Author Archives: raprideaux

Tuesday 11th August

Today we had an early start farewelling Blois. It was a last minute decision to stay in Blois because our previous location fell over towards the end of our planning but we feel privileged to have come to understand the city with its aristocratic past and ancient beauty. Curiously my only brush with the wrong side of the road in Europe came five minutes from dropping off the Fiat 500 at Avis, last night taking a left hand turn into a major road in Blois and not seeing that it was a divided main street. Luckily for us two guardian angels in fleuro gear working alongside the road bravely stood out into some serious traffic coming straight at us and waved them down enabled me  to crawl bashfully to the side and get off the road. It was a healthy reminder not to get too cocky as I think was beginning to happen and again we were very conscious that someone is looking after us even when we do something really silly!  So we farewelled our Fiat 500 and prepared for Paris.

We took  the TGV train this morning from Tours to Paris after an early local train to Tours.  In Paris our hotel was an easy walk from MontParnasse Station (thank you Moranda from HellowWorld Belgrave!)  Having put our luggage in storage we had a (very) early lunch and took a bus directly to the Louvre only to have our first fair dinkum National Lampoon’s Vacation Wally’s World experience. There were no queues…yes the Louvre was closed on Tuesdays! It is the two week Summer vacation currently in France so Paris especially in the morning was a ghost town but the Louvre was closed all day so we had to regroup.

We walked off shell shocked, ( unlike Mr Grisling in National Lampoons we decided not to break into the Louvre!) across the beautiful Seine River with all its tourist boats and barges and became very muddled trying to find our way to the Hotel des Invalides and Napoleon’s tomb which we eventually found not far from the new Rodin museum which has been built since we were last in Paris.

Napoleon’s tomb and the Church of the Dome in which it is placed had a distinctly Medici tomb feel about if for us. Napoleon Bonaparte certainly did a great deal for France in culture, modernisation, leadership and government after the Revolution apart from being a heroic military leader even if his grasp exceeded his reach or whatever the proverb is. But this tomb goes a bit far in my view and to have its location created as effectively a Baroque church with altar and candlesticks and much gilt and marble was not to my personal taste.

On the other hand the Hotel des Invalides still does an amazing job caring for war veterans and also contains within its vast walls two amazing museums, one of military arms including what must be the largest collection anywhere of knights in shining armour and their weaponry (superior I think even to the Doge’s Palace!) and secondly a fascinating museum of the history of both world wars as it was seen from the French point of view. This museum is brilliantly put together with engrossing and horrific war time film footage especially of the impact of bombing on French forces and cities.

We returred past the impressive formal Tuileries Gardens, had a good view of the Eiffel Tower and returned to the bank of the Seine and enjoyed watching Parisiennes enjoying their Summer break with their children hiring all day “cabins” for all day games and seats,  playing totem tennis and badminton at various defined play areas, and generally relaxing, reading the newspaper and enjoying not working.  It is the first time we have really stopped to look at the vastness of the D’Orsay and Louvre Palaces and the huge square they border. This is classical grand architecture to die for and makes for a very grand and romantic city indeed. Luckily for me most of the fashion shops we passed were not open!

Midnight in Paris is one of my all time favourite movies and this city is difficult not to love, Its grace, elegance, style and élan always make an impact. We are glad to have a couple of nights here.

Monday 10th August

Today we visited our second Loire Valley chateau at Chenonceau on the Cher River which joins the Loire near Tours. Chenonceau is just 32 kms from Blois and our faithful satnav took us there through some distance along the Loire and then through glorious French villages and forests to the little village of Chenonceau.  Absolute pride of place in this village goes to this chateau which is actually built in and  across the river, having been built originally on an old water mill by the aristocratic Marques family in the early C15th.

We have visited many stately homes in England and Chenonceau is up there with Chatsworth and Castle Howard. The entry through a stately avenue of beautiful Sycamore maples is stunning. Water surrounds the Chateau either the many motes or the River Cher which flows “through” the Chateau. I have dreamed about this place so often but never believed I would be here to take the photograph below.

