Visiting the Tintin - Herge Museum in Brabant, Belgium with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Tintin - Herge Museum in Brabant, Belgium with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

During a visit to the Les Secrets de Moulinsart exhibit at the Château de Cheverny in France, I picked up a brochure for the Hergé Museum in Louvain-le-Neuve outside Brussels, Belgium.

Ever since I studied French-language literature for children and francophone children’s culture to become a French teacher in the 1990s, I have wanted to understand Hergé, the creator of the Tintin comic books better.  The Hergé Museum was one of the first stops we made on a weekend vacation during the summer of 2012.

The museum is rich in panels of cartoon page drafts that allow you to understand the multiple sketches that went into the creation of a single page when Hergé was a cartoonist.  As you work your way through the French-language exhibits, you learn about the newspapers that Hergé worked for; Le Vingtième Siècle and Le Soir.  Both newspapers were Catholic and sought to have a leisure section for young people that Hergé filled with Tintin or other comic strips.  Most of Hergé’s comic books started as comic strips in these newspapers.

Hergé was not a wealthy illustrator at the beginning of his career.  The second gallery following the tour is decorated with his work for the advertising industry.  Both his advertising and comic strip work make use of techniques such as speed lines to indicate motion, the interplay of angles to focus the eye, and color to incite emotion among other techniques to focus viewer attention on use of products or product placements in attractive surroundings.

My favorite gallery was devoted to the influence of cinema on Hergé’s work.  Books for each decade of his work were set out on tables in this gallery.  It was interesting to see how Hergé could speed up a sequence by showing one long frame on line, then two frames on the next line, and finally three frames on the last line.  The same sequence of frames in reverse could slow up a sequence as well.

I am more interested in technique than content with most comic books.  However, Hergé’s publicity claim that Tintin comic books were for people aged “seven to seventy-seven” keeps me coming back to the medium.

A book in the gift shop convinced me to buy it for its focus on narrative in comic books.  The book is entitled J’apprends à raconter une histoire: l’atelier de la bande dessinée avec Hergé (2001, editions Moulinsart).  The books shows children how to ask themselves questions to start a story, how to track story notes and sketches, how to convey different moods with bubbles, and how to tell a story with figures in action among many tips.

Children often learn how to draw comic strip characters, buildings, and vehicles, but sometimes need help with creating stories.  I was happy with this purchase that appealed to my love for knowing how things work.

It took half an hour to get back to Brussels where we ate dinner:  a carbonnade flamande (beef stew) with fries for me and entrecôte (steak) with fries for Laurent.  Of course, the fries were dunked in mayonnaise like the Belgians eat them.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Discussing Napoleon's Battle Plan for Waterloo (Belgium) over Lunch with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Discussing Napoleon's Battle Plan for Waterloo (Belgium) over Lunch with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget



As my husband Laurent and I drove towards Belgium for a weekend trip in Brussels, I thought of how many times Belgium has been a battlefield or subject to foreign powers.  Our touring guide did not gloss over any of Belgium’s painful history.

Instead the Belgique, Duché de Luxembourg Michelin guide lists Belgium’s 500 years under foreign domination before it notes tourist sites.  The monarchies or states that controlled Belgium during this 500-year period include: the Dukes of Burgundy (1384 – 1482), the Hapsbourgs (1482 – 1701), the Austrian Netherlands (1701 – 1795), France (1795 – 1814), and the Kingdom of the Netherlands (1814 – 1831).  In the twentieth century, Germany also occupied Belgium from 1940 – 1944.

On this trip, Laurent and I visited Waterloo, which is about fifteen minutes outside Brussels.  I had read about Waterloo in 100 Decisive Battles: From Ancient Times to the Present Day by Paul K. Davis several years prior to our visit.  Davis writes that Napoleon Bonaparte’s (1769 – 1821) strategy was one of “a separation of enemy forces” or “divide and conquer” in the jargon of office politics.

I remembered Napoleon’s strategy from Waterloo, but not the specifics of this battle, which took place on June 18, 1815.  Laurent drew a map of the battlefield on my paper place mat at the Wellington Café of the battlefield site.

