The painters trail, their villages, fall foliage

[frenchmystiquetour]

I have nothing to do with my time so I thought I'd make you all jealous and torture you with a lovely photo essay about biking through a bunch of charming French villages out in the country. It was an absolutely beautiful fall day with clear blue skies and warm temps and the foliage is just about at its peak right now so I couldn't have asked for more perfect conditions to go biking. I left Paris from Gare de Lyon with Moret-sur-Loing as my destination to start today's ride. Let me preface my report by letting you know that every place I visited today is accessible by train from Paris. You can buy a Mobilis Pass zones 1 through 5 for 14 euros and spend the day bouncing from village to village as you see fit. On the train line are Fontainebleau, Moret-sur-Loing, Montigny-sur-Loing, Bourron-Marlotte and Nemours. The train stations for Moret, Montigny and Bourron-Marlotte are anywhere from 1/2km to 1km outside of town but if you can handle a short walk then no problem.

I covered Moret-sur-Loing in another report and during a different season so I'm just going to cut and paste that report here. So let's start. Here is my entry to Moret-sur-Loing.



Moret-sur-Loing is classified as one of the ''plus beaux villages de France'' and it is indeed worthy of this designation. It maintains vestiges of its medieval era, as evidencd by the entry gate and wall fortifications shown in the previous photo, as well as a bridge, mill, donjon, church and other edifices and architectural features. It was a residence of the kings of France for a few centuries but it is primarily associated with the Impressionist painter Alfred Sisley who moved to Moret in 1880 and painted numerous works here and in its environs.

An interesting anecdote related to Moret is that it is the home of the most ancient ''bonbon'' in France called Le Sucre d'Orge. A group of Benedictine monks settled in the village in 1638 and using a secret recipe concocted this tasty goody for the enjoyment of high personages. Whatever the ingredients were they were very particular and the result could not be replicated. The monastery was broken up during the Revolution but apparently the recipe was not lost. A certain Sister Félicité, who had formerly resided in the priory, took the precaution before dying of passing on the secret recipe, in writing, to a close friend. Later, when a group of religious persons re-established themselves in the village the close confident of Sister Félicité presented herself to these authorities and divulged her secret. In 1853 a government dignitary of Moret origins retired to his childhood village and undertook to restore the traditional fabrication of this goody. Production lasted until 1972 when the religious order responsible for its production encountered various difficulties and closed their doors. But the story still isn't over. Prior to closing, in 1970 Sister Marie-André confided the Secret du Sucre d'Orge to a local confection maker, Monsieur Jean Rousseau. In the village itself today there are 35 individuals known as the Confrérie du Sucre d'Orge des Religieuses who are united in their passion for the production the local specialty.

I didn't sample any of this local specialty while I was here but apparently the recipe can't be too much of a secret since I found it on the internet. I'll have to try it the next time I go back. Here's a link to a site I found (in French) showing how to make it:

www.atome77.com/articles/170/Gastronomie/Fabrication-Sucres-Orge-Religieuses.htm


It is now time for the obligatory photo tour of the village. You might want to grab a snack first and settle in though, 'cuz I took a lot of photos of this pretty little village.
















There are loads of narrow residential side streets and they have made it very bike friendly, as you can tell by the bike lanes painted on the road.






Here we see the building where Le Sucre d'Orge was crafted. I can't recall if there is a museum there now or if it was being used for present day production, or maybe it's a restaurant. There is a museum devoted to it somewhere in town. But you'll find out when you visit and then you can tell me all about it.

[frenchmystiquetour]

The remains of a gallery to a 16th century dwelling.
















