Namely, Nancy, France. :)
As I hoped, there were still seats for Nancy yesterday, so I spent a nice day wandering around the city, seeing what I could see. It’s not very big, but it’s really cute. The city was founded in the 11th Century, was revived by Stanislas Leszczynski, King of Poland and Duke of Lorraine (and father of Marie-Antoinette) in the mid 1700s, and then evidently pioneered the Art Nouveau movement in the late 1800s. So, as far as I could tell (from the maps I got from the tourist office), the real attraction of Nancy is all the different architectural styles. It was pretty interesting, actually, as the buildings from the 1300s are clearly nothing like the crazy art nouveau types. Besides wandering around looking at cool buildings, I also wandered through Parc de la Pepiniere, which is pretty much Nancy’s equivalent of Orangerie in Strasbourg. However, I like Strasbourg’s park better – Parc de la Pepiniere is set up in squares, and is very organized, whereas Orangerie has a more relaxed, wandering feeling. But, I enjoyed the little zoo in the park in Nancy, and I always enjoy walking through parks. :)
And now for specific sites in Nancy. The main site is Place Stanislas, named after the guy who had it built. The Hotel de Ville (I think it’s more of a government/community building than a hotel), the opera house, and the tourist office are all located on Place Stanislas. The whole place is decorated with gilded black, and it really is quite pretty. especially in the sunshine, when the gold reflects the sun. There’s also Place de la Carriere, which used to be a jousting court, and I really liked the Porte de la Craffe, which I’m assuming was one of the old gates of the city in mideval times. Surprisingly, the cathedral didn’t impress me much, though I did see two other gothic churches that were pretty.
Another fun fact about Nancy. I think the man who invented military camouflage was from the art school at Nancy, because he had a statue dedicated to him in the park. And in Nancy’s fame as a place for art nouveau, I had hoped to go to the Museum of the School of Nancy, but sadly it’s closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Even just seeing the buildings, though, I was able to appreciate Nancy’s art nouveau-ness.
The strangest part about my visit to Nancy was seeing my name EVERYWHERE. And variations on my name that I haven’t thought of… Le Nancied (I think that was a book store), Nancienne Expressions, Nancyphones… I suppose Le Nancied could be my epic story of this semester – Aeneas had the Aenied, I can have the Nancied. :) Not sure what the others could be, though. The city, in publication, is “Ville de Nancy,” which literally translates to City of Nancy, which can then be taken to mean it’s my city – all mine. Not many people can say they have a claim to a whole city, I think. :)
(I'm amazed - this post fit in one page on Word... I'm not sure I've ever written that little this whole semester! And another note: my computer and I are not getting along regarding the pictures from Nancy - I'll post the pictures as soon as it decides to cooperate. :)
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3 comments:
You do know that "hotel" in French originally meant large townhouse, right? All the old homes (aka mansions) owned by nobility in the cities were called "hotels" (with the circonflex on the o that I can't type on this stupid keyboard) and that government building was probably once the home of the local noble. Just a bit of trivia from Sophia's Store of Useless Information.
Now we both have cities! If only mine would spell its name correctly... ;-D
the birthplace of camouflage!! exciting!
I wish I had my own city...Rome doesn't count...I'm glad you had fun in Nancy, Nancy. (har har)
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