There are three magnificently maintained gardens. There is also a magnificent maze’labyrinth and a wonderful forest for cycling. One garden is in Renaissance formal style surrounding a large fountain; one a more modern herb and flower garden surrounding a large fish filled pond, and the third a vast vegetable and flower picking garden with not a weed in sight and everything looking absolutely delicious. In addition the green lawns surrounding every element in the Chateau are manicured to perfection (no picknicking or even walking on the lawns!)

this another view of the formal fountain garden

The Chateau itself is classically formed, not huge and has been furnished for each period with style and good taste. There is a very impressive art collection mainly Renaissance Italian with works by Tintoretto, Rubens, Veronese, Corregio, Poussin, Jouvenet, Jordaens, Ribera and others. I counted at least five massive Renaissance fire-places, and valuable tapestries hang in just about every room.  Many of the original Renaissance heavily carved ceilings remain and some extraordinarily elaborate Renassance cabinets and other unique furniture.

There is a fine collection of early carts and cabs and two magnificent older Bentleys in the garage.

In sum a magical place on a perfect summer’s day.For our final day in rural France this Chateau was a place of deep beauty, creation and peace.

[The Chateau has an amazing history for those who like this sort of thing. It has had many wealthy owners since the Marques family but three women in particular stand out.  Diane de Poitiers (1499-1566) was the most loved mistress of French Renaissance King Henri 11, and was given the chateau as a gift.  It was the beautiful and resourceful Diane who built the chateau out over the River Cher, distinguishing once for all, this image as the ultimate Loire Chateau image and it was Diane who created the absolutely amazing formal garden which remains today.

Once Henry 11 died his queen Catherine de’ Medici (1519-1589), as regent removed Diane and actually governed from the remarkably small “Green study” of Chenonceau above the waters of the Cher.   Louise of Lorranie (1553-1601), the last wife of Henry 111 also retreated to Chenonceau as a mourning widow devoting her time to prayer and charitable work.  Her death ended the royal presence at Chenonceau.

After many misfortunes the Chateau came to life again in the C18th with two other women in leading roles. Louise Dupin living there and making it a centre of intellectual life ..Montesquieu, Voltaire and Rousseau her would be lover survived there during the Revolution. Margaret Pelouze the wife of a business magnate provided the hard cash to restore the chateau to its former glory and during the First World War the Chateau was a hospital and in WW11 Simone Menier worked for the Resistance from the Chateau. ]

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Sunday 9th August

Today we drove in our trusty Fiat 500 just 17km along the wide and flowing Loire River to our first ever Loire Valley Chateau at Chambord located on a small tributary of the Loire and surrounded by lawns, gardens and forests totalling 5440 hectares, the largest enclosed forest park in Europe and a national game reserve with wild boar and deer roaming free (we didn’t see either!)

The Chateau was initiated in 1519 by Francis 1 King of France following his victories in Milan and inspired by the influence of Renaissance architecture in Italy. It was conceived initially as a hunting lodge but has ended up a combination of  moated fortress,  fairy tale palace, grand country estate and royal dwelling for the post-Napoleonic aristocratic rulers of France prior to democracy ruling. There are 426 rooms, 282 huge fireplaces and 77 staircases and the furnishings run from C16th to the C18th with some modern installations. Only a relatively small number of rooms are furnished but these still take a bit of wandering around to see how it all works. There is a separate chapel, an impressive English garden,  vast lawns all around but no fountains. Thousands of tourists are well catered for and the Chateau is large enough for everyone to enjoy without too much crowding.

The most amazing impression is the incongruous set of towers on the roof line, all jumbled together and competing. I have not seen anything quite like it before. An impressive set of ancient carriages completed the ensemble.

After a few hours of chateauing we took off again in the Fiat for the central French city of Bourges which once again has a UNESCO recognised historic Gothic cathedral. You may have realised by now that the Gothic life of the church is an insatiable thirst of mine.

Bourges is an ancient city of similar size and lineage to Blois with many very old churches and half-timbered homes and some classical domestic C15th and C16th architecture and housing, narrow lanes and beautiful perspectives.

The Cathedral of St Etiennes  in Bourges is in one word magnificent. It’s massive bulk is supported by double flying buttresses and towering pillars inside.

There is a deep and pure simplicity in the Gothic structure with some truly beautiful story-telling stained glass windows and a very straight forward treatment of the high altar and pulpit without, I am pleased to say, any Baroque or Rococo treatment at all.  It was a journey of over 100kms each way but I am pleased we made the effort to join many others in sensing a deep spirituality and peace in this place on a Sunday afternoon.