The A-shaped battlefield had Napoleon in the center facing the Anglo-Dutch forces under Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington (1769 – 1852).  Prussian forces under Field Marshal Prince Gebhard von Blücher (1742 – 1819) arrived on the right flank of Napoleon’s forces in the late afternoon (after 4 pm), allowing the Anglo-Dutch forces and Prussian forces to defeat Napoleon at once.

The Anglo-Dutch forces under Wellington held off Napoleon’s forces until the Prussian forces could arrive.  This resistance completely undid Napoleon’s plans to defeat each force separately; instead he had to fight both forces at once from the middle of a triangular battlefield.

Rainy weather contributed to Napoleon’s defeat by making intelligence difficult and creating muddy battleground conditions for his cavalry as well.

The battleground was hot and dry when we visited.  Laurent walked the entire battlefield on foot as his souvenir of the site.  I hoped that Belgium would never have to be a battlefield again.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting Romeo and Juliet's Town of Verona, Italy with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Romeo and Juliet's Town of Verona, Italy with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

My husband Laurent and I loved Verona, which Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) used as the setting for his play Romeo and Juliet. 

Verona reaps a fortune on this fictional love story, but we still went to San Franceso al Corso Church to see Juliet’s tomb.  When we left the museum, we helped several groups of British ladies find their way to Juliet’s tomb, too.

The play Romeo and Juliet may have been fictional but the domestic turmoil within Italian cities that Shakespeare described was very real.  The Italie du Nord Michelin touring guide we had gave background on this conflict as one between the Montecchi (Montagu) family and the Capuleti (Capulet) family.  The Montecchi were Guelphs, who supported the pope.  The Capuleti were Ghibellines, who supported the Holy Roman Empire centered in Germany.

The conflict between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines divided cities within themselves and also against other cities that threw their entire support behind either the Guelph or Ghibelline faction.  According to infoplease.com, the Guelph-Ghibelline conflict affected central and northern Italy in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 

The time of the most heightened conflict took place when Guelph-supported Pope Alexander III (1105 – 1181) and the Hohenstaufen Emperor, Frederick I Barbarossa (1123 – 1190), who was supported by the Ghibellines, fought one another with alliances and battles.

Medieval history left my thoughts as the arena dating from the first century C.E. came into view.  The arena has 44 rows of seats and can hold 25,000 spectators.  Operas such as Carmen still take place there in the summer.  Men dressed as centurions complete with swords and women dressed as Cleopatra posed outside the arena with tourists for photographs.

The arena is located on the Piazza Bra.  We ate an outdoor café despite the heat that could fry an egg on the pavement.  We ordered pizza with three liters of water.  From the café we had an excellent view of the arena, park, and a huge TV screen set up for the Spain-Italy Eurocup match.  (Spain won later that night 4 – 0.  It was a very quiet evening in Italy Laurent noted.)

As we walked back to the car after lunch, I thought all had ended well for our Verona outing.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting the Italian University Town of Padua with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Italian University Town of Padua with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 


When my husband Laurent and I visited northern Italy, the city that topped my list of places to visit was Padua for its university. 

The University of Padua was founded in 1222 and is the second oldest in Italy.  (The University of Bologna was founded in 1088.)  According to our Italie du Nord Michelin touring guide, Galileo (1564-1642) taught at Padua and Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543), Giovanni Pico della Mandorla (1463 – 1494) and Torquato Tasso (1544 – 1595) were students there.

The astronomer Galileo had to stand trial before the Inquisition in Rome in 1633 for teaching that the earth rotated around the sun.  According to Stephen Hawking’s On the Shoulders of Giants: The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy which records Galileo’s renunciation of his teachings and book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican, Galileo is reported to have said “Eppur si muove” in a mutter as he stood up from kneeling.  (“Eppur si muove” is loosely translated as “yet it moves.”)

Law and math were the main subjects of study for Copernicus at Padua a generation before Galileo supported Copernican theory that is laid out in De Revolunionbus Orbium Coelestium by Copernicus.

One of the University of Padua’s most distinguished students was Giovanni Pico della Mandorla.  Pico della Mandorla wrote Oration on the Dignity of Man, which is one of the reference texts for Renaissance Humanism.  Torquato Tasso, a poet and leading figure of the Renaissance, studied law and philosophy at the University of Padua as well.

