Senlis : la cathédrale

Construction of the cathédrale Notre-Dame de Senlis began in the early 1150s — 10 years before construction of Notre-Dame de Paris began. Initially, the two towers at Senlis were of similar height, but in the 13th century the right tower was topped with what the Michelin Gree Guide calls une magnifique flèche (a splendid spire). The building was struck by lightning in the year 1504 and the resulting fire caused serious damage. The cathedral was restored and modified. It looks today as it did in the 16th century. My photos are from June 2011. CHM and I were there early on a Sunday morning.

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Senlis : vitraux

I could have sworn that I recently did a series of blog posts about the town of Senlis, just north of Paris and CDG airport. However, I can't find any evidence of such posts. Senlis is the first place Walt and I went to when we arrived to live in France in June 2003. We had lunch there. I went back with CHM in 2011 and took some photos. More than 10 years ago already...

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Stop me if you've seen these photos before. They show contemporary stained-glass windows
in the Cathédrale de Senlis. I have read that an expert glass-maker named
Claude Courageux created photo no. 1. I can't be sure about the others,
but I see a signature on photo no. 2 that might be his.

  

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Inside the walls of the Château d'Angers

Today I'm posting just a few more photos I took inside the medieval fortress at Angers in western France in 2001.
I'm glad to say that our internet connection is up and running smoothly this morning.
Yesterday morning we had an unusual two-hour outage.

This building is called the châtelet or le petit château des ducs d'Anjou. It dates back to the 14th century.
The Duke d'Anjou known as le Bon Roi René was born here in 1409. He went on to hold
titles of including King of Naples and Count of Provence before he died in 1480.

The logis du gouverneur, above, is where the official appointed by the king of France to oversee the castle lived.

During the French wars of religion between Catholics and Protestants in the 16th century, king Henri III ordered the gouverneur to tear the Château d'Angers down so that neither of the warring factions would gain control
of it. For political and financial reasons, the demolition order was never carried out.

The Cadogan Loire guidebook says the château was declared a monument historique in 1875, which protected it
and opened it up to tourism. It had been used as a prison, and then as a military installation,
and finally as an arsenal for decades. The author of the guidebook describes
its "charming gardens and corners", its "lightness," in contrast
to the massive, dark towers and walls that enclose it.

A typical street in old Angers

Pannes (outages)

It just came back.  For the last 90 minutes, I've had no internet, no telephone, and no television.  The internet and phone seemed completely dead.  The television was intermittent, with moments when it seemed fine, and longer moments when the screen was frozen or completely blank.  The remote control wouldn't work.  Then suddenly it all came back to life. 

Yesterday, I went to Super U to get some supplies.  The store was fairly crowded.  When I had found everything I needed, I got in line to check out and pay.  A woman about my age, two customers ahead of me, was trying to pay with her bank card. It wouldn't work.  She tried again.  And again.  People ahead of me and behind me in line stood and watched in disbelief. How could that woman be so incompetent and slow?

Well, it turned out that it wasn't the customer's fault.  Super U's internet was down.  The cashier was on the phone with somebody trying to figure out what the problem was.  Pas de réseau (no network), she finally told us.  Bank cards couldn't be used.  The woman who had been trying for a while to get her card to work then got out her checkbook and slowly wrote a check.  But even checks need to be run through some kind of reader/printer that verifies the account and prints the amount on the check.  That was down too.  The woman had 100 euros' worth of groceries.  Asked if she could pay cash, she said she didn't have 100 euros in her purse. 

The woman right ahead of me in line turned to me and said she didn't have any cash either.  Luckily, I had a fifty-euro bill in my wallet.  I quickly added up my purchases and realized I had less than 50 euros' worth of stuff.  I told the cashier I could pay cash for my groceries.  She told me to go to the next cash desk, which was not open, and come around to the front of her desk.  The customer who had been in front of me picked up my groceries and handed them one by one to the cashier, who scanned them (that was working).  I handed her my 50-euro bill and she gave me about 8 euros in change.  The check-out lines were getting longer and longer.  Confusion reigned.  Nobody knew what to do.  I was glad I had cash in my wallet. Usually I don't have much more than 10 or 20 euros on me.  Soon I was out the door, in my Peugeot, and on my way home. 

Something big is going on in Saint-Aignan.  There are work crews everywhere, digging trenches along roads all around the town.  A lot of smaller side roads are closed off.  Either they are connecting more houses to sewer mains, or they are putting down fiber optic cable.  Or something else.  I hope it's fiber.  Maybe I should run a speed test and see if my internet connection is faster than before the panne.  I'll get back to my regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.  Meanwhile, here are the speed test results.  They're about what they've been for a few years now.