South-West France without the Neanderthals

As a supplement to our own detailed and informative (!) guides to Aquitaine (see blogs for April 19 & 20) we can strongly recommend Tiens! magazine , and online magazine featuring all things SW France. Tiens! magazine is created by, amongst others, La Résidence's favourite cartoonist Perry Taylor:

La Résidence - THE French Property People

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia

The Château of Angers, you'll recall, houses the Apocalypse Tapestry, which features The Beast, whose number is thought by some to be 666.

Fear of the number 666 is called hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. In the US, there was so much hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia that Route 666 (Arizona-New Mexico) was recently renamed Route 491 (in Hebrew gematria, 491 comes out as 'Homer Simpson'). The English A666, meanwhile, is in Lancashire, and runs from Langho to Pendlebury. Spookily, Pendlebury is not a million miles from Wigan, which is twinned with Angers! Wigan is the headquarters of Heinz Foods, and the Number of the Beans is 57.

The Whore of Babylon rides a seven-headed beast, and on her forehead is written (according to The Book of Revelations) "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth" - which is one hell of a tattoo. Ian Paisley MP frequently alludes to Ms Babylon, and has claimed that seat number 666 in the European Parliament in Strasbourg is reserved for The Antichrist. It was never a popular seat.

Others claim that the Statue of Liberty in New York is modelled on Ms Babylon. If you've been paying attention to these blogs (and I know I haven't) you'll remember that the statue was sculpted by Frédéric Bartholdi (see our Alsace blog), who modelled the face on his mother and the body on his mistress - but let's not let historical fact stand in the way of a good conspiracy theory: 1) the statue represents the Roman goddess Libertas, who was sort-of related to the Babylonian godess Ishtar 2) the Whore "sits upon many waters" (Revelation 17:1) i.e. New York harbour 3) the US occupy Baghdad, historical capital of Babylon.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the Western Loire...


La Résidence - THE French Property People

The Western Loire for beginners

The Western Loire, or Pays de la Loire is another job-creation region. Like Rhone-Alpes for Lyon and Midi-Pyrenees for Toulouse, Pays de la Loire was created so that France's sixth city Nantes could be capital of it. Confusingly, for chateaux-twitchers, most of the famous Chateaux de la Loire are actually in Centre region. The bureaucrats did leave a couple of chateaux in Pays de la Loire though, and of these, the Chateau at Angers is the most impressive.

England's Henry II was born there, poison-gloved hit-queen Catherine de Medici lived there and, ironically for Johnny Frenchman, the Duke of Wellington received his military training there. If you visit, don't miss the fourteenth-century Apocalypse Tapestry, a magnificent end-of-he-world comic-strip, medieval-stylee. All your apocalyptic favourites are there, including The Four Horsemen, The Whore of Babylon and The Beast.

Now, you may have been under the impression that The Number of the Beast is 666, but scholars now dispute this and suggest that The Number is actually 616. It's all down to Hebrew gematria, in which every letter in Hebrew represents a number. The Beast is widely thought to represent the Roman Emperor Nero. If you take the Greek spelling 'Neron Caesar', translate it into Hebrew and add up the letters, you get 666. If you take the Latin spelling 'Nero Caesar', you get 616. While the scholars are slugging it out, why not get a friend to translate your name into Hebrew and work out you own Beastly Number? Mine's 726.

La Résidence - THE French Property People

One man at odds with kitchen appliances

Mon Oncle (1958) starring the incomparable Jacques Tati


La Résidence - THE French Property People

Some other things you should know about Aquitaine

Present-day Aquitaine has much to offer. The Dordogne is famous for its truffles. (To hunt for truffles, you'll need a truffle-pig and a truffle-stick: the pig to find the truffles and the stick to stop the pig eating them.) In the Basque region (the southern bit near Spain) bull-fighting is popular - though not with the bulls. The Dune de Pilat is the largest sand-dune in Europe, and it's moving inland at a rate of 5 metres a year (they MOVE?) The Bassin d'Arachon is a huge lagoon famous for oysters. Oysters can change sex several times during their life-span. This indicates frivolity on their part. Gender reassignment is a serious matter and should only be undertaken after much consideration.

