I'm reading a little guidebook with the title
Les Châteaux de la Loire. It was published in 1924 by Hachette. That makes it nearly 100 years old. I don't know where I got it. Maybe CHM gave it to me. Here's what it says about Angers:
Depuis cinquante ans, la vieille ville a subi une véritable transformation... mais Angers demeure une des villes les plus curieuses de la France, par ses nombreux restes du passé, ses églises, ses musées, et ses vieux monuments. It's hard to know how to translate the adjective
curieux in this context. It might mean odd, or interesting, or unusual, or strange, or mysterious, or intriguing. That sentence has certainly made me more curious about Angers. Here are a few photos.
Angers isn't really on the Loire — it's on a tributary of the Loire called La Maine, which is only six or seven miles long.
The 12th century cathedral in Angers, Saint-Maurice
A view inside the walls of the medieval fortress at Angers
The narrow streets of the old town
An Angers neighborhood on the banks of the river Maine
An interesting usage of gender in hmographs in French. Le Maine, masculine, is an ancient province, and la Maine, feminine, is the river that flows through Angers.
ReplyDeleteI only realized that the name of the river was la Maine while reading about Angers over the last few days. It seems that la Maine derives from the name of another river in the region, la Mayenne.
DeleteLa Maine is the result of the confluence of two rivers, la Sarthe and la Mayenne, exactly as the Gironde is the result of the confluence of the Garonne and the Dordogne. The Gironde is a fleuve whereas the Maine is not, since it is a tributary of the Loire, which is a fleuve. Wow!
DeleteI just read somewhere (annual notaires' report perhaps?) that Angers is one of the cities that has experienced quite a rise in the price of homes during the pandemic. Median price now something like 300,000 euros!
ReplyDeleteOuf! That's a high price to pay. I think about living in an apartment again, with an elevator and walk-to shopping, but it would be hard to put up with neighbor noise now, after living in single-family dwellings for the past 30 years.
DeleteIt would be nice to live in a town where you could walk by a river every day.
ReplyDeleteIt would be. Could be Blois or Tours or Angers. Or Orléans, or Auxerre. Just day-dreaming for now.
DeleteCould be Toulouse or Bordeaux?
DeleteToo far from Paris...
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