Friday, May 27, 2022

Buildings in Bergerac

There are many examples of maisons à colombages (half-timbered buildings) in Bergerac. Here are two that I photographed during our 1989 visit to town. We had enough time in the evening and/or the next morning to walk around the center of town. And yes, we saw the statue of Cyrano, the fictional character with the long nose from Edmond Rostand's famous play. 

As a student of architecture, I was interested in these buildings. Digitized color slide, 1989.

I thought I took a picture of the statue, but I don't know where it is now. But that's what the internet is for, right? Turns out there are more than one statue of Cyrano in the small city. 

There's a building very similar to this one right here in St-Aignan. Digitized color slide, 1989.

I have no memory of where we stayed or where and what we ate that night. Maybe Ken does; he's better at keeping those memories than I am.

7 comments:

  1. I thought half-timbered houses were a specialty of Normandy, but in fact they’re all over France and probably some other countries like the UK and Germany.

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    1. If you enlarge the second photo, the beautiful brickwork is apparent.

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  2. These buildings are charming. I’ll have to go look for Cyrano.

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  3. There are buildings like these in Chinon and in Tours, lovely old houses. Even our home town in the UK has some that are similar, although some have been pulled down for redevelopment, which is tragic.

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  4. I remember seeing buildings like that in St-Aignan.

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  5. When I was growing up, when we saw old houses in our town with half timbers and stucco, we always called them Tudor style houses. I never learned the term half timbered until years later.

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  6. they look like something out of a fairy tale.

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