Did you know? Interesting Facts about SW France

Gironde

Gironde (33)

Renamed

The region of Gironde was formed on 4 March, 1790 from parts of Guyenne and Gascony. From July 1793 to April 1795, its name was changed to Bec d’Ambès to avoid confusion and association with the Girondins campaigning for an end to monarchy. Master Builder

Nearly Lost

Monument aux Girondins

Erected around 1900 and completed in 1924, the Monument aux Girondins is one of the most iconic fountains and monuments in Bordeaux yet, in 1943, it was removed to be melted down! Found intact in 1945 and reinstated in 1983, the sculpture depicts rearing horses with webbed feet and Liberty “breaking the chains”. Amongst the allegorical figures look for Eloquence, History and the French cockerel.

SILVER WAVES

Gironde’s Atlantic coast line is known as La Côte d’Argent (or silver coast). It stretches from the mouth of the Gironde to the river Adour and is made up of a single line of fabulous white sand that squeaks underfoot (sand squeaks when it’s good).

Master Builder

Heard of Sébastien Le Prestre or Maréchal de Vauban? One and the same, he was a master when it came to building military strongholds and is said to have repaired or built around 150 when he was appointed Commissaire Général de Fortifications in 1678. We have him to thank for the likes of Blaye, Fort Médoc and Bayonne.

What’s in a Face

Have you noticed these Mascarons (masks) in Bordeaux? Dating back to the 18th-century, there are around 3,000 of them, usually found above first floor windows (l’étage noble). In Place de la Bourse they are above ground-floor arcades and, as with them all, range from the grotesque to beautiful, pagan to Christian and from old to young.

How to Shuck

Oysters on the Gironde coast are two a penny (not literally) from one of the largest oyster farms in the world, annually shipping around 3 billion oysters to Europe. How do you shuck and eat an oyster? Take a look at our Nov/Dec 2018 issue at www.thelocalbuzzmag.com/read-online or see our articles pages.

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Dordogne (24)

GOING WEST

Despite its name, the 483 km Dordogne River passes through 173 communes and six departments: Puy-de-Dôme, Corrèze, Lot, Dordogne and Gironde, where it meets the Garonne River and the Atlantic Ocean. Great for water sports, it flows at around 270 cubic metres per second, that’s 4,500 litres a minute (measured at Bergerac).

Graffiti

If you want to know what a hot air balloon flight is like without actually flying, go to Domme and stand right up against the rampart looking over treetops. Surreal! Here’s another oddity, you wouldn’t expect such a pretty town to allow graffiti but it’s inside the Porte des Tours; carved by Templars in 1307-18!

WHAT’S In a name?

If you thought that Périgord Noir (Black) was so named because of its truffles, think again. Instead it comes from the density of its woodland, especially the dark bark of the cork oak forests. Périgord Pourpre (Purple) is synonymous with the purplyred grapes of its wines, and Périgord Blanc (White) refers to its limestone rock cliffs and quarries. Périgord Vert (Green) is all about lush vegetation, meadows, forests and hills.

Ancient Art

Prehistoric drawings abound in Dordogne’s caves. Mostly depicting animals such as bison, horses and mammoths, they were “painted” with colours made from iron oxides, iron ore, manganese dioxide or carbon to give yellow, a brownish red and black. Dabbing colours on with the finger or using a coloured rock as a pencil, they also used hair or moss as an early paintbrush. Oddly enough, spray painting was also practiced in pre-historic times by pigment sprayed from the mouth or through a hollow bone. Don’t try that at home!

CALYPSO

It may sound exotic but the Ile de Calypso was named after the island in Aventures de Télémaque, a book written by François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, Abbot of Carennac. It seems he wrote the book, which criticised Louis XIV’s politics, whilst tutoring Louis’ grandson. He was disgraced as a result but became Archbishop of Cambrai at the end of his life.

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Lot et Garonne

VERT GALANT

King Henri de Navarre lived in Nérac from 1576, earning his reputation as a Vert Galant (charmer) due to his many amorous adventures. Two years later, when his wife, Marguerite de Valois and his mother in law, Catherine de Médicis arrived, the court became as lavish as the Louvre. Sadly, once he became King of France in 1589 he left for Paris.

REMBRANDT

You don’t have to go very far to view a Rembrandt painting. The stark but powerful rendition of Christ on the Cross can be seen in the north chapel of the L’Eglise St-Vincent in Mas d’Agenais. The Dufour family were from Mas d’Agenais originally and, having purchased the work, donated it to the town in 1804. It was authenticated in 1960. That turned out to be quite a gift!

