There's a church called Notre-Dame de Cunault near the banks of the Loire River just west of the town of Saumur, a couple of hours from Saint-Aignan by car. I've visited it at least twice, once in the year 2000 when Walt and I were here from California on vacation, staying in a gîte rural in Vouvray with a friend, and again in 2006 with CHM, who was visiting from Paris.
July 2006
I want to thank CHM for telling me about Cunault and about so many other places of interest and beauty in France that I've been able to visit over the past 25 years. He and I have done a lot of touring around together since I moved to France 15 years ago. He's a Parisian d'un certain âge who divides his time between Washington DC and Paris. Knowing him and his sharing of so much information and advice has greatly enhanced my experience of France. We've been friends for more than 30 years.
Oct. 2000
For some reason, I don't think I've ever posted on this blog any of the photos I took at Cunault in 2000 or 2006. I found them a few days ago when I was looking for photos of other sights and monuments I've visited in France, and I was pleasantly surprised how beautiful Cunault is. This is the first installment of another multi-post photo tour.
July 2006
The first Christian edifice built at Cunault was a monastery founded in the 4th century by a disciple of saint Martin de Tours who evangelized the region back then. In the 9th century, the monks of Cunault were forced to decamp when Vikings invaded the region. Monks returned a century or so later and benefited from the support of the local ducs d'Anjou, including the fierce Foulques Nerra...
Yes, the church at Cunault is beautiful outside and inside. When I first saw it in the early sixties, I was struck by its whiteness. I must say that in Paris at that time most monuments and buildings were still blackened by pollution and were not yet cleaned as they are now regularly.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind words and the euphemism certain âge. At 93 years of age, I'd say âge certain LOL!
IMHO, as well as yours [?], your photos are great; even especially good, considering that one was taken seventeen years ago when digital photography was still in it's infancy. But you can see what kind of improvement happened in six years!
O/T. Did my comments on yesterday's blog go into the spam folder or not? It seems to be getting more and more complicated. Diogenes mentioned changed options. What about that?
No, your comments didn't go into the spam folder, only Emm's did.
DeleteAs the blog author, I can choose to allow Anyone (includes anonymous readers), or restrict commenting to readers with an OpenID account (not sure what that is), readers with a Google account, or only readers who are members of the blog (I assume that means I would have to give authorization to readers before they would be able to leave a comment). I can also choose to turn off or leave on Comment Moderation and/or Word Verification. Right now I'm allowing Anyone (includes anonymous) to comment and there's not Word Verification. It is complicated, and I don't know why we're suddenly having problems with this after years of it working just fine. Security issues on Blogger's or Google's part, I guess.
DeleteI really like the last photo. Stone is durable but can look quite shabby, yet still wonderful.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. I'll be posting other photos of the church at Cunault over the coming days.
DeleteI enjoyed that Coq au vin series you did -- it looks like it must have been so flavorful. Yumm.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of Cunault, so this is a treat today!
Judy
Test comment.
ReplyDeleteWell guess I'm back in the saddle. The name/url option returned. I do enjoy these architecture posts.
Welcome back, D.
DeleteI'd never heard of Cunault either - I assume it's pronounced Q-no.
ReplyDeleteYes for the pronunciation. Welcome back.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, the church at Cunault made me think of the one at Morienval and I just took a very pleasant trip back in time.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, the church at Cunault made me think of the one at Morienval and just a while ago I took a very pleasant trip back in time.
ReplyDeleteYou published this comment twice. I know because I got it twice on e-mail (I get an e-mail copy of every comment). One of the two times your comment went into my spam comments folder. I wonder why.
DeleteHere's a link to my two 2010 posts about the church at Morienval.
DeleteThat is interesting because I tried to post my comment first on my iPad mini and since it didn't seem to go through, I reposted it on my laptop. It appears that both were registered. As I said before, I can't post easily on the iPad mini because it refuses to register and memorize my user IDs and passwords, if I had changed them after an upgrade. Every time, I have to go through the process of entering my ID in Google, then my password and then write my comment and publish it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, all this because of the "improved" IOS.
DeleteThe one comment going into the spam folder might have been the one I posted on the mini. Can you say from the date and time?
Ken, I saw your comment on yesterday's about my ending up as Spam and asking for another comment. So I wrote another comment. Laughing all the while.
ReplyDeleteThat church is beautiful, and the interior stonework and brickwork is just spectacular.
I'm with you -- I'm a big fan of chm and his great span of knowledge about France. I'm so pleased you introduced us to him and I always appreciate his comments.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Susan, for your kind words; from pink, I got tomato-red! I feel the same about you and I do enjoy your posts.
DeleteBlogger says that the first comment, the one that was treated as spam, was sent on 1/13/2018. There is no time stamp. The second comment, the one that posted, was sent on 1/ 14/2018. I assume those are French times, not American, and that you were on the blog around 6 p.m. (French time minus 6 hours).
ReplyDeleteThis comment was for CHM (see his comment above).
DeleteFrom the dates, it seems it's the ipad post that was sent to the spam folder, and this would be consistent with the problems I have with posting on the ipad mini.
DeleteI'm posting this with the old ipad. It should go through.