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...

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...

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

more on that in the next post

our hotel.. The Diamant

We were up a few floors (with no elevator...ugh)...but the room was nice and the view was cool...

Next up: Day One (which will take several posts since between us we took 443 pictures!)

August-September

Slower months and yes, I blame the heat - I mean, who wants to go outside?

Raider, as always doesn't care...

Laying on the guy is a GOOD thing!

Laying by the lady is okay, too!

We met up with other members of the Cedar Hill Genealogy group for dinner - and when we came out there was a complete rainbow! (wasn't where my phone could get the entire thing, though!)

On the 10th,  I met Lu and Julie for lunch and then we all went to the Plano Quilt Show - it was nice and it was wonderful being with and seeing friends -

I took pics of some of my favorite entries and we saw a lot of people we knew.

Later in the month, Val and I had a "crafting day" with Sandi -

it was fun, even if it was a long day -

In September, we only had a few highlights - 

Dave and I went out to dinner at Maggiano's to reward us for a hard day of adultingl A few days later, I got new gloves for colder weather:

We went to the Istanbul Grill for Dave's birthday lunch on the 13th and on the 15th we had Movie Night to celebrate his birthday with friends -

watching "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"

Rob has been accepted into the pack, at last!

On the 21st, we were going to the Greek food festival in far North Dallas, but storms were predicted, so we found a Greek restaurant in Cedar Hill that was just as good (we were only going for the food, after all) -

and on the 22nd, our power went out from 1am to 4:15pm, so mid-morning we took ourselves to IHOP for lunch -

and on the 26th, Shera came in to house-sit/dog-sit for us.

Next stop - France!

July

July was great -

it started with a visit from the Hawkes!  Ms. Tiersa wanted to go to a museum, so we went over to the Kimbell in Fort Worth...

me - Tiersa - Shera

 It was nice to see all of the art again - especially two of my favorites -

"Portrait of a Woman" - (probably Isabella d'Este)
Gian Cristoforo Romano, c 1500

"Composition" - Piet Mondiran (oil) 1914

We titled this "Waiting for Tiersa"

 They were only able to stay the one day, but it was great to see them!

 On the 6th, I took a class from Julie on her wave piecing technique -

On the 14th, it was TAQG Rally Day - good attendence -

 and our speaker was Deb Tucker (website here) - very entertaining and informative -

On the 18th I joined former co-workers from Blue Cross Blue Shield for lunch -

And on the 19th, Dave and I went to the Arlington Museum of Art for an exhibit of movie costuming - a lot of stuff to look at - a few of my favorites -

Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp)
Curse of the Black Pearl
Designed by Penny Rose
(just had no life without Mr. Depp's presence)

Catherine of Braganza (Shirley Henderson)
The Last King
designed by Mike O'Neill

First Lady (Lara Flynn Boyle)
Land of the Blind
designed by Phoebe de Gaye

 A quick word about the red one...I hated this dress in person - the silk organza looked dry and stiff, the netting awkward...but when I looked at the photos, I readily agreed that the dress filmed beautifully - which is the point of movie costuming, I guess - it has to look right, even if it wouldn't have been done "in period"...

Aftwerwards, we went to Prince's for lunch - worth leaving the house for!

On the 21st, our friends Ann and Sam got married and we were able to catch up with some old friends! Unfortunately, it was 114-degrees outside, so we left pretty quickly after the vows.

successful wedding!

and on the 23rd was DAFA - we had a Mad Hatter Art Swap Tea Birthday Party - it was a blast!

It was just too hot to do anything more!