Bordeaux is also the centre of France's aeronautic industry, and produces the cockpit of the A380 airbus, the boosters of the Ariane 5 rocket and the M51 missile. Now that would make quite a plane. In case you were wondering, the Ariane 5 is an expendable launch system designed to deliver payloads into geostationary transfer orbit, while the M51 is a missile with six independently targetable TN75 thermonuclear warheads. Clear now?

Almost as alarming as Aquitaine's nuclear capability is the Vine Pull Scheme. Not content with turning millions of bottles of drinkable wine into industrial alcohol every year the EU (boo hiss) have decided to reduce the wine lake further by paying farmers to tear up their vines! This must be stopped!

La Résidence - THE French Property People

Everything you need to know about Aquitaine (almost)

Aquitaine is the bit in the bottom left-hand corner of France. 30,000 years ago, it was inhabited by Neanderthal Man, who was notoriously messy and never tidied his cave. Only recently, another untidy Neanderthal cave was discovered near Bourg-sur-Gironde, and archaeologists are still busy picking up stone axes, half-eaten boxes of narwhal nuggets and unwashed underpants. Neanderthal Man's descendants can still be seen in Bordeaux today, especially when Girondins de Bordeaux are playing at home.

Bordeaux was sacked in 276 by Vandals. They came back in 409 and sacked it again, this time properly. It was then sacked in 414 by Visigoths and finally in 498 by the Franks. These were dark days for Bordeaux - but a great time to be a barbarian! After 498 there was nothing left to sack and the barbarians turned their attention elsewhere.

From 1152 to 1453 Aquitaine was part of England. Hurrah. The locals knew they'd become part of England because suddenly the trains were late and the food tasted dreadful. Here's how it happened. Eleanor of Aquitaine had been married to Louis VII of France. Eleanor then remarried, to a nice English chap called Henry. Within months of their marriage, Henry was made King of England. Which was nice. This meant that their two boys Richard and John, and all their successors got to be Dukes of Aquitaine, as well as King of England. Result.


La Résidence - THE French Property People

The La Résidence essential French vocab list

Essential French verbs...

arroser = to water

(Cartoon by Gascony-based ex-pat Perry Taylor - reproduced with permission - thanks Perry! For more great cartoons, visit his online gallery and shop at http://www.perrytaylor.eu/)

La Résidence - THE French Property People

Alsace for beginners - 2

When in Alsace, you must visit the remains of the Maginot Line, that Sinclair C5 of fortifications. The young Charles de Gaulle did suggest that hard-earned francs might be better spent on some aircraft, but André Maginot was having none of this modern nonsense and built a system of defences all the way from the Med up until Belgium. No need to defend against the Belgians, who are, after all, friendly people who eat chips with mayonnaise. And waffles. Maginot was outraged when the ungentlemanly Germans either flew OVER his Line or walked through Belgium.

The pretty town of Colmar is the second driest town in France (in terms of climate, not alcohol. There are plenty of bars.) Charles the Fat held a Diet there in 884. No, really. Actually I think it was some sort of parliament.

One of Colmar's most notorious sons was Georges-Charles de Heekeren d'Anthès, the man who shot Russia's favourite poet Pushkin. Pushkin caught d'Anthès looking at his wife "in a funny way," Pushkin's wife Natalya did nothing to discourage d'Anthès and, in an early example of cyber-bullying, d'Anthès circulated an anonymous letter at court, casting doubt on Pushkin's abilities in the bedroom department. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but it's no match for a state-of-the-art 1837 duelling pistol. Especially when fired by a trained soldier with so many names.

Colmar was also the birthplace of Frédéric Bartholdi, the sculptor who created the Statue of Liberty. Apparently he modelled the face of the Statue after his mother and the body after his mistress. Worrying.


La Résidence - THE French Property People

Alsace for beginners

Alsace is France's smallest region and you'll find it in the top right-hand corner. It's sandwiched between the Vosges mountains to the West and the Black Forest mountains across the Rhine in Germany. It's a classic example of "horst and graben" geology from the Oligocene era (about 30 million BC.) Think of a Black Forest Gateau that's been heavily leant on. The good news is this makes Alsace one of France's driest regions, because er, the rain only rains on the hills and er, sorry Sir, can you explain that bit again?