Saturday 8 August

It was good to have a “non-travelling” day today just wandering around the very old and quiet city of Blois and sorting out some railway and car hire drop off details we needed to attend to. Once we found the weekly Saturday market it was not quiet but full on activity with a close harmony group in full swing singing ancient French folk songs and hymns. The range of fresh fruit, vegetables and meat was stunning in its variety and the local cheeses were extraordinary in their variety, size and different flavours. The market ran from street to street in the lower retail part of town selling art, bits and pieces and food, food and more food.

There are many ancient half-timbered “Alsatian” houses in Blois mixed up with more modern and very elegant homes and three very ancient and historic churches.

The fast flowing Loire River itself is a UNESCO site of international significance and on its banks and tributaries stand some of the most stunning and elegant chateaux going around.

In Blois we finally found our first Protestant church in France as well as not one but two Gothic cathedrals. The first is a very ancient structure in the middle of old town with virtually no restoration work done and netting beneath the ceiling to protect worshippers and visitors from falling debris. The second cathedral is also Gothic in style but actually built in the C17th after a storm destroyed the previous building. It became the seat of a Bishop in 1697 and was renamed “Cathedral of St Louis” after Louis XI, patron of the diocese and the cathedral.  The newest large church is a Jesuit church, originally the school chapel of a Jesuit school started in Blois in the Counter-Reformation. It has a unique three dimensional “installation” behind the main altar.

Blois also is a “vertically divided” town so there are wonderful panoramas of the city from many vantage points and also many “hanging” gardens and parks. We feel very at home here.

Friday 7th August

This morning we were awakened to the unaccustomed sound of sheep being herded by a lone sheepdog without shepherd through the narrow street below our room at Mont St Michaels. After spending many weeks in some of the world’s largest and most popular cities we felt deliciously rural breathing sea air and even sheep dung air which some  of our colleagues on trip advisor were critical of our hotel for.  We soaked it up, slept in and were amongst the last to get down for breakfast.

Getting on to the island however returned us to Tourist Central with amazing crowds gathering in the carpark to walk to crowded shuttle buses which take off every 3 minutes. For a minute or two we thought we were back in Rome as it was a pleasantly warm day but quite hot in a crowd. Crossing the causeway, no matter how often seen on travelogues is still an interesting experience reminding us in particular of the Holy Island monastery at Carnarvon in northern England only here the towering fortress monastery build over a complex protruding and uneven rock face makes its somewhat menacing presence felt more and more as you approach.

It was interesting that the vast majority of the tourists were French so it is clearly a much loved family summer adventure and they came in their thousands with, of course, their dogs in every shape and size even though theoretically their dogs were not wanted in the monastery.  Not sure how that worked. (tag team i suspect). Once into the base of the monastery visitors are assaulted with a bewildering mass of souvenir stores and restaurants.  Sort of San Gimiano in Tuscany on steroids but without the high end wonderful shopping in San Gimmies. We wound our way ever upwards resisting the tempting sideways offerings of historical knights of old in various sections of the monastery and eventually joined a 30 minute queue to enter the actual working monastery. (Richard has now experienced four queues in his life!).

The many stairs are worth the effort as the official “tour” takes you on a well organised path first directly to the top level with panoramic views over the low-tide tidal river and very quickly to romantic and dazzling views of the English Channel and the Atlantic reaching far into the misty distance from the immense height of the structure. it was an interesting experience to have started in Istanbul on the Bosporos, almost the sounthern most part of Europe and to have wended our way to the northern coastline (obviously not counting Britain or Scandinavia,) and the variety of languages, customs and cultures we experienced to get there.

I was not prepared for the very high Gothic chapel on top of the mountain and we there at midday Friday for a weekly sung service of deep beauty. It was like a transport to seriously heavenly heights although for me conflicted having recently read the history of these fortress monasteries being designed in particular to fight the “evils of the Protestant heresy”.  I know the world and the church has moved on but it has saddened me throughout Europe to see the remnants of Eastern vs Western Christianity, Protestant vs Catholic, all vs Islam, state and city vs state and city. Humanity’s inability to get on with fellow humanity is heart breaking!

