.  Another ancient hill-top walled town, quite tiny and famous for its Romanesque Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine.

Audrey:  Romanesque architecture is earlier than Gothic and is not as ornate.  

Lillian : Yes, the Basilique in Vézelay was mostly built in the 1100's.  It is one of the places in France where pilgrims start el Camino de Santiago or the way of Saint James - they all end up in Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain.

Audrey: The Basilique has two towers but they don't match - this is the Tour St-Antoine.

The Bell Tower is called the Tour St-Michel - it is at the front facade and was built rather later - 1230-40.

Lillian : Our people took this photo of the facade on their previous visit ...

and here is one more of Tour St-Antoine in the winter light.

 Lillian :  Light - the interior of the Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine seems to be all about the light.  

It is white, lofty and filled with the sun-light that streams through the windows.

Audrey :  The windows are clear glass not stained - some have coloured glass round the edges but even then the colours are palest green or lemon.

Lillian :  The Wikipedia article talks about how the sun-light pools down the centre of the long nave at midday on the Summer Solstice - apparently on the Winter Solstice the light shines on the narrative capitals on the columns on the North side on the nave.

Audrey :  Those carved Capitals and the Tympanums are quite something - for lots more photos visit Jim Forest's sets on Flickr - Capitals &  Basilique  and this web site has great photos with fun descriptions ParadoxPlace.

Lillian : Apparently this capital depicts St Benedict's temptation ...     Audrey : That's one crazy looking demon!

Audrey :  Here is a knight on a rather too small horsey -

These elegant ladies (Judith & Holofernes) actually date from 1850 - they were carved during the restoration of the Basilique.  More about this carving here.

Lillian :  The Basilique had been quite neglected and it suffered during the revolution ...  Prosper Mérimée (in his job as Inspector-General of historical monuments - but he was also a novelist and wrote Carmen, the story that inspired the opera) ... Anyway, he appointed Eugène Viollet-le-Duc to oversee the restoration done between 1840 and 1861.  Viollet-le Duc also restored Notre Dame de Paris; the Vézelay Basilique must have been one of his first restorations ... he added the supporting flying buttresses to the exterior (see the photos above).

Audrey : But let's see some more of the interior - this capital makes the column into an unusual tree that bears mangoes and pine cones ...

This column had some rather random little carvings and people give the leaf a lot of patting.

Lillian : We've just one photo of a Tympanum - in the Narthex, the south-west tympanum.  

It depicts the Annunciation, the Visitation, Nativity & the 3 Wise Men.

Audrey : Now these carvings are from the 'Cloisters' which are part of the restorations / improvements? that Viollet-le Duc did in the mid 1800's.  The faces are such fun - the poor monk seems quite dismayed by the laughing gargoyle!

There are more gargoyles outside - just one row of heads.

Lillian :  Before we leave the Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine we have to show you the pipe organ ...

 

 Doesn't look particularly interesting until you go round the back and see that it was designed to be Monk Powered.

 Pedals and a hand-rail - just one person to work the bellows.  I guess it would be like those Step Machines for exercising!

Audrey : Je fatiguée !

Over 2,000 views !

The girls are just back from their Summer holiday in Melbourne and Perth

More over here on their stylist's blog.

They came home to find that this blog has had over 2,000 views.  It is all just a little bit exhausting!

Avallon - Le Vallee du Cousin

Lillian :  Avallon - the old walled town, sits atop a granite hill and most of the photos we've shown you so far were of that part of Avallon.

Audrey :  In the valley below runs the River Cousin - very pwetty, with ducks and fish in it and sweet little bwidges over it.

Audrey : The French don't pwonounce 'Cousin' like the relative - start like a dove's 'Coo' then 'son' to rhyme with The Crystals 'Da doo Ron Ron' and you've got it - almost.

Lillian :  Our people had explored the Vallee du Cousin a little on their previous visit - in December 2007.  The river was not quite so gentle and calm then. 

Audrey :  What a skinny bridge!

Lillian :  Our people say it was either a foot-bridge or aqueduct, and that it was behind a large disused mill.  There are lots of old mills and such along the Cousin.

Audrey : We found this disused building which was once a tannery.


And there was an overgrown picnic spot with this deer - set somewhat strangely half-way up the rock cliff.

It was quite a hot day when we went for that long walk down to the valley ... and then back up the hill! 

Lillian :  On the slopes there are some lovely homes

 

and the famous garden plots where the locals grow fabulous fruit and vegies.  This lovely photo is also from our people's previous visit.

 Audrey : What a sweet old wheelbarrow - but we saw some donkeys!    I love donkeys, don't you?  

Lillian : Yes, there are the donkeys again, with the old hill-top part of Avallon in the background - the spire is St Lazare.

And now looking the other way - from the top, down across the valley.

Audrey :  To an Australian that landscape looks so green and lush.   Many of the locals are keen gardeners - I think I understand why.  Remember those fruit trees we saw - pruned to an ideal shape for very small people - or Blythe dolls - they were only a few feet tall!! 




 Lillian :  And the gorgeous peony flowers ...  

A rich red bloom amongst Lily of the Valley - parfait!

Audrey : I think I understand why our people would like to live in Avallon - a pretty and historic town, climate and soil perfect for growing almost anything and fantastic food.   What could be better after a warm spring day spent exploring; than a meal of goat's cheese, wonderful fresh bread, a local Chablis, mineral water and for desert ... an apple pie or

 

A Fantastic Meringue !!!