I'll break up the photo montage to share another interesting anecdote with you regarding Moret. Sister Louise Marie-Thérèse (1664-1732) was known as La Mauresse de Moret (The Black Nun of Moret). She was the object of a gossip story in the 18th century, where she is pointed out as the daughter of the Queen of France, wife of Louis XIV Maria Theresa of Spain. In 1664 the Queen gave birth to a child who was said to have been ''black as ink'' from head to toe. The Queen was known to be highly pious and some say that her giving illegitimate birth was unlikely due to this and the fact that hiding a pregnancy and giving birth (royal births were public events with witnesses) would have been difficult to say the least. Modern historians say the blackness was due to cyanosis.

Nonetheless, shortly after the birth a grieving king announced the death of the child. Some said the baby was exchanged for another, who was black, to avoid scandal. Adding intrigue to the story, the queen had a page named Nabo, who was her favorite companion. Nabo was a black dwarf taken from his native home of Dahomey in Africa (now the Republic of Benin) and presented to the queen as a gift. Nabo was called for by the king and shortly after disappeared. Cloistered all her life, La Mauresse took the veil in 1695 and retired to the benedictine convent in Moret. Here's where there's a further twist. Several sources attest to her having been visited throughout her life by important personages from the Royal Court including the Queen and Madame de Maintenon, who though they didn't always see her, watched over her welfare. Sister Louise was once known to have referred to the dauphin as ''my brother''. There is even a letter in existence from 1685 stating that she is to be given a pension's patent of 300 pounds by King Louis XIV starting in 1695 for the remainder of her life.

Today in Paris in the library of Sainte-Geneviève hangs a portrait of The Black Nun, dated by those who have studied it to around the year 1680. It is said to have been painted by the same hand that at this time painted portraits of the kings of France from Louis IX to Louis XIV.

When royal bodies were exhumed from the abbey of Saint-Denis in 1793 notes were taken on the state of preservation of the royal corpses. It was said the body of Louis XIII was well preserved and that the skin of Louis XIV was black like ink.

Anecdote over and now to continue with the visit.




There was another art exhibit going on in Moret today in the old Priory or Abbey so I stopped in for a visit.

[frenchmystiquetour]

Here's the 12th century donjon.








Here is Alfred Sisley's house. Or at least one of the buildings in the photo is his house. It wasn't clear from the sign on the street. It doesn't matter since as you can see, the wall they are building will soon prevent it from being seen anyway.




At least I know the street number is 19.










Now I'll get back to what I saw on today's ride. Leaving Moret is picked up the bike trail that runs along the Canal du Loing. It was cool in the morning and the area was blanketed in a dense coat of fog.








I left the canal behind and headed inland.

[frenchmystiquetour]

As I moved away from the canal the fog started to clear.






As I entered Montigny-sur-Loing I could tell I was entering a fairly wealthy town. The houses lining the road were all of the grand estate variety with large yards and walls surrounding them, preventing me from getting any good photos.




I managed to get a photo of one yard, which has frontage on the Loing river.














Montigny was a village of farmers, fishers and vineyards through much of the 19th century. It was in this century that the village attracted the attention of artists, many of them being inspired by or members of the famous Barbizon school of artists. Some of them specialized in ceramics and for a time the town was somewhat noted as a place for the manufacture of artisan ceramics. I learned about many of the painters and ceramics workers who resided in Montigny but they are largely unknown to anyone who isn't an art historian so I'm not going to get into the esoteric details of who they were and what they did. Riding through the village today it almost doesn't appear that much has changed since the 19th century.

[frenchmystiquetour]

Heading out of town I moved on to the adjacent town of Bourron-Marlotte. While Montigny was really charming, Bourron-Marlotte could be classified as charming beyond belief. It was even more of an attraction to 19th and early 20th century artists than Montigny. Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Monet and Cézanne all visited the village and produced works here. Numerous writers also moved in and a couple of the auberges in town provided residence and meeting space for this Bohemian crowd, as it was known. As in Montigny, the majority of artists and writers that moved here aren't widely known so I'll once again skip the names. You'll learn all about them if you decide to come here. That's all the history so let's visit the village.

