City of Eleanor

Saturday market in Poitiers

Okay, now I want to move to Poitiers. 

But we cannot do this for two reasons: first, one of us inadvertently destroyed the plumbing in our Poitiers hotel, and second, the other of us insisted on speaking broken Spanish instead of French to the waiters and museum docents throughout the town and then, when they replied in perfect Spanish, not understanding a word. We were revealed as the worst kind of tourists and are probably no longer welcome here.

Poitiers was the home of the Dukes of Aquitaine -- and the Duchess, Eleanor, of course. This was Eleanor's beloved city, where she grew up and where she married the favorite of her two husbands. It was also where, I was informed by a tour guide today (to my embarrassment), her son Richard the Lionheart was born. (Oh dear, I just looked it up and apparently she was wrong. He was actually born in Oxford, England. Misinformation is everywhere!)

Notre Dame Grande

Poitiers was foggy and chilly but a lovely little city, not too crowded, relaxed, full of good food. Our first stop of the day was St. Peter's Cathedral, built by Eleanor and her second husband, King Henry II. 

St. Hilaire

On the way we passed a huge Saturday market, the early Gothic church of Notre Dame Grande, closed for renovations, and the Romanesque church of St. Hilaire, a UNESCO site because it is on the Camino de Santiago. It too was closed -- a fire last month did considerable damage. We knew about the closures so weren't unpleasantly surprised.

We went on to St. Peter's Cathedral. It's a very tall early Gothic church, full
of light. There is an original stained-glass window in the apse depicting the Crucifixion, commissioned by Eleanor and Henry, that has a pane showing the two benefactors presenting a copy of the window itself to God. There is another panel below the main part of the window featuring the royal couple's four sons: Henry, Geoffrey, Richard, and John. It was just glorious. I took maybe a hundred photos.

Salle de pas perdus

Then we visited the Palace of the Dukes of Aquitaine (and the Duchess), of which only one room is viewable. Luckily, it was a room that makes an appearance in The Queen's Granddaughter -- the great hall, called the Hall of Lost Footsteps because it's so huge that one's footsteps cannot be heard in it. It wasn't hard to imagine the banquet I describe in the book taking place in it, with its immense fireplaces and lofty ceilings.

Baptistry

After that we headed to the St. John Baptistry, an edifice begun in Roman times and remade through the 8th century. Octagonal like many baptistries (representing the seven days of creation and the Resurrection), it contained original wall paintings of John the Baptist and Christ from the 11th century, which Eleanor would have seen, and one of Emperor Constantine from the 13th century. The colors were still remarkably vivid.

Done for the day with history -- and, I fear, with Eleanor and Blanche, unless we find further traces in Paris (we're kind of addicted so we're going to keep looking!), we drove out for a Haut-Poitou wine tasting to make up for the closed wineries from the day before. We tried something called a sauvignon gris that I'd never heard of -- very local, sprightly and refreshing -- from a charming woman in our third tiny family-owned winery, and bought a bottle. And then bought a bottle of Gamay. No chance those will fit in our luggage! We'll just have to leave some clothes behind.