Paris1972-Versailles2003

This one was a while back in my road warrior tours of the quant nice Vendôme , I like to do this post as an introduction and have it in my black and white series, no pictures, I have been all over France, but sometimes just touch base ,go on the run and lucky to be able to come back to many, but still work to do. Do see my next posts on the town!  Let me tell you about this is Vendôme  !!! Hope you enjoy the post as I.

The City of Vendôme is from the department of Loir-et-Cher no, 41 in the Centre-Val de Loire region of my belle France, The city has a rich medieval history and many historic monuments. It is located in the center of a quadrilateral of cities, Tours, Le Mans, Chartres, Orleans and Blois, Therefore, it is 33 km from Blois, 57 km from Tours, 73 km from Orleans, 76 km from Le Mans, 87 km from Chartres, 148 km from Angers, 161 km from Laval, 164 km from Poitiers, 174 km from Paris, and 357 km from my house. The city is crossed by the RN 10 road, between Châteaudun and Château-Renault. However, I got there by mostly the N157 past Rennes ,A81 past Laval ,a bit on the A11 past Le Mans and a bit onto the A28 , then D357 ,then D957 to Vendôme.

As said, many things to see here and I will shortened to have some of my most favorites.

The Porte Saint-Georges gate, the only one still in place among the four which controlled access to the city. In 1467, Count Jean VIII conceded it to perpetuity to the aldermen who decided to hold their assembly there. The door is decorated with a medallions decor in the 16C. The city council meetings and weddings took place again since its restoration in 1959 following the fire linked to the bombing of 1940.

You see the statue of Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Maréchal de Rochambeau, erected in 1900 on Place Saint Martin, testifies to one of the numerous feats of arms of this career soldier. Alongside George Washington, Rochambeau contributed to the victory of Yorktown in 1781, for the cause of American independence.

The Château de Vendôme, below, the rue Ferme is the old farmyard of the castle, a sort of safety corridor controlled by fortified doors. Most of the street residences are old houses in the Château Collegiate Church. Abandoned by the Dukes of Vendôme, the castle was attached to the crown in 1712 but did not get more attention. In 1791, the ruin of the castle was confirmed by its sale to various owners. The Saint-Georges collegial Chapel of the castle houses, from its foundation to the 11C until the 17C, the tombs of the counts and dukes of Vendôme, in particular those of Jeanne d’Albret and Antoine de Bourbon, parents of Henri IV. The dismantling of the castle, after the French revolution, goes hand in hand with that of this Bourbon-Vendôme necropolis, already undermined by two assaults (in 1562 by the Huguenots and in 1793 by the revolutionaries.

The Trinity Abbey was founded in 1032, and saw the construction of the first church, which from 1056 escapes the Episcopal Chartraine jurisdiction to be attached directly to the Pope (by decision of Geoffroy Martel, who founded it). In 1271, this abbey was deemed dilapidated by the monks who decided to rebuild it. A new choir is built around 1308. The harmony of proportions and the large bays decorated with clover patterns are representative of radiant Gothic architecture. It seems that, from the 12C, The current castle corresponds to part of all of the houses built in the 15C in the flamboyant Gothic style. The Museum of Vendôme of which its permanent collections are presented in part of the buildings of the former Trinity Abbey. Access to the first two floors is by a 17C stone staircase which led to the monks’ dormitory. The collections restore Vendôme and its surroundings, both in the geological and ancheological field. Ancient professions, sometimes disappeared, are mentioned in the ethnology room from tools: tanners, ganniers, clogs. In the Fine Arts field, the museum keeps some remarkable pieces: Marie-Antoinette harp, table of the Babeuf gracchus trial. Pictorial works: decorations painted by or after Nicolas Prévost from the Château de Richelieu, painting by Willem Van Aelst: Dead nature dated and signed by 1663, painting of the school of van der Meulen representing Louis XIV, paintings by Georges-Antoine Rochegrosse. By unidentified painters of the 18C: portrait of Lady Charlotte, portrait of Marie-Thérèse de Saulx. The room dedicated to earthenware reveals important productions of Rouen and Nevers.

The Hôtel de Ville or City Hall,story goes that it was the Duke César de Vendôme who founded in 1623 a college which he entrusted to Oratorians . This building changes its name several times.Royal military school at the end of the 18C, it became the Ronsard high school in 1930. The former premises, unoccupied, were developed in 1982 to welcome the City Hall. Honoré de Balzac was a student for seven years, at the beginning of the 19C at the Ronsard school. Tradition has it that it will make its punishment, locked in a reduced of the old Bellay hotel, known today as the Hôtel du Saillant, and which houses the tourist office today. The wooden houses, several medieval houses in the center of Vendôme are in wooden sides, a mode of economic construction still used in the 18C and 19C. Dated to the end of the 15C, Maison Saint-Martin consists of an assembly of wooden posts based on sand pits with horizontal beams. On the ground floor, four sculptures represent, from left to right: Saint Martin, Saint James, Saint John the Baptiste, and Saint Louis.

The Place du Marché or market square, formerly Place du Pilori, a square of public execution abolished in the 16C, the market square was originally only an extended street. To remedy the traffic problems caused by the market, the city buys and demolishes houses. The current covered market hall was inaugurated in 1896 and glazed in 1981.