The half-timbered houses of Alsace are one of the region's most striking features. For most of its history, much of Alsace was flooded on a yearly basis. ( But I thought you said it was one of the driest regions in France? Oh, ok it doesn't rain much but the Rhine floods.) In the days before flood damage insurance, the Alsatians (the people, not the dogs) decided that the best solution to this predictable inundation was to build wooden kit-homes, which could be dismantled, moved somewhere drier and reassembled in a day. Having found somewhere dry, you'd think they'd just leave it there, wouldn't you?

The Oaths of Strasbourg have nothing to do with the sort of language you hear today in Strasbourg's rush-hour. They were pledges of allegiance sworn in 842 by royal brothers Louis the German and Charles the Bald. Charles the Bald was, of course, succeeded by Charles the Fat and Louis the Stammerer. It would be another 1000 years before political correctness arrived in Alsace.


À suivre...



La Résidence - THE French Property People

Time to start charging?

Perry Taylor is a British artist living in Gascony. He's produced many humorous cartoons about ex-pat life in France, including this one -  a warning about how popular you, and your French holiday home may become!

(Cartoon reproduced with permission - thanks Perry! For more great cartoons, visit http://www.perrytaylor.eu/)

La Résidence - THE French Property People

More Monet

Claude Monet's 1868 fall into the river Seine has been wrongly interpreted as an attempt to end it all. In fact, it was an experiment in extreme plein-air painting. Claude survived the fall, but the canvas of "The River Seine Coming Towards Me Really Quickly" was never recovered.

Many years later, Claude was travelling by train, spotted the picturesque village of Giverny from the window and decided instantly to live there. Luckily for Claude, his train was the 8.16 (Saturdays only) from Vernon to Gasny, which travels through some of the prettiest countryside in Upper Normandy. Had he been travelling from Hinckley to Birmingham New Street, he might have settled in Nuneaton.

Claude spent the rest of his days at Giverny, and today you can visit the gardens he created there. Claude's paintings now fetch astronomical prices, and "Falaises près de Dieppe" (Cliffs near Dieppe) has been stolen twice. In 1998, it was stolen by the museum curator, who was caught leaving the museum with a suspicious 4'x6' bulge under his jumper. It was stolen again in August 2007. It can't have been the curator this time because he's still in prison.



La Résidence - THE French Property People

Monet, Monet, Monet

Claude Monet (1840-1926) wasn't born in Upper Normandy. He was born on the fifth floor of 45 Rue Laffitte, Paris. A year later, Claude's mum went into labour in the lift, and his brother Zoot was born on the second, third and fourth floors. Claude's dad was a greengrocer and his mum was a singer, who would lull the boys to sleep with "Oui, nous n'avons pas de bananes" and "J'ai un luverly bunch de noix de coco." The Monets moved to Le Harvre, Upper Normandy in 1845.

When Claude was 16, he met the painter Eugène Boudin on the beach at Le Harvre. Boudin picked up his hat, returned Claude's frisbee and explained that he was painting "en plein air" - outdoors! Apparently, before the invention of toothpaste-tube-style oil paint around this time, everyone painted indoors (painters had to mix their own paint with linseed oil and pigment powder, which would blow everywhere if you tried to mix it outdoors. So why didn't they mix it indoors and then run outside with it and paint really quickly? I dunno, ask them). Boudin explained other techniques for outdoor painting to young Claude, such as wrapping up warm, taking a thermos and some sandwiches, and practising saying "Oh really, it's nothing" for when people come and look.

Claude took to plein-air painting like an impressionist to lilies, and was soon to be seen out-and-about with his hi-tech French Easel (Easel, incidentally, comes fro the German 'Esel' (donkey) because it carries things, or possibly because it squeaks). In 1861, Claude was sent to Algeria for a seven-year tour with the First Regiment of African Light Cavalry. He found the landscape uninspiring and produced only three canvasses (all lost): "Sand dunes with distant sand", "The same sand dunes later that day" and "Anyone know where I can find some lilies?" When Claude contracted typhoid, his auntie Marie-Jeanne Lecadre offered to get him out of the army, on condition he study art at university and learn to paint properly. Indoors.


À suivre...


La Résidence - THE French Property People

Vive le swing!

Belleville Rendez-Vous

La Résidence - THE French Property People