D 926 - Fauville-en-Caux | Ypreville-Biville 22/06/2010 10h29
On our way from Rouen to Etretat.

A écouter: Sur la Route | Raphaël (en duo avec Jean Louis Aubert)

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Place Drouet d'Erlon 19/06/2010 13h35
After a guided tour through the caves of Pommery we spent some quality time in Reims. Place Drouet d'Erlon has many restaurants and for nightlife this is the place in Reims.

Reims
Reims or Rheims, a city in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France, lies 129 km east-northeast of Paris.
Founded by the Gauls, it became a major city during the period of the Roman Empire.
Reims played a prominent ceremonial role in French monarchical history as the traditional site of the crowning of the kings of France. Thus the Cathedral of Reims (damaged by the Germans during the First World War but restored since) played the same role in France as Westminster Abbey did in England. It housed the Holy Ampulla (Sainte Ampoule) containing the Saint Chrême (chrism), allegedly brought by a white dove (the Holy Spirit) at the baptism of Clovis in 496, and used for the anointing, the most important part of the coronation of French kings.
Some sources regard Reims as the capital of the province of Champagne, given its size as by far the largest city in the region.
The 2008 census recorded 188,078 inhabitants (Rémoises (feminine) and Rémois (masculine)) in the city of Reims proper (the commune), and 291,735 inhabitants in the whole metropolitan area (aire urbaine).
[ Source and much more information: Wikipedia - Reims ]

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Carrefour CC Étoile Est - Réthel
Stewart in front of the hypermarket Carrefour of this area.

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Butte du Lion | Waterloo 17/06/2010 14h10
Before driving to the Champagne Ardennes in France we paid a visit to one of the battlefields of Europe in the 19th century.

Butte du Lion | Lion's Mound
The Lion's Mound (or "Lion's Hillock", "Butte du Lion" in French, "Leeuw van Waterloo" in Dutch) is a large conical artificial hill raised on the battlefield of Waterloo to commemorate the location where William II of the Netherlands (the Prince of Orange) was knocked from his horse by a musket ball to the shoulder during the battle. It was ordered constructed in 1820 by his father, King William I of The Netherlands, and completed in 1826. The younger William had fought at the Battle of Quatre Bras (June 16) and the Battle of Waterloo (June 18).

The monument was designed by the Royal Architect, Charles Van der Straeten, at the behest of William I. Inspiration was provided by the engineer Jean-Baptiste Vifquain, who conceived of it as a symbol of the Allied victory, rather than as pertaining to a single individual. The shape consciously recapitulates that of the tumulus of the Belgae, whom Julius Caesar had singled out as the bravest of the Gallic tribes.

A huge mound was constructed at the spot, using earth taken from other parts of the battlefield, including the fields between La Haye Sainte farm and the Duke of Wellington's sunken lane.

The mound is 43 m ( 141 ft) in height and has a circumference of 520 m (1706 ft), which dimensions would yield a volume in excess of 390,000 m³ (514,000 yd³), despite the usual claim of 300,000 m³. The discrepancy might be accounted for if part of the volume is occupied by an existing volume of some topographic feature, say, the ridge of Mont-St. Jean.

Victor Hugo mentions in his novel Les Miserables that on visiting the site two years after the completion of the mound, the Duke of Wellington is said to have remarked, "They have altered my field of battle!" Be that as it may, the hillock offers a splendid vista of the battlefield, and is the anchor point of the tourist trade associated with it in le Hameau du Lion (Lion's Hamlet), where there are museums and taverns. A fee of 6 euro is charged to ascend the 226 steps leading to the statue and observation area at the top. Orientation maps documenting the battle and telescopes are provided.

The hill is surmounted by a statue of a lion mounted upon a stone-block pedestal. The model lion was sculpted by Jean-François Van Geel (1756-1830). The lion is the heraldic beast on the personal coat of arms of the monarch of The Netherlands, and symbolizes courage; its right front paw is upon a sphere, signifying global victory. The statue weighs 28 tonnes (31 tons), has a height of 4.45 m and a length of 4.5 m. It was cast at the iron foundry of William Cockerill in Liège, whence it was brought by canal barge from Liège to Brussels, and thence by heavy horse-drays to its final site at Mont-St. Jean, a low ridge south of Waterloo.

There is a legend to the effect that the lion was cast from brass melted down from cannons abandoned by the French on the battlefield. The statue was, in fact, cast of iron in nine pieces, which were assembled at the monument site.
[ Source: Wikipedia - Butte du Lion ]

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La Porte d'Aval - Claude Monet 22/06/2010 13h30
This photo is taken from the same spot Claude Monet painted La Lorte d'Aval | Bateaux sortant du port back in 1885.
Claude Monet | Bateau sortent du port - Porte d'Aval

Étretat
Étretat is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France.
Étretat is best known for its cliffs, including a famous natural arch. These cliffs and the associated resort beach attracted artists including Eugène Boudin, Gustave Courbet and Claude Monet, and were featured prominently in the 1909 Arsène Lupin novel The Hollow Needle by Maurice Leblanc.
Two of the three famous arches seen from the town are the Porte d'Aval, and the Porte d'Amont. The Manneporte is the third which cannot be seen from the town.
[ Source and more: Wikipedia - Étretat ]

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