Paris1972-Versailles2003

So lets stay in wonderful lovely Amboise. As said, we come here often, too repetitive to post always! However, while looking at previous posts, realised not written or hardly told you about a wonderful building and a nice museum by the Loire river. Therefore, this is old picture new text to tell you about the Musée Hôtel Morin of Amboise! at Christmas time!!

The Musée Hôtel Morin is housed in a former private mansion from the beginning of the 16C, facing the Loire river in Amboise. It houses various collections centered around the history of the city such as famous people, urban developments, historical moments, Amboise artists, etc. The museum was the private home of Pierre Morin, treasurer of king Louis XII. Built between 1501 and 1505, in the 18C it became the ducal palace of the Duke of Choiseul, then the seat of the city/town hall in 1855. From this period, the building was transformed into a museum bringing together national repositories and collections. acquired by successive mayors. Its architecture dates from the first French Renaissance, an alliance of French Gothic and Italian Renaissance.

The domaine of Amboise and Chanteloup was raised in 1762 as a duchy-peerage. The Duke of Choiseul bought the Hôtel Morin in order to make it the seat of his seigneurial justice, the chamber of accounts and the prison. The building was then known under the name of Ducal Palace. On the death of the Duke of Choiseul in 1785, the Duke of Penthièvre bought the domain, which his daughter would inherit in 1793. Confiscated during the French revolution, the domain of Chanteloup was placed in sale while the Morin Hotel is given to the general hospice of Tours. The city of Amboise became a tenant until 1826, when it bought it from the general hospice in Tours, where the prison, the justice of the peace and the salt loft were installed.

Following his surrender in Algeria, Abd-El-Kader was taken prisoner and brought, with his family and his retinue, to France. He lived under house arrest at the royal castle of Amboise from 1848 to 1852. His garrison remained stationed at the Morin hotel for the duration of his presence in Amboise.  From the 1890s until 1970, the city/ town hall and the museum will live together in the same building. In 1970, the administrative services were transferred to the new buildings built nearby. A passage allowing direct access from one to the other of the buildings still allows the use of certain rooms for municipal purposes. Long called the Musée de l’Hotel de Ville or city hall museum, the museum has been renamed in 2014 as Musée de l’Hotel Morin or Morin hotel museum.

The museum has six visiting rooms, two vestibules, two corridors and a stairwell, The marriage room – where all civil weddings in the city of Amboise still take place, The Kings room, The Leonardo da Vinci room , The Yvonne Gouverné room, The gouache room, The municipal council room, Some rooms are still used for municipal purposes (marriage room, Yvonne Gouverné room, Council room in particular).

The city of Amboise on the museum : https://www.ville-amboise.fr/97/musee-hotel-morin.htm

The regional centre val de loire museums webpage on the Morin Hotel Museum : http://musees.regioncentre.fr/les-musees/musee-hotel-morin

There you go folks, another dandy monument in lovely Amboise , and to boot right facing the mighty Loire river. The Morin Hotel Museum is worth the detour once seen the castle, Hope it helps your planning,

And remember, happy travels, good health, and many cheers to all !!!

I like this town, Amboise, go there often get my wines, shop in the market and take a tour around its castle and clos lucé. However, I love the banks of the Loire and anything around it and here you have the wonderful Church Saint Florentin, which is many times use for exhibitions only and not service. It is an impressive building especially at night. I like to update this post for you and me.

The Church Saint-Florentin is a parish church in the city of Amboise in dept 37 of Indre-et-Loire, in the Centre-Val de Loire region, located in the old town and at the foot of the royal castle next to the Loire river.  The church was built at the request of king Louis XI so that the church of the castle ceases to be parish, for fear of diseases. Letters patent of June 7, 1473 granted for this part of the tax on salt for four years and the church is consecrated in 1484. There is little information, especially architectural  on the Church Saint-Florentin of  Amboise.

The bell tower is adorned with a 16C Renaissance dome, and was donated by the Duke of Choiseul. The nave ends with a three-sided apse. The south door is adorned with an archivolt surmounted by an accolade accompanied by two pilasters which supported missing statues. The interior was transformed in 1876 with wooden vault replaced by a stone vault , and the single nave was divided into three. The stained glass windows in the choir and the nave were produced in 1956 by Max Ingrand. The son of François I and Queen Claude, born in 1518, was baptized in this church, The stained glass windows were destroyed during WWII and replaced by original works by Max Ingrand, who also works at the Saint-Hubert Chapel of the castle (see post).

The windows, centered around the representations of the Virgin, were made in 1956. The church is also decorated with ten statues, typical of the Sulpician art of the 19C. The vertical parts of the choir were not reworked in 1876, they are from the late 15C. Today ,it serves as a place of exhibitions.

