Appleton Studios: Travel Log and Art Notes: August 2019

8/30/19

Oct . 1, 2018 (3)

Ok, just a quick post to show the few things we saw in windows that drew our eye...

Okay -- at the time I couldn't "get" the popularity of
the rat here...

Did a little more research...and one source said "The civic symbolism of the town of Arras has long been dominated by the image of the rat. Rats appeared on the town's coat of arms for the first time in 1311, and over the succeeding centuries they were displayed on military insignia, on civic hats and clothing, on coins, on seals, on street-names, on pewter touchmarks, and even today as a sign of quality on the town's products" (Free Library)...and then I found the old coat of arms for Arras on heraldrywiki:

Hozier 1696

Guilbert 1853

So there's that explained....guess I wasn't listening when Dave probably explained it!

The ever-present Viking helmet - in every
tourist shop in Northern Europe, Scotland, Ireland
and even in England...sigh....

Cats

And one of my personal favorites - an honest-to-goodness old iron!

Next up, we go walkabout...

8/27/19

Oct. 1, 2018 (2)

SIGNS in the SQUARE:

There were a few signs in the square that I thought a little "over" the usual advertising attempts:

Our hotel sign (Diamante...see what they did there?)

Okay, Okay...I know this is a speed bump sign,
but it did make me think of a Gary Larson cartoon
'cause I thought "oh no, pythons ahead!"

I didn't understand what a church had to do
with a restaurant until I looked up Leffe beer...

Even at the time, this was confusing...
Confiseur= Confectioner
Why would they want to use a Rat as their sign???

But the most eye catching things were around the facades of the square...on all of them are attached/embedded images...I don't know if they were on the original buildings back in the day, are old symbols being re-purposed, or just decorations put up in the 1920's or 1940's when the square was rebuilt (war was hard on this place...)...but they were all interesting!

You could just imagine this as the sign
for the Three Cocks Inn

Guy with spyglass and ships

Dragon

Unicorn

Lots of dates...going back to the
dates of the original buildings...

Fish

Bird

Comb

I'm thinking this is supposed to be an ox...
The horns made me think this of a water buffalo
'cause I looked at a lot bull to research those horns...
I actually think the artist just had a wierd perspective!

Flowers and pomegranates?

More flowers

Harp with bird and berries

Shovels

Axe

Initials: L P

Two version of The Green Man...

Next Time: There were also a few things in windows that caught our eye...

8/22/19

Oct 1, 2018 (1)

Immediately after breakfast, we set out to explore - firstly, the square outside the hotel:

Place des Héros - it is the original historical central square of the city, dating back to the 11th century, with the buildings dating back to the 17th-18th centuries. It was mostly entirely destroyed in WWI, but everything was faithfully rebuilt (wood was replaced by bricks and stone); The facades are ornamented with sculpted symbols. Renamed "Place des Heros" in 1945 to pay tribute to the French Resistance members in Arras who were shot during WWII.

The Hôtel de Ville (Arras Town Hall) is a historic building...built in the sixteenth century, and completed in 1517. It was restored in the nineteenth century, and re-dedicated on August 26, 1867 by Emperor Napoleon III. It was then almost completely destroyed in World War 1 and rebuilt during the 1920s, using some modern materials where practicable. This can most obviously be seen inside the tower, where the main supporting structure is concrete. It has been listed as an official national monument since 1921.
(info from internet)

There was a lot to see just in the square - it was pretty early in the morning, so there weren't a lot of people and, of course, no cars...except for delivery vehicles, the square doesn't allow auto traffic -there are posts which retract into the ground when the delivery vehicle pushes a remote (like a garage remote) at all of the corner entrances...

View outside the hotel door, Hotel de Ville

Our Hotel on far left, with an Irish Pub next door

Looking at the far end of the square from our hotel door -
it's easy to see from the architecture that Arras used to be part
of the Netherlands

Town Hall on right (you can see the retractable posts behind Dave on the right)

Dave wandered further than I did - I finally made the entire
square but it took a while

The look of Hotel de Ville from the far end of the square

All around the roof of the Hotel de Ville are lions with shields...

If you want more info on them, check out Dave's blog in January

There are also fascinating faces around the Hotel as well

more faces

I'll be honest - this is the ONLY WWII memorial I saw anywhere
the entire time we were in France. In that particular part of
the world, it's all about the devastation and losses of WWI.

Coming up - details in the Square...

8/18/19

Sept 29-Sept 30, 2018

Well...That year went by fast, didn't it?

Now...where was I? Oh yeah...on the way to Europe...

We left on the 29th, direct from Dallas to Charles DeGaulle Airport in France...

Here we are in Premium Economy...

seats are a little wider

Flew all night, and then had to traverse the entirety of the dang airport to get to the train station part and wait several hours before the train to Arras...

Here's Dave looking a little worse for wear,

but at least he slept some on the plane

Nothing much to see out of the train windows except fields...

And when we finally got to Arras, the taxi couldn't drop us off very close to the hotel because it was in a square (La Place des Heroes de Nuit) blocked for cars (except for delivery vehicles...). When we came around the corner, we were facing the Town Hall and our hotel was just to the right of it...

Town Hall