As we walked through Padua’s streets, I wanted to imbibe some of the insight that Padua seems to foster, but Padua’s red buildings retain scorching heat well.  The medieval town has narrow streets, no arcades, and very few piazzas.  I was dripping wet when we visited.  Padua’s scholars must have taken summer semester off I thought.

The walk in the heat to the Church of the Eremitani (Church of the Hermits) was worth the effort, though, despite our not having reservations to the Scrovegni Chapels with its mural paintings by Giotto (1267-1337).

I wanted to see Andrea Mantegna’s (1431 – 1506) paintings in the Church of the Eremitani.  These paintings were his first major work and date from 1488 according to the National Gallery of London’s website.  

When we arrived his work was being restored, so we could not see most of it.  However, what was visible of his Martydom of Saint James, the Assumption, and the Martyrdom of Saint Christopher show how he achieved the sensation of grandeur in viewers through several technical devices, especially perspective.

When you look at Mantegna’s paintings of figures, you feel like you are looking upward.  He achieves this effect by tapering and angling his figures.  He seems to have lighter colors at the top of his paintings as well and darker colors below to enhance the upward flow of his paintings.  He also uses architecture in his paintings to create upward momentum by positioning his arches at angles.   These technical devices all give his work a dramatic impact.

The heat had worn me out and ruled out further touring.  Getting out of Padua was tricky.  Medieval Italian cities like Padua have a circular pattern, which seems to throw off GPS systems.  We circled around a bit until we could decode the “veer right, then turn left” instructions. (Tangential instructions?)

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Eating a Venetian Countryside Lunch (Veneto Region, Italy) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Eating a Venetian Countryside Lunch (Veneto Region, Italy) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

In the guest house of Villa Valmarana in Vicenza, the paintings by Giovanni Battista Teipolo (1696 – 1770) reflect the pastoral life of the Veneto region outside Venice, Carnival season, scenes from the life of the Greek gods, as well as whimsical scenes of Chinoiserie and Gothic architecture.  Italian majolica dish sets decorated the villa guest house as well.

Italians, like the French, make beautiful decorative art objects and know how to display them.  The Italians do this by not crowding them with all the other beautiful decorative art objects in the house.  The art objects probably are rotated as well according to season or holiday as the Japanese do.

In the garden behind the main villa, my husband Laurent and I walked under cool, floral arcades with a statue of Zeus at the end of them.  The interior garden between the main house and guest villa had a rose garden and fountain.  We sat on benches and could smell the scent of antique roses on the hot, humid breeze.

From Vicenza, we drove out to the Berica Riviera.  We ate lunch at a small restaurant where no one spoke English.  The menu was given to us orally in Italian with a few non-verbal signs.  I have read several Italian cookbooks, so my restaurant Italian allowed us to order a hearty meal.

For the primi or first course, Laurent had tagliatelle with ragu (beef and tomato sauce).   I ordered bigoli pasta, which are the regional pastas of the Veneto region outside Venice and of Venice itself. The bigoli are thick, round strands of pasta that make you feel very full after you eat them with ragu like I did.  Our other sauce choices were sausage and marinara.

For the secondi or main course, Laurent had prosciutto with cantaloupe.   I ate a ham hock with rosemary. For the contorni or vegetables to go with these dishes, Laurent had a large mixed salad.  I ate porcini mushrooms cooked in olive oil; I could have just eaten these they were so good.

On another Vicenza outing, we walked along the Corso Palladio for 1 ½ hours.  Vicenza is like Venice on land our Italie du Nord Michelin Touring Guide noted.  Vicenza is a UNESCO World Heritage site for its architecture by Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) and for its city planning we read on a plaque at Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico.

In the downtown area of Vicenza, there are 22 Palladian villas, churches, basilicas, and loggias all together.  This area is pedestrian-only if you do not count bicycles.  Many of the buildings have arcades, which makes touring in the summer heat more pleasurable.