The city of Amboise on the Church of Saint Florentin  as well as other things to see: https://www.ville-amboise.fr/88/monuments-a-visiter.htm

There you go folks, another dandy in beautiful Amboise, plenty to see here see my other posts on it. Hope you enjoy this post on the Church Saint Florentin, right next to the Loire river.

And remember, happy travels, good health, and many cheers to all!!!

Ok so lets get you to another sort of off the beaten path area of my eternal Paris. This is a place that has been just passed by and only use its transport hub , an important one especially if living in the west of France like me! There are ways to get direct from my Vannes train station on the TGV service to Roissy CDG airport or even Disneyland Paris. This is the connection station sometimes and sometimes it goes direct, talking about Massy-Palaiseau . Let me tell you a bit more on it and hope you can use it as well. I have it with updated information.

The Massy – Palaiseau train station is located in the territory of the town of Massy, ​​near Palaiseau, in the department of Essonne 91, in the Île-de-France region. Here there are 3 separate stations that are juxtaposed.

The train station of the former Sceaux line, now RER B, operated by RATP, the RER C station, officially named the Massy – Palaiseau – Grande-Ceinture station and operated by the SNCF, and the TGV station, operated by the main line SNCF, which forms the hub of the TGV’s east-west interconnections.

The RER line C station, of which it constitutes the terminus of branch C2, is also served by intersector TGVs circulating between Normandie (Le Havre, Rouen-Rive-Droite) and the South-East (Lyon-Part-Dieu, Valence TGV, Avignon TGV and Marseille-Saint-Charles). The other Provence TGVs coming from or going to the LGV Atlantique and serving Massy stop at the Massy TGV station.

According to Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) plans for 2023, the station will be the terminus of the tramway line 12 Express. Still according to the same organism, the station should be served by the Grand Paris Express metro line 18 from 2027.  The new underground station should have a large arch-shaped building, largely glazed, located in the center of the interchange hub between the RER B and RER C lines; it will be installed instead of a few tracks in the beam, at an equal distance from the two gateways to which it will be connected and will act as a skylight, The TGV, RER and bus stations  are interconnected by a  241 meter footbridge to allows passengers to reach the RER, TGV and Vilmorin and Atlantis bus stations.

A bit on the town of Massy itself.

Massy is 15 km from Paris-Notre-Dame, point zero of the roads of France, 16 km from Evry,  34 km from Etampes, 30 km from Dourdan, 39 km from Milly-la-Forêt and only 13 km from Versailles. The town is bordered on the north by the course of Bièvre river for about 1.52 km (old river now gone from Paris see Rue du Biévre)

The Massy-Palaiseau station, opened in 1883, is currently part of a multimodal hub connected to RER B and C and completed since 1991 by the Massy TGV station served by the five French high-speed lines, Atlantique to Rennes , Nantes and Bordeaux, South-East to Lyon then Mediterranean to Marseille and Montpellier, North to Lille and Brussels and now Eastern Europe to Strasbourg. There is also bus stations of Massy-Atlantis and Massy-Vilmorin

By road , you have the two ancient roads prior to the 18C, the national road 20 heir to the great royal road from Paris to Toulouse, currently the 920  road (this have taken from Paris to Toulouse! both when name 20 and now 920 ) to the far east and the 188 road from the east to the southwest (old road of Chartres main axis of old Massy constituted of the avenue of President-Kennedy,  Rue Gabriel-Péri, rue du mai 8 1945 and the rue de  Paris).

Other than the intersection on TGV from Vannes to Roissy CDG,  which I have taken several times, and Disneyland Paris once,  there is to see  the Opera de Massy, Cultural Center Paul Bailliart, and the Conservatory of Music and Dance.  There is ,also, the Château de Vilgénis rebuilt in 1823,  from its origins of 1755, now owned by Air France!

Some webpages to help you plan your trip by here are:

The city of Massy on transports : https://www.ville-massy.fr/massy-a-venir/

The Paris Saclay tourist office on TGV at Massy : https://www.destination-paris-saclay.com/fr/mon-sejour/pratique/services-autour-de-la-gare-de-massy-tgv/

The SNCF Massy TGV train station : https://www.garesetconnexions.sncf/fr/gare/frdju/massy-tgv

The Transilien RER trains B and C : https://www.transilien.com/fr/gare/massy-palaiseau-8739357

The Massy-Palaiseau station is nice big areas, plenty of eating places and easy panels me think. The trip from the west is long ok for me but my father is difficult and he has taken it with me and the boys too. However, it is a great alternative to get to Roissy CDG for many including me and avoid the Paris center, and it is very easy about 32 minutes to Disneyland Paris.

There you go folks,the transport tribulations of my belle France. Yes, you notice too almost everything is routed by Paris yes indeed. It all has to do with a National government of a Republic that wanted to crown its jewel in one city, Paris. Hope you find the post useful for your next trip to France. And remember, happy travels, good health, and many cheers to all!!!