Towers and tapestries

Angers

14 August

Just an overnight stop at Angers, as Chris wanted me to see the tapestry in the castle. Romain found us a list of hotels, I made a phone call, and voilà, there we were a few days later, right opposite the castle, with a splendid view of a couple of the towers. Sometimes you fall on your feet.

Most of the day was spent in the castle, both inside and out. The photos are only of the outside as the tapestries are in a darkened room to protect them. There is also a photo of our hotel taken from the ramparts! This castle has 17 towers so there is a lot to get around on the outside, including a garden planted in the 50s and vines from the 60s. There are a series of free guided visits of the castle that take you to places that are normally locked, and if you did the three of these (we did two) you would have an excellent tour of the whole castle. It has often been used as a prison, for example, and one of the tours takes you to all the various places people were imprisoned, from a dark tunnel-like structure for lunatics (if my memory serves me) to the rather gracious Governor’s residence for Fouquet (1661), who was deemed to have used public money unwisely.

The tapestries of the Apocalypse are particularly worth the visit and take up two long galleries of probably 50 metres each. 14^th century though no doubt restored or repaired at various times they are very big – like metres high - and woven in extra-ordinary detail. The galleries are wide enough for you to be able to get some idea of the overall effect and you can get close enough to see the detail. There are guided visits but you also need time just to linger and look and take yourself back more than six centuries.

Photos at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/ 101628277989220379025/Angers