VIRTUAL GOYA

Don’t spend too long gazing at the wonderful architecture of the Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Agen or you’ll miss the enthralling art inside! Originally four hotels dating from the Renaissance period to the 17th-century, the museum houses stunning works by contemporary artists as well as old masters, all beautifully displayed within 26 rooms. The Goya collection is a particular favourite, and even has its own virtual visit.

From Agen to USA

Around 65% of the nation’s plums are grown in Lot et Garonne. Templar Knights brought plums back from Damascus in the 11thcentury but it was to be some 400 years before prunes would become popular. Originally bearing the Port of Agen stamp when shipped on the Garonne River, the name stuck as “Pruneaux d’Agen”. In 1856 Pierre Pellier took some plum scions (live shoots) embedded in potatoes to his brother in California and the US west coast prune industry was born. Of course Agen prunes are still claimed to be the best!

Scenic Treasures

Bastides are not exclusive to SW France but their density (we still have around 300 between Bordeaux and the Pyrenées), makes them one of our most treasured and beautiful sights. Deriving their name from the Occitan or old French word bastir, meaning to build, they originally provided administrative centres and were later fortified to become military strongholds.

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LOT (46)

FOLLOW THE TRAIL

If you come across a bronze plaque set in the pavement and decorated with an acanthus leaf design in Cahors you are on a route that links Les Jardins Secrets, all 25 of them. The walk takes in parks as well as botanical and ornamental gardens such as The Heavenly Lawn, the Garden of the Witch and Dragon, and Le Clos des Jacobins.

Delicious!

A look at this region wouldn’t be complete without a mention of truffles. These rock hard delicacies look like a lump of coal but command prices, per kilo, that would buy two or three radiators! As a type of underground mushroom and snuffled out by pigs or, nowadays, mostly dogs, they are a true delicacy. Sadly, production has reduced from over 200 tonnes a year in around 1900 to between 5 and 20 tonnes today.

By Georges!

What does Georges Pompidou, former President of France, have to do with Cajarc? Not only was he an MP for the area in the National Assembly, but Cajarc was one of his favourite places to stop and have a drink during his frequent visits to the Quercy. The town now bears his name on the Georges Pompidou Centre d’Art Contemporain.

There it was, gone

The ornate Tympanum of the north portal of St-Etienne Cathedral in Cahors may have been one of the great masterpieces of Romanesque sculpture but for a while, you couldn’t see it! Disappearing from view in the 18thcentury, it wasn’t until the approach to the door was lowered in the 1990s that the porch recovered its original proportion and, thank goodness, came back into view.

UNDERSTOOD

You don’t have to go to Egypt to see hieroglyphics. One of Jean-François Champollion‘s major successes in life was the deciphering of the granodiorite Rosetta Stone discovered during Napoleonic expeditions to Egypt in 1799. Comparing picture images with known scripts he “cracked the code”! Little wonder that there is an exhibition dedicated to this monumental feat in his birthplace, Figeac, as well as an oversized copy of the Stone.

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GERS

EASY PEASY

Born in Beaumontde-Lomagne in 1601, mathematician Pierre Fermat flummoxed mathematicians for around 350 years with his Last Theorum. In 1994 British mathematician Andrew Wiles proved the theory, that the Pythagorean equation x n + y n = z n has no whole number solutions if n is greater than 2. Funnily enough, the Theorem was referred to in an episode of Star Trek in which Picard told Commander Riker about “not being able to unravel a simple knot tied by a part-time French mathematician working alone without a computer”.

DELICIOUS DISTILLATION

Armagnac is thought to be France’s oldest wine distillate. Taken for medicinal purposes in the 15th-century (where have we heard that before), it became more popular from the 16thcentury onwards. Defined as the Armagnac Appellation in 1909 and now covering around 13,000 hectares in Gers and, to a lesser geographical extent, Landes, it is designated as XXX, for less than two years distillation in oak casks, VSOP being four years and Napoleon for five years or more.

Bulls and Rams?

After the Gallic Lactorates tribe surrendered its oppidum to the Romans, the Gallo-Roman city we now know as Lectoure, then the capital of Novempopulania, grew substantially. Its high grounds contained temples dedicated to Jupiter and Cybele, an ancient Phrygian earth goddess whose worshippers sacrificed the bull and ram as symbols of strength and fertility. Incredibly, an altar decorated with bulls heads was unearthed in 1540 when the east side of the cathedral was demolished. It can now be seen in the Lectoure museum.

