French Trip, Day 6
Nov. 10th, 2007 05:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wiseheartGah, was I truly absent for almost a week? Now, you see, that's why I prefer imagination to Real Life. Anyway, on with the French trip, as promised...
Day 6 started with Toulouse, also known as the Pink City, because most buildings here are made of a peculiar sort of reddish brick. Well, actually, it started with a chaotic breakfast (Hungarians are almost as bad as Hobbits when it comes to food), after night spent with suffocating from old, stale cigarette smoke (whoever might have had the room before us, was probably a heavy smoker), but that's just a minor detail.
On our way there, our intellectually challenged guide said many stupid things about the cathar heresy, which made me very angry, because really, how hard is it to look up some simple facts today, in the Internet era? Not to mention that one of our best 20th century playwrights, Gyula Illyés, wrote an excellent stage drama about the fall of Montségur Castle (titled "The Pure Ones"), so if nothing else, that should have enabled her to get the gist of the whole thing. But, I guess, there's not healing herb against ignorance. Ah, well...
In any case, the St. Sernin basilicawas very beautiful, as you can see below.
We start with a side chapel, in no particular order:
And follow up with a few pretty windows:
Next comes the "Porta Speciosa", which was a particularly pretty side entrance by medieval basilicas, used only on the greatest feasts to allow the procession in:
The belltower:
Next stop was the Church of Les Jacobines (sorry, I couldn't find any useful link) and its cloister. See a few random pictures below:
After that, we were granted some free time to look around. We saw the Capitole, which serves, among other things, as the town hall, and had fun with some local bakers who sold their oven-fresh croissants on the market in front of the capitol
Then we went to see the Notre Dame du Taur, supposedly built on the very place where St. Sernin accomplished martyrdom on the horns of a very angry bull. It's a beautiful little church, but I could only take photos in the outside, because within, there was a decidedly unfriendly verger who'd just thrown out a man with a camera, so I found it better not to bait him...
Fun with clochards who wanted to be on the pic, no matter how much I wanted to prevent it:
Interesting houses between the "Bull Church", as we rechristened it with Mum, and the Capitole:
Having seen all this, we continued our way to Albi, the two goals of which visit were the Sainte Cécile cathedral and the Toulouse Lautrec Museum.
No, I'm sorry, but I don't have any pictures of them. Either of them. The Sainte Cécile, while imposing from the outside, was the worse collection of tasteless kitch in the inside. I never thought that I'd ever say that from a Gothic cathedral, but that's the truth. This is a stage where Gothic couldn't produce anything new in quality, so the builders wanted to produce something overwhelming in quantity. The result is... well, I have now words to describe the suffocating feeling of horror I had in it. Fortunately, a Russian male choir was having a rehearsal at the same time we visited the church, so I could close my eyes and enjoy the music.
As for the Toulouse-Lautrec museum - well, I'm not a great fan of the guy. I like his Moulin Rouge pictures well enough, but in the museum was all horse head studies and tired oxen in rain, with a few portraits of very ugly people, so no, it wasn't my cup of tea, either. Don't shoot me, I know the man is considered a great painter, I just don't like his style. Fortunately for me, the museum housed a Stone Age exhibition in one of the side rooms at the same time, so the (outrageously high) entrance fee wasn't completely wasted.
In any case, afterwards we had a nice walk through the old streets and discovered a little church called St. Savy. It was closed, but not its cloister, where Mum and I had fun and photos taken:
Next stop: finally Carcassonne!!!
Stay tuned!
Day 6 started with Toulouse, also known as the Pink City, because most buildings here are made of a peculiar sort of reddish brick. Well, actually, it started with a chaotic breakfast (Hungarians are almost as bad as Hobbits when it comes to food), after night spent with suffocating from old, stale cigarette smoke (whoever might have had the room before us, was probably a heavy smoker), but that's just a minor detail.
On our way there, our intellectually challenged guide said many stupid things about the cathar heresy, which made me very angry, because really, how hard is it to look up some simple facts today, in the Internet era? Not to mention that one of our best 20th century playwrights, Gyula Illyés, wrote an excellent stage drama about the fall of Montségur Castle (titled "The Pure Ones"), so if nothing else, that should have enabled her to get the gist of the whole thing. But, I guess, there's not healing herb against ignorance. Ah, well...
In any case, the St. Sernin basilicawas very beautiful, as you can see below.
We start with a side chapel, in no particular order:
And follow up with a few pretty windows:
Next comes the "Porta Speciosa", which was a particularly pretty side entrance by medieval basilicas, used only on the greatest feasts to allow the procession in:
The belltower:
Next stop was the Church of Les Jacobines (sorry, I couldn't find any useful link) and its cloister. See a few random pictures below:
After that, we were granted some free time to look around. We saw the Capitole, which serves, among other things, as the town hall, and had fun with some local bakers who sold their oven-fresh croissants on the market in front of the capitol
Then we went to see the Notre Dame du Taur, supposedly built on the very place where St. Sernin accomplished martyrdom on the horns of a very angry bull. It's a beautiful little church, but I could only take photos in the outside, because within, there was a decidedly unfriendly verger who'd just thrown out a man with a camera, so I found it better not to bait him...
Fun with clochards who wanted to be on the pic, no matter how much I wanted to prevent it:
Interesting houses between the "Bull Church", as we rechristened it with Mum, and the Capitole:
Having seen all this, we continued our way to Albi, the two goals of which visit were the Sainte Cécile cathedral and the Toulouse Lautrec Museum.
No, I'm sorry, but I don't have any pictures of them. Either of them. The Sainte Cécile, while imposing from the outside, was the worse collection of tasteless kitch in the inside. I never thought that I'd ever say that from a Gothic cathedral, but that's the truth. This is a stage where Gothic couldn't produce anything new in quality, so the builders wanted to produce something overwhelming in quantity. The result is... well, I have now words to describe the suffocating feeling of horror I had in it. Fortunately, a Russian male choir was having a rehearsal at the same time we visited the church, so I could close my eyes and enjoy the music.
As for the Toulouse-Lautrec museum - well, I'm not a great fan of the guy. I like his Moulin Rouge pictures well enough, but in the museum was all horse head studies and tired oxen in rain, with a few portraits of very ugly people, so no, it wasn't my cup of tea, either. Don't shoot me, I know the man is considered a great painter, I just don't like his style. Fortunately for me, the museum housed a Stone Age exhibition in one of the side rooms at the same time, so the (outrageously high) entrance fee wasn't completely wasted.
In any case, afterwards we had a nice walk through the old streets and discovered a little church called St. Savy. It was closed, but not its cloister, where Mum and I had fun and photos taken:
Next stop: finally Carcassonne!!!
Stay tuned!