Vicenza merits several visits, especially for lovers of architecture.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting Vicenza (Italy), famous for its Palladian Villas and Tiepolo Paintings with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Vicenza (Italy), famous for its Palladian Villas and Tiepolo Paintings with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget


My husband Laurent and I went to see architect Andrea Palladio’s (1508 – 1580) Villa Almerico, popularly known as La Rotunda, on a Sunday morning in Vicenza, Italy.

La Rotunda, is made up of four wings on which a central hall has a dome over it.  The façades on the wings have Greek columns on them, making La Rotunda appear to be a small temple on the small hill it stands upon on the outskirts of Vicenza.  However, what distinguishes La Rotunda is Palladio’s use of the dome as an element in domestic architecture.

Witold Rybczynski dates La Rotunda between 1560 – 1570 in his book The Perfect House: A Journey with the Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio.  Rybczynski’s book is a wonderful touring guide that might have you identifying Palladian elements in your home town such as those on banks besides using it to appreciate Palladian Villas in Italy.

Palladian influence was wide Rybczynski writes.  For example, in the state of Virginia, the James River Plantation homes owe their colonnaded porches to Palladian inspiration.  Palladio also inspired Thomas Jefferson while building his home of Monticello outside Charlottesville, Virginia.

Visiting La Rotunda was tantalizing, but the villa was closed on Sunday mornings. We had to photograph it through a gate.  We later learned that the interior was open on Wednesday afternoons only.  So, our plan A for the day would not work.

However, this was Italy, so if one villa was closed, another would probably be open.  We walked around the corner to Villa Valmarana.  When we bought our tickets, we discovered that Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696 – 1770) had painted scenes from mythology in the main villa and from literature and Venetian popular sources in the guest house.

Laurent had vaguely heard of Tiepolo and asked me more about him.  I told him that Tiepolo usually worked on paintings that looked as if the ceiling had opened up to the sky with angels transporting people to heaven or themselves on billowing, three-dimensional clouds.

In the main villa, Tiepolo used three-dimensional painting to show the sacrifice of Iphigenia by her father Agamemnon.  This scene is often thought to be savage and brutal, reflecting the misogyny of Greek culture.  I have always read this Greek myth differently.

Agamemnon belonged to the House of Atreus, which was descended from Tantalus.  The House of Atreus was cursed, and I believed it was for its mistreatment of women.  Families that treat their women well should be blessed.  Perhaps this interpretation explains why this scene of Iphegenia’s sacrifice would show up in a home to remind its inhabitants to treat women well. 

Just the paintings in Villa Valmarana main house make it a destination to visit in Vicenza.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting Cheverny Chateau, the Model for Tintin's Home Drawn by Herge with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Cheverny Chateau, the Model for Tintin's home Drawn by Herge, with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

The Château de Cheverny built outside Blois is a rare, unified gem of French architecture built between 1604 to 1654 for Hurault de Cheverny.

The château’s twelve niches for busts on the second of its three stories give the façade rhythm and a unifying element despite the semicircular, triangular, and trapezoidal roofs over the main body and wings of the château.

The symmetrical arrangement pleases the eye and appealed to the Belgian comic book creator Hergé (1907 – 1983), who used Cheverny as the inspiration for the Moulinsart Château in his Tintin comic series.  Hergé just used the central part of the château for his comic book strip.

Hergé may have chosen to use only the central part of the château, because the two wide wings on the ends of the central part of the château would have made the comic book frames very wide.  The architecture would have taken away from the action of the figures.  Hergé also refrained from drawing the twelve niches for busts for the busts.  Too much detail in comic books can take away from the action of the characters, whom you want to focus upon as a reader.

There was a French-language exhibit being held when we visited called Les Secrets de Moulinsart.  One of the secrets of Moulinsart is that Hergé placed the château in Belgium in his comic strip and named it Moulinsart by reversing the name of a Belgian town Saar-Moulin to obtain Moulinsart.  (Hergé did this with his own name of Georges Rémi, which became Hergé to show the reversal of his initials.)

Moulinsart Château was important to the heroes of Tintin – Captain Haddock, Professor Tournesol, Milou the dog and Tintin – because they finally had a stable home to come back to from their adventures according to Benoît Peeters in L’oeuvre intégrale de Hergé. 

