Orléans is about 130 km southwest of Paris. The city is most famous for its heroine, St. Joan of Arc, who saved the city from British Invasion during the Middle Ages. Her statue and name are on every street corner in the city. The largest statue of her in the city has a plaque on the side thanking the city of New Orleans for helping to restore the statue after bombings in the city during World War II. Orléans is probably second most famous for being the namesake of my hometown, La Nouvelle Orléans, in the United States.
Orléans has only about 200,000 residents, and the city center is fairly compact. I only had about 4 hours to explore the city on Tuesday, which ended up being plenty of time. I took the train from Paris for under 40€ round trip, 2 hours down on the regional train and 1 hour back in the intercity train. There is a team line around the streets of Orléans, but the city is mostly navigable by foot. When I first hopped off the train at the super modern train center, I took a wrong turn away from the center (without knowing at first) to land in a rather unexciting part of town. I did, however, stumble upon a giant church, St-Paterne, which I thought was the city's main cathedral. After walking around the massive medieval church and realizing there were no people around, I wandered a little to finally find the city center. Luckily, there was much more of Orléans left to explore!
After walking down the main shopping street and past the statue of Jeanne d'Arc, I made it to the massive Cathedrale Ste-Croix at the city center. The church is massive, much like Notré Dame in Paris, and serves as the seat for the diocese of Orléans and the Loire Valley. Nearby is the oranate Hotel de Ville (city hall), which was once the seat of the great and powerful duchy of Orléans. I kept wandering through the city streets, which are awesomely preserved medieval stores and homes down stone streets. I eventually made it to the banks of the Loire River, which divides the city in two and continues throughout France. Orléans was a picturesque city full of history and traditional French culture.
The big site to see in Orléans is the Maison de Jeanne d'Arc; however, any guide information will tell you that the house is just a 20th-century reproduction of what her house may have been like in the 1400s. Instead of spending money on the entrance, I treated myself to a typical French bakery lunch. For just 5.30€, I got a jambon beurre (ham and butter) baguette, a Coke Zero (they made to Europe too!), and a éclaire au chocolate. The woman at the bakery gawked a bit to hear my American accent in French, but she kept going and communicated with me in French. She was probably surprised to see a young American in Orléans, but it was nice to have a French person work with my French. So I took my lunch and picnicked on the plaza in front of the Joan of Arc house.
Overall, it was a relaxing trip to get away from the hustle and bustle of Paris. That evening, I dined on to-go crepes in Paris at the top of Sacré-Coeur, overlooking the city at night. I walked through the Tuileries, the gardens between the Louvre and Concorde, which are still hosting the summer carnivals that we went to during my summer in France. Things don't change much! Before heading over to the train to Brussels on Wednesday morning, I took in a few last sites of Paris. I went through the Latin Quarter to see where I studied abroad in Paris (CCIP), the fancy French grocery Au Bon Marché, and a trip down the 6e metro line, which passes back and forth above ground across the Seine overlooking the Tour Eiffel.
Being back in France has been awesome, and the French journey continues here in Brussels. We're driving down to Switzerland tomorrow from Belgium (isn't it awesome to drive through countries instead of states?), where I'll update with a Brussels post. Later gators.
No comments:
Post a Comment