The Pont du Pont Neuf, the wooden bridge which linked the closed city to the castle of the 18C disappeared for lack of maintenance. The Pont du Pont Neuf commands this access. It is the only witness of this crossing point between the two fortified ramparts. During the Save of Vendôme on November 19, 1589, it was through this door that Henri IV’s troops were engulfed taking the city after their victorious assault on the castle.

The Porte d’Eau , this fortified door during the end of the 13C and 15C, is also called the Arche des Grands Prés, the name of the land that surrounds it. From the Middle Ages, the quantity of water from the Loir is controlled to supply the city mills. Thus, a dam was masonry by the monks of the Trinity to ensure the necessary flow for their mill called “Moulin Perrin”. Pierre de Ronsard quotes the Loir valley and the Vendômois in his writings.

I need to tell you this too, and tried quite nice and inexpensive wines, The first written mention of the wines on the Coteaux du Vendômois dates back to the year 1000. Henri IV stopped one day near Vendôme to cool off with the local wine and having appreciated it, he had it delivered to his castle of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (see posts). The Vendômois vineyards extend between Vendôme and Montoire on the upstream part of the Loir Valley, on both sides of the river. The creation of the Appellation of Origin Controlled “Coteaux du Vendômois”, on May 2, 2001, makes it possible to maintain the wine with the production of Pineau d’Aunis and Chenin Blanc grapes. In 2017 , creation of wines bearing the Vendôme brand from the grape variety, Pineau d’Aunis, emblematic of the region.

A bit of history I like tell us that Vendôme was the capital of the county of Vendôme, whose existence was attested from the 9C, and which became duchy in the 16C, then election in the 18C. From the end of the 14C, the county of Vendôme, then the Duchy until the accession of Henri IV to the throne, will belong to a branch of the royal family: the Bourbon-Vendôme. In 1790, during the French revolution,the city became a simple arrondissement and sub-prefecture of Loir-et-Cher, under the supervision of Blois.The primitive dungeon of the Château de Vendôme, probably succeeded a Roman castrum in the 11C, itself preceded by a Gallic oppidum. The Abbey of the Trinity founded in 1032 and the primitive Church Saint-Martin concentrated around them a first group of housing in 1032, During the second half of the 12C, the city passed in turn in the hands of Henri II Plantagenêt and Philippe Auguste in 1188, Bouchard IV of Vendôme delivers the city, the castle and the English garrison to Philippe Auguste in 1194, The King of France returns to invade the city again and besiege the castle. The shock between the two armies took place on July 5, 1194 in Fréteval and Philippe Auguste, defeated, fled, abandoning his archives in the battle. In 1371, after the death of Count Bouchard VII of Vendôme and his daughter Jeanne de Vendôme, their sister and aunt, Catherine de Vendôme, inherited the county. Her marriage to Jean VII Comte de Vendôme gives birth to the house of Bourbon-Vendôme. In 1458, his grandson Jean VIII, in support of the king, welcomed Charles VII Vendôme became a duchy in 1515 and the Dukes and Duchesses participated in the transformation of the city. The Countess Marie de Luxembourg presides over the embellishment of the Saint-Jacques Chapel, the Porte Saint-Georges, the church of the castle and the reconstruction of the Saint-Martin Church. In 1623, César de Bourbon founded the College of Oratorians who later became the Ronsard high school, and part of the buildings housed the town hall and the current tourist office. On October 20, 1548, Jeanne d’Albret , who became Protestant in 1560, married Antoine de Bourbon , second Duke of Vendôme, In 1815, on the road to exile which leads him from Paris In Rochefort, the now ex-Emperor Napoleon I passed by Vendôme , On December 15, 1870, during the Franco-Prussian war took place the Battle of Vendôme, In 1873, the 20th regiment of horse hunters was reborn in Rambouillet before being transferred to Vendôme at the beginning of the 20C where it was holding a garrison in the district Rochambeau, occupying the buildings of the former Benedictine Abbey. It was not engaged in war operations until 1914 and his participation in the Great War or WWI. The regiment was dissolved in 1919 , On June 15, 1940, the bombers of the Luftwaffe dropped their bombs on Vendôme, On August 11, 1944, the city was largely liberated by the Vendômois resistance fighters led by Commander Verrier and Colonel Valin de la Vaissière . The Americans entered Vendôme on August 13, 1944 with the mission of neutralizing the last Nazis present in the city.

The City of Vendôme on its heritage : https://www.vendome.eu/dynamique/patrimoine/

The Vendôme tourist office on its heritage : https://www.vendome-tourisme.fr/en/what-to-see-what-to-do/visits-and-patrimony/

The local Val de Loire dept 41 tourist office on Vendôme : https://www.val-de-loire-41.com/sit/visite-de-la-ville-de-vendome-pcu41aasor100210/#overlay-popin

The wines of the Loire on the coteaux du Vendômois: https://www.vinsdeloire.fr/en/loire-wines/coteaux-du-vendomois

There you go folks, another wonder to be seen, worth the detour , me think. This is wonderful architecture and history to know and visit ,and even with more time. Do read my other posts on the town in my blog, Again, hope you enjoy the post on this is Vendôme !!! as I

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