We journeyed through the monastery from chapel to refectory hall (huge) to a beautiful cloister garden,

to a series of smaller simple chapels through to scary dungeons (during the French Revolution St Michael’s mont was a prison) and other large rooms and eventually down a steep back stairway back to civilization to the outside beautiful gardens.  In all a (literally) breath-taking experience. From Mont St Michel we journeyed south leaving behind the fertile fields of Bretagne and Normandy and avoiding Paris we drove through many beautiful French villages with houses and shops right on the road as in many English villages. Further south the fields are gofden with cut grass neatly machine rolled into stacks as we passed Laval and Le Mans and drove into the Loire Valley and our home for the next four nights, the ancient city of Blois.

Thursday 6 August Today we left Ghent and took a 3 train link through Brussels and Lille in France to arrive in Amiens only to find our car was at a second Amiens station 45 minutes away. on a TGV train line totally different to ours and in any case the office in Amiens was closed until 4.00pm! We were saved by a complete angel in the garb of a female railways officer who stayed with us, showed us a where a second Avis office in Amiens was located and pointed out how we could see the Amiens Gothic cathedral on the way which was only two blocks from the station. She was amazing and said we were the second Aussie tourists to be stranded without a car by the confusion between the two stations. We trundled our luggage through the streets of beautiful Amiens to the amazing Amiens Cathedral.

iPhone photography again cannot deal with the complexity of these massive buildings. The detail, the tracery, complex carving even though much of it will never be seen is overwhelming.

This is an iconic Gothic cathedral, early, with substantial later additions but retaining a Gothic purity which in my view should not be too much interfered with. An example of such interference at Amiens is the C19th striking addition to the high altar.  Obviously some changes need to be made with technology e.g. stained glass and organ engineering. Ancient carving of Biblical and other themes is everywhere in this cathedral. I have long wanted to see this cathedral up front and personally and it was a privilege to be here and soak up the ambience of this historic site.

After viewing the cathedral, we then continued to the Avis office where we stonewalled long enough for them to come up with another vehicle even though initially we were told “we have NO cars…you’ve come to the wrong place!”  Finally they realised we were not going away and they came up with a beautiful tiny Fiat 500 which looked smaller than our pile of luggage but we and the luggage squeezed in.

We took off for Rouen where we found an equally amazing and ancient Gothic cathedral right in the middle of town.The town had been flattened during the war but miraculously most of the cathedral survived. Rouen is even more purely Gothic than Amien. The nave is surrounded by ancient statues including Joan of Arc; there is some stained glass but it is a quiet and somehow personalised cathedral.  These ancient testimonies to Mediaeval faith and commitment are inspiring in the extreme although there are still questions about the impact of the church in France today.

From Rouen we hit the highway again to Mont St Michel on the northern coastline. The countryside in Bretagne is green and cropped and not as heavily settled.  Mont St Michel is France’s most popular tourist destination outside of Paris so the highways were brilliant and the Fiat 500 kept up with the best except on the hills. Mont St Michel is a monastery perched on a tidal island off the coast and the sight of it emerging across the sheep paddocks in late afternoon is unforgettable. We were booked in an old farmhouse well and truly updated to become the Auberge de la Baie with an amazing cuisine  and wonderful hosts. The whole area is rural and peaceful, a massive change from the huge and busy cities we have been visiting. We enjoyed this stay very much and could have happily stayed for a week and walked and just soaked it all up. This has been an absolute highlight.

Wednesday 5th August

Today we are having a lay day! We have been well aware what a cold and difficult winter it has been in Melbourne. As I write I see it is only 5 degrees in Melbourne and I am feeling guiIty for whingeing about the 40 degree days we had in Florence. I am grateful to the many patient  folk who faithfully wade through the waffle I send out over the airwaves. The truth is that if I didn’t write the blog every evening the whole exercise would become a blur and I would be struggling to remember where  we travelled and what we had seen and done or even who I am!

Today we slept in and provided our own breakfast as we have each day at the Ghent Marriot. It is a wonderful hotel but we have provided four breakfasts from the supermarket for less than the cost of one breakfast for us both in the hotel! It was good to answer emails at length, laze around and not feel any pressure to be anywhere in particular, face time family and eat chocolate!

We eventually emerged to wander the streets of old town Ghent again. It is full of winding lanes, substantial squares, exceptionally well preserved old homes, grand old churches, beautiful canals and not too many tourists.

This photo from the bridge over the canal highlights the carefully planned architectural relationships seen in Ghent old town.

In all of the European towns we have visited we have enjoyed wonderful  music from street musicians both solo and in groups including violinists on the Acropolis, male voice choirs in Venice,  funky folk groups in Strasbourg, exceptionally talented classical music water glass players, two classical clarinetists in Basel, a tuba ensemble in Florence and today a real first, a violumpet player  who played magnified classical music of a very high order.