[frenchmystiquetour]

I have nothing to say. I'm just interjecting so you can all catch your breath before I continue with the photos. (Insert intermission muzak here). Time's up.

[frenchmystiquetour]

It is now time for the obligatory series of cheesy postcard photos with lots of pretty wildflowers.














Bourron-Marlotte is actually two joined villages, as its name would imply. I finished with the Marlotte section of town and moved on to Bourron.

[frenchmystiquetour]

Bourron has a late 16th to early 17th century château. Here is one of the associated buildings outside the formal château grounds.




Unfortunately, the château grounds are only open to the public from July to September so I was unable to visit them. The château is open to goups making reservations year round. The entire grounds were surrounded by a high wall and I rode my bike all over the place trying to find a place to sneak a peak and get a photo of the château. The last place I checked was the front of the château and it too offered no opportunity for a view. I was not going to be defeated after all that searching so I climbed up the château walls and snuck my well deserved photos.








I took another look around town to finish seeing the streets I hadn't yet explored.












My exploration of Bourron had reached its conclusion so I moved on to discover who knows what. The next village was a few kilometers away and in the intervening distance I cycled through a stretch of agricultural countryside.





Next up, Grez-sur-Loing. You've learned about the artist/writer history of Montigny and Bourron-Marlotte and Grez was pretty much the same type of haven for artists as those places.

[frenchmystiquetour]

I'm being really skimpy on the history in this report I realize but I'm more interested today in just doing a photo essay. I assure you that the places I visited do indeed have some interesting and worthwhile history that you can discover on your own. If you'd like to ask me for more info I can provide you with some sources of information so you'll be well prepared to pay a visit.

[frenchmystiquetour]

That's all for Grez-sur-Loing. I hope you enjoyed it. Now let's move along.






The next village was Moncourt-Fromonville. The towns I visted today were all located on the Canal du Loing and Moncourt was no different.








The town hall is housed in a 17th century château.










Leaving the town and entering the countryside again I got a few fine pictures of the lovely foliage.







Here is the 12th century church, which is on the waiting list to be classified a national monument.

[frenchmystiquetour]

The next town was Nemours. I had a specific destination in mind in visiting Nemours. It is the home of the Musée de la Préhistoire d'Ile de France (Museum of the Prehistory of Ile de France) and since I love prehistory I wanted to pay it a visit. If you are a lover of prehistory then this museum and another museum of prehistory located in Saint-Germain-en-Laye (just outside Paris) are worth a visit. There is a section of the museum devoted to both prehistoric and modern forensics. Have you ever seen those TV programs where they find an old skull, or that of a recent murder victim, and an artist does a reconstruction of what that person looked like? Well some of that work is done in the museum in Nemours. There were some outstanding full scale reproductions of our primitive ancestors along with a large variety of artifacts found all over the Ile de France region. They also have a reproduction of Otzi The Ice Man, the neolithic hunter whose corpse was recovered high in the Alps preserved in ice.




In the low lighting conditions I couldn't get my basic model digital camera to get a non-blurry photo so I apologize for that. In person you'll be able to see that the models are quite well done and life like.








Here's the replica of the artists work studio.




One of their remarkable artifacts is a Carolingien era dug out canoe from the 9th or 10th century.








There was also a pretty cool engraved menhir.

[frenchmystiquetour]

Here is what is known as a polissoir, an ancient tool sharpening stone.




Here's a reconstruction of a covered alley type dolmen (burial chamber) from the town of Presles in the Val d'Oise region. I believe it is still intact in its original location.




There are a number of menhirs and dolmens scattered throughout the Ile de france region and I've visited several of them. Some of them have engravings or other forms of prehistoric artwork that must have had symbolic significance for the artists. Here's a photo of female breasts and a necklace found in one such dolmen in the Vexin region. The dolmen is still there but I'm not sure it's open to the public.




Here's a plaster relief of some art work that is found in a dolmen that I visited some time ago. Next to it is an artists recreation of the artwork, since it is barely discernible on the stone itself.



