Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Still Working Our Way In

This is just another view of St.-Aignan's church, known as the collégiale, from the center of town. A collégiale is called a collegiate church in English. It hosts a college of canons, a non-monastic, secular group of clergy (I got that from Wikipedia).

Narrow sidewalks in central St.-Aignan.

In this photo you can only see one of the two bell towers on the church. The current building was constructed on top of the original church, built on the site in the tenth century. What's left of the orignial church is now the crypt below the newer building. It's open to tourists and contains some interesting frescoes.

The sign in this image means "no parking" to the right of the sign.
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7 comments:

  1. Jean22 July, 2009 09:27

    I love street views. French parking and road signs are fascinating.
    I have a photo of me standing under a road sign which says "toutes directions" pointing one way and "autres directions" pointing the other. No place names at all.

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  2. chm22 July, 2009 13:11

    FYI - Due to a severe storm last night, Ken and Walt do not have any Internet connection until at least 6 p.m. St-Aignan time today July 22.

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  3. Anonymous22 July, 2009 16:46

    Really, I would have guessed no right turn. Good thing I'm not driving in France!

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  4. A Lewis22 July, 2009 17:02

    Sometimes those streets are SO NARROW that even side view mirrors on trucks and cars scrape the buildings....and the sidewalks...wow, they are teeny tiny....no sidewalk bistro tables there!

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  5. Will22 July, 2009 17:15

    Whenever we're in Europe, we always check out a lot of ancient churches. It's not that we're religious--we aren't although we're very spiritual--but church architecture was most often, after the castle if there was one, likely to be the biggest and most public building in the area.

    You learn a lot about the local arts and craftsmanship from seeing how much space they could span and how they managed it, etc. In Lyon last fall, we discovered a fascinating church on the left bank of the Saone (the original Lyon) whose builders had employed a fascinating "nest" of arches to support the square lantern over the transept crossing unlike anything I had ever seen.

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  6. Evol Kween23 July, 2009 02:21

    You love your signs don't you!

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  7. wcs23 July, 2009 07:33

    jean, I got my French driver's license a few years back, so I actually know what they all mean! En principe...

    chm, thanks!

    kendall, yup. No parking!

    arnie, that's why side mirrors fold back against the car!

    will, church architecture is fascinating, as is castle and fortification architecture.

    evol, I do!

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