The Tintin exhibit had rooms set up to look like Tintin’s bedroom complete with clothes hanging in a closet that were identifiable from his different adventures, Moulinsart château with broken windows from a storm, the deck of the Unicorn ship, and Professor Tournesol’s laboratory among others.  The exhibit also showed photographs of people that Hergé had caricatured.

As my husband Laurent and I walked up to the steps of the château all I could think of was how wonderful it would look in wedding photos.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting France's Stonehenge at Carnac and Quiberon Bay Resort in Brittany with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting France's Stonehenge at Carnac and Quiberon Bay Resort in Brittany with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

From Nantes, we drove out to Carnac located in the Morbihan département.  Three major Neolithic sites make up what are called the Carnac Alignments in this département of Brittany.

“High season” in the summer means that even though we arrived at 9 am, all the tickets for a tour were sold out until the 11:30 am tour and those were going fast.  There would then be a lunch break before the next tours. 

We decided to pass on a guided tour and drove along the road, which links all three Neolithic sites, with our Celtic music playing.  The Bagad de Lann Bihouë music we listened to while driving made the ride cheerful.

According to The Carnac Alignments: Neolithic Temples by Jean-Pierre Mohen, the Carnac monoliths were erected 6,000 years ago by men and women who used them between the fifth and third millennium BCE.  The Neolithic period witnessed the dramatic change from a hunting and gathering culture to one that relied on agriculture according to H.W. Janson in his book History of Art. 

Mohen writes that there are 3,000 monoliths at Carnac.  Most of these monoliths are menhirs that stand upright.  The menhirs are not as tall as those at Stonehenge, but their regularity of spacing illustrates how Neolithic man may have sought to create order not only through a reliable food source, but also through religion.

All three of the Neolithic sites we drove by have fences around them now, but it is easy to see the sites of Kerlescan, Kermario, and Le Ménec from the car.  From Carnac we drove to the yachting town of La Trinité-sur-Mer.  

La Trinité is a harbor with 1,200 docking slots for yachts.  It has all the amenities to serve a yachting population such as clothing boutiques, a weekly market, a merry-go-round for children, and many restaurants along the harbor front.  A catamaran that towered over the yachts was in the harbor; it was made to ride ocean swells in the Atlantic and elsewhere.

We ate steamed mussels and fries for lunch and enjoyed looking at yachts sailing in the open sea.  After lunch, we continued along with the Bagad de Lann  Bihouë music playing to the Quiberon Isthmus.  The sun beat down on us, but the fresh ocean breeze cut down the heat.  We could see the large island of Belle-Ile-en-Mer in the near distance.

On the way back to Nantes, I admired the Breton homes with granite inserts around the windows, steep roofs to let the winter rains from the Atlantic roll off them, lace curtains in the windows, and carefully pruned flowers everywhere. 

Brittany always charms me.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting Camelot (Modern-day Nantes) in Brittany, France with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Camelot (Modern-day Nantes) in Brittany, France with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 



We left Charente-Maritime and set out for Naoned, the Breton name for this former capital of Brittany.  The Vichy Government (1940  - 1944) politically separated Nantes from Brittany in 1941.  Following French administrations liked this separation and have kept it in place.  Nantes is now the prefecture, or main city, of the Loire-Atlantique département.

However, when the massive Palace of the Dukes of Brittany comes into view, you sense the dual identity that has been forced upon Nantes. I prefer focusing on the Breton past of Nantes as it was the capitol of Brittany for generations.

We started our visit of Nantes in Breton fashion by heading to the Quartier Bouffray, which is the restaurant district of Nantes.  We went to eat savory galettes, buckwheat and flour crêpes, at the oldest crêperie in Nantes called the “Crêperie Sainte Croix.”  The crêperie was close to the Sainte Croix Church, giving the restaurant its name.

Our meals were simple, but well prepared.  Laurent had a galette with ham, eggs, and cheese while I ate one with eggs, cheese, and mushrooms.  We drank a traditional apple cider with our meal.  Laurent ate a crêpe with honey and almonds for dessert.  I finished my meal with a buttery Breton cake called Kouing Aman.

