Fresnay-sur-Sarthe

Today we visited the commune of Fresnay-sur-Sarthe. The church there was quite interesting on the outside. The carved oak doors date from 1528. The left door is the Old Testament and the right door the New Testament (too bad about the grotty notices posted on the doors). We were not able to get inside as the Sunday service was being held.

 

 

Notice all the heads around and above the arches. These are two of my favorites.

 

 

There were also heads all along the tops of the walls.

 

 

But the very best part was the Musée de la Coiffe, the museum of lace bonnets. The bonnets date from the 19th and early 20th centuries. There are over 100 in the collection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tours

Tours has some lovely old half-timbered buildings ...

 

 

... but the real star of the show is Saint Gatien's Cathedral which was built between 1170 and 1547.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Villandry

Villandry, built in 1536, is the last of the great châteaux built along the banks of the Loire during the Renaissance. The castle was most recently renovated in the early 1900s and the gardens were restored to the 16th century style to harmonize with the architecture.

 

The kitchen and dining room.

 

 

 

A ceiling.

 

 

Some of the bedrooms.

 

 

 

 

 

And then there are the gardens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This photo will have to be from a postcard (the helicopter was already booked on the day we visited).

 

 

 

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Dover

Our trip officially began today in Dover. We started off with the famous white cliffs.

 

 

We then visited Dover castle. I have to use a postcard here because we never saw it from this perspective.

 

 

Here are some pics from the interior.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the castle we walked around Dover and stopped in at a cute coffee shop. They had some great posters.

 

 

This is my favorite.

 

 

We also saw St Edmunds Chapel which was completed in 1262 as a wayside chapel. The building is about 28 feet in length by 14 feet wide with walls of rubble masonry two feet thick. After the Reformation in 1534, St Edmunds was forced to close. Over the years, new buildings concealed the old chapel. In 1943 German artillery shells demolished two nearby shops revealing the chapel building for the first time in 400 years.

 

 

Our hotel in Dover is very nice and right across the street from the English Channel waterfront.

 

 

Tomorrow we are off to France.

 

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