Ghent not only has an impressive breifmarken shop but also as I found today, an exceptional vintage toy shop run by a young man selling his father’s collection! It contains the largest collection of vintage toys I have ever come across including a collection of over 800+ Dinky Toys, both English and French. I have been collecting these little cars/trucks/vans/buses all my life but I have never seen anything like this, not even in the substantial collection in the Camberwell Antique toy shop. Unlike Camberwell, the shop was somewhat chaotic but that made the treasure hunt even more exciting. It is probably a good thing we are leaving Ghent tomorrow.

Tuesday 4th August

Today we took the local train from Ghent to the popular historic canal city of Bruges, just 20 minutes away on our coolest day in Europe so far, just 23 degrees!

Bruges has a remarkable history. in the C5th coastal region around Bruges was invaded by the flooding waters of the North Sea which took two centuries to recede, leaving behind it a fertile clay plain criss-crossed with estuaries and channels. Bruges came into being as a castle defence against the Vikings in the early C9th. It became a major trade centre and the capital of Flanders and like Ghent gained substantial power until its river access to the sea silted up and its importance decreased. Today it is a UNESCO world heritage site because of the remarkable antiquity and preservation of its guild houses and public buildings and is one of Europe’s most visited cities.

The huge Markt Square is dominated by three remarkable buildings,  the Palais Provincial, the Town Hall with an impressive Gothic interior, and, dwarfing both, the Market Halls and very tall belfry. All of these buildings are joined by a series of very well preserved guild halls, now houses and restaurants.  Bruges is a shopper’s paradise with some remarkable tapestry, porcelain, antique,  chocolate and waffle shops!  A Belgian waffle and cream is to die for!

On the artistic front, the absolute highlight is Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child, one of the very few works of Michelangelo outside Italy. Like many European art icons it has had a chequered history. Originally purchased by a merchant in Bruges it was bequeathed to the Bruges Notre Dame Church  (Onze-Lievre-Vrouwkerk), then taken to Paris after French revolutionaries defeated Netherlands forces until returned in 1816. The sculpture was stolen again by Nazi Germans who hid it deep in salt mines in Austria. It was rescued in a race with Russia after intervention by American General Eisenhower in a story told in the recent film The Monuments Men. Like The Pieta in St Peter’s the sculpture makes a big impact on me..it speaks peacefulness, determination, assurance and hope. It was smaller than I expected, and like The Pieta, it is now protected by bullet proof glass.

Close by is the former St John’s Hospital building which now houses an excellent museum of hospital instrumentation and medical work but also an impressive collection of Mediaeval Flemish art works amongst which the stand out is Memling’s Altarpiece of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist.

Bruges is a brilliant city and a week spent in the city would not be wasted. We only gave it one day but we will remember it always.

Monday 3rd August

This morning we trained for an hour from Aachen to Brussels on the amazingly quiet Paris Nord super train and another 30 minutes in an extremely crowded local train on to the well preserved and war protected mediaeval city of Ghent, birthplace of the Emperor Charles V and until 1500 the largest city in Europe except for Paris. We are using Ghent as our Belgian base for three nights and have landed in the Mariott Hotel right on the canal. I have to say this hotel has not been typical of our pre-booked trip but (thanks again Moranda from Helloworld Belgrave), we are certainly enjoying the large room and high tech facilities.

Of particular interest to me, apart from the sensational and very large old town and the briefmarken shop is of course the mediaeval painting by Hubert and Jan Eyk entitled The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb,  (1432) , a complex and very beautiful altar piece which is kept in the late Renaissance Gothic cathedral of St Bavo. Panels of the painting are currently being restored. The painting has attained iconic status because of its intrinsic beauty, especially the face of the Virgin Mary, its interesting theological centre painting Christ as an actual lamb, the diversity of the groups who come to worship the lamb and last but not least because it is just about the most stolen of all major art works. It survived Protestant iconoclasm, was taken to France by Napoleon and then returned, requisitioned by Hitler during WW11  but one section “the Just Judges” panel was stolen in 1934 before the war and has never been returned.  Photography was very difficult because of the crowd but the painting is readily found in books.