After our hearty lunch, we set out to see the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Cathedral built from 1434 to 1891.  Parts of the cathedral have been reconstructed since it was bombed during World War II (1939  - 1945).  The cathedral also suffered from a fire in 1972 an exhibit in the cathedral noted.  Today it glistens inside and out from the restoration work that has been done to it.

There is a magnificent tomb for François II (1433 - 1488), Duke of Brittany in the cathedral, but it is the story of his family that is most interesting.

From 1364 to 1468, the Dukes of the Monfort House took over Brittany and only rendered theoretical homage to the kingdom of France according to our Michelin Guide for Bretagne Sud. 

Duke François II actually caused the demise of his family in 1488 by losing a battle to the Regent of France Anne de Beaujeu, the Bretagne Sud guide related along with information about François II’s heir Anne de Bretagne (1477 - 1514).  Duchesse Anne de Bretagne played power politics all of her life to try and maintain the autonomy of Brittany.

In 1491, she married Charles VIII (1470 - 1498), the king of France and maintained the independence of Brittany.  She later married Louis XII (1462 - 1515), the king of France in 1499.  Brittany came under the de facto control of the crown during this marriage.

In 1514, Anne de Bretagne’s daughter, Claude de France (1499 - 1524), married François I, King of France (1494 – 1547), who legally ratified the union between France and Brittany.

After our visit of the cathedral we walked to the botanical garden.  There are trees and plants from all over the world here, reflecting Nantes’ naval and commercial past. 

There was a playground in the botanical garden.  I smiled and laughed a little as children dressed in white clothes went to play in the sandbox and on the swings under the supervision of their parents.  Parents chided children to make them play nicely. 

Children had to take turns on the swings, boys could not push girls and vice versa, and there was no throwing of sand at playmates.  I finished the day thinking of how much I like French civilization.  

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting France's Hidden Beach Resort at the Sables d'Olonne (Vendee, France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting France's Hidden Beach Resort at the Sables d'Olonne (Vendee, France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My husband Laurent and I left the Charente-Maritime département the next day to visit the Vendée département.  We knew we had entered the Vendée when we passed the département’s symbol: two superimposed hearts with a crown and cross on top of them.  The Vendée was the last royalist region to rebel during the French Revolution (1787 – 1799).  The Vendéens paid dearly for their allegiance to King Louis XVI (1754 – 1793), Queen Marie Antoinette (1755 – 1793), and the Church.

During the Guerres de Vendée (Wars of the Vendée) from 1793 to 1796, peasant and noble leaders emerged to lead the Catholic and Royal Army against the Republicans of the revolutionary government in Paris according to the Pays de la Loire Michelin Touring Guide.

The most horrifying part of the Vendéen Wars were the “Colonnes Infernales” whose mission was to exterminate the soldiers, women, and children of the Vendée as well as to destroy all the housing and fields our touring guide noted.  The Vendéens lost the wars, but managed to escape genocide.

Despite its bloody past, the Vendée is now one of the most visited areas of France.  Our destination that day was the beach and the town of Les Sables d’Olonne.  The Michelin touring guide noted that it was the Empress Eugénie (1826 – 1920) who popularized swimming in the ocean in the late nineteenth century.   The appearance of the train in the Sables d’Olonne in 1866 cemented its position as an oceanfront resort town.

I was looking forward to seeing the ocean and feeling the Atlantic breeze in this town where Laurent spent his summers with his grandmother.  She rented a tent for decades along the oceanfront where we all enjoyed sunbathing and building sand castles.

When we arrived, we walked along the Ramblai, which follows the entire curve of the beach.  The Ramblai has several openings to the beach.   We went down one of them and up to the lapping edge of the ocean.  Laurent said he received his first driver’s education course at the beach’s Go-Kart area when he was six years old.

We ate raw oysters for lunch and finished the day walking around the neighborhoods before going back to Charente-Maritime to pack our bags for our next coastal destination.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting a Camino de Santiago Church in Saintoge, France with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting a Camino de Santiago Church in Saintoge, France with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

When I read that Saint Pierre d’Aulnay-de-Saintonge Church outside La Rochelle was part of the Route de Santiago de Compostela, I immediately wanted to see it.  Ever since I read about Santiago de Compostela in Spain (Galicia) and the routes going there in Gourmet magazine as a child, I have been interested by this pilgrimage route of the Middle Ages.

