14 June 2009

Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe: gorgeous frescoes

It's hard to do things all day — pick and de-stem and pit cherries, cook, shop, tour around, and visit with friends — and to blog about it all at the same time. Not to mention take and process pictures. I'm just barely keeping up.

Yesterday CHM and I drove down to Preuilly-sur-Claise to visit with Susan and Simon of Days on the Claise. We had a beautiful day for it. It takes an hour or a little more to drive down there, and we arrived in time to go have a look around in S & S's new garden and fruit orchard for an hour or so before heading to the Restaurant de l'Image for lunch.

After lunch, we visited three churches. The first was the one in Preuilly itself. The second, and by far the most impressive and interesting, was the church in the town of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, 30 minutes of so south of Preuilly. The third was the abbey church at Fontgombault. All are worth a visit.

CHM and Susan outside the church
at Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe

I'm posting pictures from Saint-Savin here. The church dates back to the early 12th century and is decorated all inside with polychrome frescoes that date from that same period. It's hard to take pictures because they ask you not to use a flash and the light, while bright for the interior of a church, is not quite sufficient. A tripod would help but I didn't have one with me yesterday.

Susan and Simon posted some nice pictures on Days on the Claise this morning. Have a look.

This morning we're headed over to the market in Noyers-sur-Cher, and probably to the supermarket, to get some things we need for our lunch with Martine (here's a link to her blog) tomorrow. We're still hoping for nice weather for our barbecue, but it's looking kind of iffy.

6 comments:

  1. I have never seen or heard of Saint-Savin. It is beautiful.

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  2. Bonjour Ken,

    Voici le lien vers un article amusant de BBC.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8096988.stm

    Cela pourrait être un exemple de dont ils parlent.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You are a miracle worker. Take a day off and just enjoy. Your blog readers will wait. :)

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  4. Amazing columns in the church!

    As Ginny said, take a break, we'll still be here. ;-)

    BettyAnn

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  5. Yes, yes, Saint-Savin is beautiful! I loved the images and the info on Susan and Simon's blog, too. Geeeee it's so nice to have access to all of this, if only through a computer at this point-- made far, far better by the personal commentary. Thanks! And, of course, I echo the sentiments of others... take a breather and enjoy yourself without blogging every day :)
    Judy

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  6. You are all right, I should try to slow down, but I can't. Go go go. Why is that? I'm still blogging.

    ReplyDelete

What's on your mind? Qu'avez-vous à me dire ?