The cross is obviously a later add on, probably an attempt to Christianize a heathen monument. Of course, the museum has plenty of stone tools.






There were also some Gallo-Roman artifacts from the 1st to 4th centuries A.D. If I found these objects in my backyard at first glance I would think they were from the 19th century.




Leaving the museum I noticed there were a few art installations set up on the grounds of the museum. Some of it was rather, um, suggestive.




Now it was time to pay the old downtown of Nemours a visit. I have visited Nemours a few times and I've already covered it in another report so I'm going to cheat a little and copy and paste from that report to this one. In sticking with today's theme so you won't get any history about Nemours either.

[frenchmystiquetour]

Market day.





















That's it. You've learned very little, haven't you? It's one of the laziest reports I've written but really the whole point was just to show you some pretty places that aren't much visited by tourists. I think they're places that are worth visiting if you are looking for something a little out of the ordinary and off the beaten path. As for restaurants, there were a few in each village and some of them looked quite charming and had pretty appetizing looking menus too. You might want to find out if any of them are open in the off season but in season I bet you'll find something without a problem. And these towns are not without their visitors, by the way. I saw French tourists in each of these towns but foreign visitors are mostly absent. So be different, won't you, and visit the villages along the Loing river on one of your day trips from Paris.

[mossie]

Many thanks for such an exhaustive report, now I have to attempt a trip out into the country
I'm glad that artwork was of a bird, otherwise I would feel completely inadequate.

[jo]

Nov 1, 2011 5:34:26 GMT -5 mossie said:

I'm glad that artwork was of a bird, otherwise I would feel completely inadequate.

;D ;D

Man, I have got to get out of Paris!! Thanks for a wonderful photo essay,FM. You have a lot more patience with PhotoBucket (or whatever 3rd party site we have to use here) than I do.

An exalt for you!

Jo

[PariS]

Gorgeous Bruce--thank you! I'm adding this little "village hop" to my day trip list.

[frenchmystiquetour]

mossie - Perhaps we could organize an OPF GTG in the country someday. I didn't show that pic to my wife due to fears of jealousy.

jo - Yup, I use photobucket. It does take some time though, what with the uploading and then resizing of photos before they can be posted here. If you need some tips on how to do it let me know.

AnnetteC - It is a good little village hop. Mind you, there are walks of 3/4km to 1.5km from the train stations to a few of these towns but they are flat walks and quite easy to do. Let me know if you you want to do this and I'll give you the info on getting from train stations into town.

[jo]

Thanks Bruce. One of the reasons I bought a macbook 3 years ago was for the ease of use of iPhoto and posting pictures directly from that application, either on other websites or through e-mail. I just don't have the patience to use an intermediary when it's so easy to do right on my computer. That's why I use Facebook to post pictures and changed my blog to Blogger, so I can access my pictures right from iPhoto. I wish more websites would let me access my pictures this way, but if they can't, I don't post pictures, I'll just link to my blog or Facebook page.

I can't imagine how much time it takes you to upload all those pictures you so generously share with us each time you do a photo essay. Just thinking about it is making me give you another exalt!

Jo

[frenchmystiquetour]

Thanks Jo. I don't have a Mac or iPhoto so I have no idea how to use that but once I put the pictures on photobucket I just resize them and copy the IMG link directly in the word document I use to write my reports. Once my reports are done I just copy and paste from the word doc to the OPF. Don't you still have to resize your photos with your iPhoto app before you post them here? I'm sure your system must be easier but now that I'm used to photobucket it doesn't bother me so much. Regardless of what photo app I used it would still take me a while to put a report together since the photos are just one aspect of putting the report together. The research (of which there wasn't much in this report) and the writing are what takes the longest.
P.S. - I exalted you back.

[Belladonna]

Fantastic Bruce
Really beautiful photos (as always!) and the kid in the museum made me laugh ;D