What a find!

The Musée du Trésor d’Eauze may be small but it’s a veritable treasure trove, thanks to a find in 1985 which saw a new museum created and opened in 1994. Spread over three floors, the basement is a virtual walk-in vault where, presented vertically, you will find 28,003 silver Roman coins dating from the 3rd and 4th-centuries. Not only that but there are 45 coins in bronze and three in gold. Opposite is a fabulous display of jewellery studded with precious stones and intaglios. The rest of the museum displays prehistoric tools and reflects daily life and religion in Roman times.

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TARN-ET-GARONNE

Size Doesn’t Matter

Despite being one of the smallest French departments, Tarn et Garonne has a beautiful and diverse landscape ranging from the plains between the rivers Tarn and Garonne, the lush Aveyron river valley, the Lomagne hills in the south west, and the limestone plateaux (Causses). Small but perfectly formed!

IMPRESSIVE

Unlike other departments in the region, Tarn et Garonne wasn’t created in 1790. Instead it was Emperor Napoleon I who took parts from Lot, Haute-Garonne, Gers and Lot et Garonne in 1808. His decision came after an invitation to visit the industrial and commercial centre of Montauban whose people and location so impressed him that it became the capital of the new department.

MONTAUBAN’S SON

Born in the capital, Montauban, in 1780, Jean- Auguste-Dominique Ingres became known as the last of the great history painters with “The Vow of Louis XIII” (on display in Montauban’s Notre- Dame Cathedral). Donating paintings and antique vases to the town during his life, he added thousands of drawings and paintings to the collection following his death. Many of these can be seen in the Musée Ingres.

Romanesque Origins

Some date the foundations of Moissac’s original Romanesque Abbaye de St-Pierre to Clovis in 506. Others claim that the Benedictine monastery was founded by Bishop Didier of Cahors at the time of Clovis II around 639. Receiving gifts of land from rich benefactors, including the Carolingian monarchy, it was protected by the Counts of Toulouse because of its revenue. Part of the church had collapsed by 1030 and a fire destroyed the rest in 1042 and a sad history followed during various wars. It was rebuilt after the Hundred Years War in the Gothic style we see today.

Sarracenum

The oldest mention of the sub-prefecture, Castelsarrassin, was found in Raymond II of Rouergue’s Will in 961 as Castel Sarracenum in the Saracen area. He gave the Saint-Saveur church to the Moissac monastery. The town survived many conflicts but the Hundred Years’ War caused probably the greatest unrest with Catholics living in the city and Protestants living outside.

N.HAUTE GARONNE

WHAT A VENUE

Be prepared to be overwhelmed by the exquisite art in the Musée des Augustins. Together with modern 20th-century works, you will find sculptures, paintings and special collections dating from the Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance periods, including Rodin, Rubens and Delacroix. However, this fabulous building isn’t just a museum, you can attend courses and workshops on a wide range of subjects from art and design through to yoga.

I-SPY

Don’t be too quick to cross Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in Toulouse. Erected in the late 16th-century, it is well known for its colourful nighttime illuminations. However, did you also know that the history of its construction can be found along its 220m length? In addition, from a distance, can you see the manes and faces of any lions? Apparently that’s what the openings in the piers were designed to represent. Grrreat architecture!

UNESCO

Toulouse is home to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites: The Canal de Midi, the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route, and the largest remaining Romanesque building in Europe, the Basilica of Saint Sernin. With origins dating back to the 4th-century, it was constructed in the Romanesque style between 1080 and 1120 and contains the remains of the Saints Sernin and Honoratus, along with other saints buried in the crypt.

What’s That?

You never know what you are going to see on the two runways at Blagnac Airport but it’s probably best to keep a curious eye on runway 32L/14R. This is the one that’s nearly always used for flight testing and delivery flights by the nearby aviation industry, including Airbus and ATR.

Some Suit!

Where can you go to see full-scale models of the Ariane 5 rocket, Soyuz modules and the Mir space station, and visit not one but two planetariums and a 3D IMAX cinema? The Cité d’Espace, it’s out of this world for information. For instance the outfit worn by astronaut Jean- François Clervoy on the Atlantis shuttle in 1994 was well travelled - 7,330,226 km to be exact!

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