Santiago de Compostela houses the tomb of Christ’s apostle Saint James the Great according to the UNESCO World Heritage Center (whc.unesco.org/en/list/868) and became famous after Godescalc, the Bishop of Le Puy in Auvergne, France became one of the first foreign pilgrims to the site in 951.

For more than a thousand years pilgrims from all levels of society have been walking the Route  de Santiago through France to get to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.  UNESCO’s World Heritage Center writes that the success of the pilgrimage “coincided with that of the Clunaic Order.”  The Cluny Order, headquartered in Burgundy (France), encouraged the worship of relics, which were often housed at stops along the Route of Santiago de Compostela.

There are four main pilgrimage routes in France starting from Paris, Vézaley, Le Puy, and Arles.  Subsidiary routes fed into the three main routes as follows according to the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Paris – Routes from Boulogne, Tournai, and the Low Countries converged here.

Le Puy (Auvergne) – Routes from the Rhône Valley converged here.

Arles (Provence) – Routes from Italy converged here.

For Vézelay (Burgundy), I consulted the website of the Confraternity of Saint James (www.scj.org.uk/route-vezalay.htm) to find information on the route of Vézelay as one used by Scandinavians, Poles, and Germans.

The French Government Tourist Office (www.uk.franceguide.com) lists St. Pierre d’Aulnay-de-Saintonge as being on the main Paris route as well as subsidiary routes coming from Tours, the North of France, and along the coast.

When we arrived at the church, other cars from Germany and Switzerland parked next to us. The church was surrounded by lichen covered graves with no names on them.  The church was small; no doubt it is what the UNESCO World Heritage site referred to as a “staging post” for spiritual and physical comfort.  I mentioned to Laurent that pilgrimage routes must have been difficult to maintain during wars.  They were probably reopened as soon as possible by either the church and/or farmers.

As we set out westward towards the town of Surgères and its weekly market, I wished I could know where the pilgrimage path was outside Aulnay.  I looked out over a wheat field and saw two deer running freely through it.  I could tell their legs were not crashing into wheat and said, “That is the path to Santiago de Compostela.”

Wheat fields abound in the Charente-Maritime département.  There are also fields full of sunflowers and corn.  France is not a country where polenta is made, so I assumed the sunflowers and corn were both used to make oil.  Every field looked well cared for on land that has been reclaimed from marshland. I also noted that there was no garbage anywhere along the roads inland.

A storm that sounded like a train descended on the Charente-Maritime that day.  However, I slept soundly despite the sounds of a locomotive roaring past the hotel window, happy with a great day of history and tourism.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Laurent Paget Photograpy

Laurent Paget Photography

Ruth Paget Selfie

Visiting the Abbaye aux Dames in Saintes, France (Charente-Maritime) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Abbaye aux Dames in Saintes, France (Charente-Maritime) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

When we arrived in Saintes at the Abbaye aux Dames (The Women’s Abbey), the sun had come out after a long rain.  The Abbey’s ticket counter was in a vast bookstore with chairs to allow you to peruse potential purchases.  This particular bookstore had architecture books, history books, biographies, and art history books.  I bought several books on architecture and women in the Middle Ages.

In the abbey’s visitor’s brochure, I read that the Abbaye aux Dames was established in 1047 by Geoffrey Martel, Count of Anjou.  The mission of the abbey was to educate young girls of the French nobility.

In the eighteenth century, the Abbaye aux Dames was reconstructed in stone by Jacques Guërinet due to damage from the Hundred Years War (1337 – 1453) between the French and English and the Wars of Religion (1562 – 1598) between French Protestant Huguenots and French Catholics.

During the French Revolution (1789 – 1799), the buildings of Abbaye aux Dames were taken over and used as a prison and later the complex was used as a military barracks according to the visitor’s guide.  The City of Saintes bought the abbey in 1924.  The abbey became a religious establishment again in 1939.

What has paid for restorations to the Abbey aux Dames was the establishment of a Festival of Ancient Music at the site.  In 1988, French president François Mitterand inaugurated the cultural center.

