Always up and about early, and by 7 a.m. I’m out on the street with my bike. I thought it was less than 70 km, but I first planned a visit to the Romanesque church in Anzy-le-Duc, which is a bit out of the way. It's a beautiful Romanesque complex on a small hill. This is truly a highlight for lovers of Romanesque art because it has everything: the typical checkered building style with small windows but still some stained glass.
Anzy-le-Duc: the church; the damaged tympanum and a fresco of Christ in a Mandorla in the choir.
Since there are more walls, there are also more frescoes, especially around the altars at the front. What is particularly unique are the beautiful capitals, each expressing something clearly, though not everyone agrees on the interpretation; the most amusing one shows two men pulling each other’s beards, representing wrath. On another, you can see what appears to be two upper bodies on just one pair of legs: that’s Eve being made from Adam’s side by God; the man sitting on the back of a lion is considered by some to be Samson and by others to be David. In the churches of Burgundy, the sculptures often resemble each other closely, which is normal because the Cluny monastic order built a great deal, was very wealthy, and employed some good sculptors to work in various places. This is all the more beautiful when there are no or few tourists in the early morning (I was there at 8 a.m.).
Anzy-le-Duc: capitals; fltr: David or Samsom and the lion; the wrath; Adam and Eva
After this unique visit, I cycled further to the small town of Charlieu with another church or, more precisely, parts of a Romanesque church. To get to Charlieu, I could cycle along a 'route verte' for at least 15 km. In French-speaking Belgium, they have the RAVeL, and in Flanders, the F-routes; both are cycling highways and are often, though not always, on the former bed of an old railway line. The beautiful part here is that it runs a long stretch along the Loire River. The Loire is the longest river in France, and there are many birds in the water and along the banks, including storks, which I saw today.
Cycling along the Loire with storks on the bank. The tympanum of Charlieu
During the French Revolution, much was destroyed or even demolished. Here, fortunately, a few beautiful tympanums have been saved, even though they are sometimes damaged. They are different in their carving style from what we saw in Vézelay and Autun, which belong more to the same family. This church also has a beautiful cloister where the monks read or prayed in silence. The photos speak for themselves, especially because the reddish-brown stone really comes to life under a brilliant sun.
Charlieu: Entrance and cloister
About a kilometer from the old Romanesque church stands the empty nave of the Cordeliers monks' church, with a cloister built alongside it. Cordeliers were Franciscans, and they were so called because they wore a cord around their waist, symbolizing simplicity and penance. The Cordeliers church has a beautifully preserved wooden vault that still impresses today. The cloister had a very eventful history in the 19th and even early 20th centuries when many Romanesque or Gothic buildings in France and Spain were bought up. They were dismantled and packed into crates for transport to the USA. Think of The Cloisters in New York. This cloister was bought by an American who wanted to rebuild it with a tennis court in the middle for himself. The local people of Charlieu learned about this when the cloister was already packed into wooden crates, ready to be shipped. A major campaign was launched, and the transport was stopped, and the cloister was reassembled in its original location. It’s a simple cloister with little large sculpture, but the small heads and animals are wonderfully beautiful.
Charlieu: KCloister of the Cordeliers with some typical heads
Then I cycled on, and around 3 p.m., I reached the Benedictine convent La Vigne outside the village of Pradines. Another enclosed convent, but this time with 40 sisters. They have a printing press from which they can earn a living; books, folders, and magazines are printed there. It’s a modern convent with a large, cozy church that somewhat reminds me of Le Corbusier, though it’s not by him. It’s a less strict enclosure because visitors can simply sit around the sisters in the church. The two living areas for the sisters and visitors are separated, though. Tomorrow, more about Le Corbusier as I continue southward and sleep in the town of Firminy, where Le Corbusier designed a district with a church and sports buildings, etc. He died at the beginning of the works, but his students continued working on it for decades. That’s for tomorrow.
Charlieu: wooden vault of the Cordeliers church
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