Ho hum, its Monday

Monday 12th May

Well, as they say, the best laid plans ......

We decided on a drive to the sort of nearby town of Epinal, about 40 minutes away - only 40k but Dora seems to calculate the time based on 60kph (hey, that's what time we allow on our touring events!). So a slowish start to the day saw us arrive in Epinal about 11.30, and bugger it, the tourist office didn't open till 2. So we had a slow wander around the centre of town - don't visit the church yet, we'll wait till after the funeral. Disappointing, most shops are closed on Mondays; not that we wanted to but anything but it would have filled the time. Instead we filled the time with a slow lunch.

Wandered the streets back to the basilica - lots of different architecture periods in there, the first dating back to 988. In the streets nearby were the residences of clergy from mostly the 1700s, each with a plaque over the door with details of who and when. It is amazing to see these homes still standing centuries later. I think they use better building materials than we do, stone is pretty long lasting. 

The Moselle River runs through the town.
This is a side canal where they obviously do kayak slalom.

Beautiful building.

The main basilica in Epinal.

I'd seen something online about fortifications around Epinal and we were interested to have a look at some of those, but they are closed to outsiders as it is all a military zone now. Instead we visited another church in town. This one was a much more modern church. The original church was bombed to smithereens during WWII, bombed beyond repair. They decided to build a new church on the site using as much of the original materials as they could - 1945-1958. Very different! Modern stained glass. The front doors are pretty special - cast in enamel. 

The stained glass in the Notre Dame au Cierge. This is around every wall
except for the traditional type of stained glass in the photo below. 

The enamel front doors. 

This glass window behind the altar tells the story of the Virgin Mary.
 

Replica of a house from southern Italy - 1894.
More than 500 varieties of roses in the rose garden.

The day started off with rain which eased off for our trip to Epinal, but set in again as we were leaving for home. Last stop for the day was a wine tasting at a winery which produces only rhubarb wine. They had a dry and a sweet so we've come home with a bottle of each. Rob is always keen to buy more than one bottle but we have a lot more wine tasting to do and I don't want to be sitting at Charles de Gaulle airport polishing off the wine we can't bring home.