While we visited, rehearsal for a concert was taking place in the Abbey’s church.  Music escorted us through a tour of a modern art exhibit in several of the Abbey’s rooms.

Today the Abbey aux Dames also educates young people through musical instruction and its hosting of a regional youth orchestra.   I wish youth orchestras were a worldwide phenomenon along with youth choruses. 

I thought as I left that the Abbaye aux Dames was making maximum if not exponential use of its space to attract audience of all ages, who like both ancient music and modern art.  The work of the Abbaye aux Dames is another great example of cultural tourism and arts in the life of the French people.

The active market in town draws people from all around, too.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

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Visiting the Royal Abbey at Angely (Charente-Maritime, France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Royal Abbey at Angely (Charente-Maritime, France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Laurent and I set out towards the interior of Charente-Maritime to see the Abbaye Royale de Saint Jean d’Angély for several reasons.  According to our handy tourist brochure of the Saintonge area outside La Rochelle, we read that this abbey was founded by Pépin Duc d’Aquitaine and grandson of Charlemagne in 817 C.E. to house the “chef de Saint Jean Baptiste.”

“Chef” in this case is what is known to French language teachers and students as a “faux ami” or “false friend.”  I knew that “chef” here did not mean “cook” or “chief”.  I read a translation later in the guide that said the l’Abbaye Royale de Saint Jean d’Angély protected the head, or chef, of Saint John the Baptist.

I wondered if Saint John the Baptist’s head has been preserved throughout history in a reliquary hidden from Viking invasions (850, 860, and 876), English invasions (numerous or none depending on who you ask), the One Hundred Years War (1337 – 1453), and the French Wars of Religion (1562 – 1598).

The Abbey was reconstructed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the “classical style” as our Saintonge tourist brochure remarked.  The word “classical” during that time period conjures up images of the Colonnade du Louvre and the Façade of Versailles.  Both of these structures represent the apogee of Classicism in the Grand Style whereas the Abbaye of Saint Jean d’Angély represents a later classical style called “Sévère” in French.

In his book Reconnaître les Styles d’Architecture in Gisserot’s Patrimoine Culturel Series, Christopher Renault provides photos of the Colonnade of the Louvre built between 1667 – 1668 by Claude Perrault (1613 – 1688), Charles Le Brun (1619 – 1690), and Louis Le Vau (1612 – 1670) and the Façade of the Château de Versailles completed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1646 –  1708) in 1689 to illustrate the Grand Classical Style of 1670 to 1685. 

The Colonnade of the Louvre has two stories, Corinthian columns and pilasters, carved medallions over the windows, and sculpture over the entryway and in the triangular pediment.  On the façade of Versailles, there are three stories, Corinthian columns, many windows, sculptures on the third story and roof, and an enormous garden with patterned parterres, geometrically designed trees, fountains, and a canal.  These Grand Style elements of Classicism were expensive to construct and maintain.

According to Renault, the end of the seventeenth century witnessed economic problems, which brought about the change in the Classical Style known as “le Style Sévère” in French, which takes place after 1685.  L’Abbaye Saint Jean d’Angély contrasts greatly with Versailles and the Louvre and not just because it is a religious institution. 

Saint Jean d’Angély is a two-story building with a high slanted roof to let Atlantic rains pour off it easily.  The windows on the first floor are rectangular with no decorations or columns of any sort. The second floor windows have only a simple semi-circle over them.  This architecture is austere.

There are two Rococo additions to this Severe Style building of the following architectural period: the chimneys and the interlacing ironwork in a floral pattern outside the balcony on the second floor, which is over the stairs to the main entryway.  This ironwork makes the abbey beautiful, because it is surrounded by the plain yet elegant lines of the Severe Classical Style.

It was raining as we admired the architecture outside, and I was looking forward to a guided tour away from the rain.  Once we entered the abbey, we climbed a huge spiral staircase that led us up and up, but no visitor’s office was in sight.  I found out that we were on the wrong side of the building from the tourism office.  Rain prevented us from exploring further.

We took out our Saintonge tourism guide and decided to head south to Saintes to see another abbey.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Laurent Paget Photography

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