St Bavo’s Cathedral itself is, in my view, an impossibly tragic mix up.  A noble austere and plain Gothic church with a beautiful frescoed crypt  has been “baroqued”  or “rococoed” beyond belief. The extraordinary  white marble pulpit representing the triumph of truth over error (C18th) and the C18th high altar with candlesticks donated by Napoleon to me destroy the architectural unity of the interior. The exterior is swathed in scaffolding so no pics.

St Nicholas’ church, not far from the Cathedral has been similarly “Baroqued” but in a bizarre twist, one half of the church has been left untouched Gothic and the other (in my view) ruined by Baroque.  Others will need to be the judge of the value of Baroque religious architecture.

Ghent is a friendly city where many people have English alongside their Flemish/German/Dutch/French whatever else. It is highly ordered, has lots of high tech and modern art, is  elegant, has loads of chocolate and other sweet things and the people who live and work here are, I think, very lucky to do so.

Sunday 2 August

This morning we had an early start leaving Strasbourg in the Audi by 6.15am to reach Aachen, 400kms away only to get to Aachen and find that, contrary to all our advice from Europcar they had a 24hour service so we needn’t have got going quite so quickly. It was an excellent excuse nevertheless to put the foot down on some of the best engineered roads in Europe.  The autobahn from Strasbourg to Paris passes through beautiful Moselle and Saar cropping countryside and far vistas with wonderful little villages, each with their proud church. Half way along this highway we turned off back to Germany and enjoyed the Saarbruck countryside and green fir forests and felt the land becoming increasingly urbanised as we approached Aachen.

The German engineering keeping the autobahn relatively flat through some very deep valleys is exceptional and it is certainly the most pleasurable driving experience I have had matching exactly the Cote d’Azure freeway from Provence to Genoa with gorgeous green fields and mountain vistas matching the blue Mediterranean.  The Audi was a little slower with all our luggage on board but still sat comfortably on 150kms/hr which was standing still alongside the Maseratis and large Audis and Volvos that zipped past us.

Nevertheless driving at such pace with unfamiliar language and many freeway interchanges is tiring and we were grateful to our hotel Leonardo  in Aachen for allowing us early access after we dropped off our car with the usual “trouble finding the depot” routine.

After a good rest we taxied to the old centre of Aachen, once again a university city (popn 400 000 and 50000 of them students! )  and once again a world heritage cathedral site. Aachen is the ancient Aix -en-Chapelle and the seat of power for C9th Warrior king Charlemagne who in a way can be said to have created the first “court” of Europe and together with the scholar Alcuin created centres of learning and culture which set a pattern for future European leaders. The throne on which he was crowned king/emperor still exists on the second floor of Aachen Cathedral and was the humble place in which Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were crowned for six centuries.

The Cathedral itself is a place I have longed to vist for many years but never achieved until now. It confronts the viewer, already amazed by the impressive mediaeval rathaus, itself carved with a great number of religious statues on the exterior.  The confrontation is about the sheer vertical height of the cathedral  structure.  Most Gothic cathedrals start wide at the base and eventually narrow towards the tower. The bulk of Aachen is vertically straight to a very significant height with complex sculptural decoration.  From the side view there is the triangular V shaped section, the amazing octagonal ‘dome’ and the inevitable Gothic tower.

The interior is literally breathtaking… I felt immediately at first that I was back in San Vitale Ravenna with the octagonal shape; then I felt I was in a Russian church with all the colour and the quite dark mosaics; this is a quite unique worship space after the four “traditional” massive Gothic churches we have seen in recent days.

The interior is full of colour, mosaic ceilings, a huge circular bronze chandelier (c.1165..a gift of Emperor Frederick 1 Barbarossa), the unique octagonal core (the most original ‘Charlemagnic’ remnant c800) and then the late Gothic choir ..very high with vertical stained glass reminiscent of San Chapelle in Paris. The windows were bombed out during WW11 so the glass is gleaming, relatively new and sensational.  I won’t comment on the presence of vast gold reliquaries front and centre between the two sections…except to say again it is a part of mediaeval church life I least understand. The Cathedral treasury contains many significant and spectacular artworks but we left them for another day? and simply wandered around the old town enjoying the relaxed student atmosphere, many musical entertainers and just a very laid back and pleasant place to be on lazy Summer Sunday afternoon.

We had  a wonderful dinner in the square and went  home for an early night to get ready for the Belgian chocolatefest tomorrow!