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Published: August 24th 2017
When you have a trip that is as long as ours is through the French inland waterways you pick a few “shorter goals” to make you at least feel that you are making progress. One of the logical cities to pick as one of our goals was Toul. Why Toul? A few reasons – one was definitely its physical location as it is where we were going to start to turn south toward the Mediterranean and the other was that we had heard that it was an interesting town historically that we might want to stay a few days there. .
Toul was first the capital of a Celtic tribe where it definitely prospered. The town ramparts were built after the first Germanic invasions and Christianity was brought to the town in the 4
th C. by St. Mansuy, the first bishop of Toul. With St. Mansuy here in Toul it became a bishopric and stayed that way for 14 centuries from 365 AD to 1807. The Bishop of Toul had political power over the largest of the three bishoprics (Toul, Verdun & Metz) that were all dependent on the Holy Roman Empire. Toul became a French stronghold in 1552 after
The Outline of the City of Toul
showing the waterway and walls protecting it Henry the 2
nd occupied the town.
The original ramparts were improved in the 13
th C. and then by Vauban in the 18
th C. The last time the Toul defenses were used as a classic fortress was in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War. That was not the end of war in this area however. In WWI Toul was the primary base for the Air Service, US Army, the predecessor of the US Air Force. Fortunately Toul was not heavily damaged during this war, but it was bombed severely during WWII. Even with that fortunately you can still see buildings dating from the 15
th – 18
th C. in the old town centre.
One of our standard questions when we visit a Tourist Information office is to find out if they have a walking tour of the city. Fortunately Toul has a historic walking tour which includes a walk around the ramparts of the city as well as seeing the historic buildings within the walled city. Walking around the outside of the wall gave a very different perspective on the city and we learned more of the defensive measures that were put in place. This city was definitely well protected with
the walls that in areas are over 15 feet high and the surrounding waterway. Part of their defensive system included cannons placed on a stone structure that was placed over the waterway (added in 1846) as well as another area where water was sluiced out of town into the Moselle River. This was added to the defensive plan in the 18
th C.
We have been to other places that were walled cities, but Toul is very impressive with the amount of ramparts remaining making it truly a walled city.
In 1221 the first stone of the current Cathedral Saint Etienne in Toul was laid, but it was not completed until 300 hundred years later. Just like many other churches it was built on the same spot that previous churches stood. The current one is the 9
th located here and actually uses some of the foundation of the Romanesque cathedral that had been built in the 10
th C. The towers are quite impressive in that they are square at the base, but octagonal at the top. There is a cloister attached to the Cathedral and is one of the largest Gothic cloisters in France. As it was closing when
we got to the cloister we only had a chance to look down the long row of arches so didn’t get a chance to see the garden or other details located there.
The other major church seen in Toul is the St. Gengoult Church that was built between the 13
th & 15
th C. in the flamboyant gothic style. This church was paid for partially by the citizens as they were trying to symbolize a break from the dominance of the Bishop in this town.
You notice very quickly that the streets are anything but parallel and seem to weave back and forth in a haphazard way making it sometimes difficult to walk from one place to another. It always make it interesting trying to find your way around – here with the walled city you just need to be sure to find a gate to exit through in order to get to the marina!
We have been told by many that we really should continue our travels to the town of Nancy, but when we look at the charts and calculated how many miles and locks it would add to our trip, we somewhat reluctantly decided to
turn south at Toul and not continue east to Nancy. As luck would have it, we found out that we could easily get a train from Toul to Nancy so quickly we (meaning Janice) planned another side trip by land.
Nancy is known for quite a few things – it is another city where you can try their local wines, there is a large Cathedral that many say is interesting to see, but it is also a town known for its impact on the Art Nouveau style. As we have been in numerous areas known for wine and as you have seen in previous blog entries we have visited many cathedrals so we concentrated on the history of art nouveau in Nancy. The Tourist Information office rented out audio-guides and provided us with 3 maps to try to follow. It was the most confusing system we have ever seen as the numbers listed on the maps did not match each other or the numbers on the audio-guide, but we managed to work it out!
Around 1900 many artists formed a group known as “Ecole de Nancy” (School of Nancy) that helped form an alliance between art and industry.
This is Where 2 Cannons Were Placed
in order to protect any attacks to the City of Toul Artists were inspired by plant-life and the designs found in nature and wanted to create a new style which incorporated stained glass and wrought iron in their work. It was given the name of Art Nouveau and could be seen in building structures as well as in the decorative arts such as stained glass, sculptures, wrought iron work, pottery and wood carvings. The School of Nancy also wanted to incorporate new technological progress in building construction with wrought iron to use this material as part of the external design of a building and not just as the internal structure.
Doing the Art Nouveau walk was an excellent way to get to many parts of the city as well as with the audio-guide learning more about the development of the Art Nouveau style. We could have seen some of these buildings easily with just wandering around the town, but by following the walking tour it allowed us to enter a few of the buildings. The buildings that used wrought iron in its design could be easily seen with the metal support structure being on the “outside” of the building visible to everyone rather than just the internal skeleton. Others incorporated
the art nouveau style only in the interior design. One that was quite impressive was the Chamber of Commerce building. We had walked by it on our way to the Tourist Office. We did notice the window and doorway of the building and actually took a photo of it as it interested us, but it was quite subtle. On our tour we entered this same building to see a room that was completely done in the art nouveau style. Surprisingly we got to see the same window which just ‘popped” out with the amazing stained glass in conjunction with the other details in the room.
Alsace and part of the Lorraine region were annexed by Germany after the 1870 Franco-Prussian war and Nancy became the capital of Eastern France. This resulted in the population growing and many new buildings were needed allowing for the construction of them in this new style that incorporated the arts and the technical advances in construction techniques.
While in Nancy we did get to one of the more popular tourist spots, the Place Stanislas which is an 18
th C. square that is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Stanislas was the former
ruler of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth but also the father-in-law of King Louis XV of France. Stanislas wanted to link the old medieval town of Nancy to the “new” town built in the 17
th C. under Charles III, Duke of Lorraine. He also wanted the square to be a place of royal honor to Louis XV. This square would link two existing buildings, the Hotel de Ville (city hall) and the Hotel du Gouvernement (seat of the duchy). Construction of this square started in 1752 and was completed in 1755. A statute of Louis XV was placed in the center, but it was removed during the French Revolution. Another example of the removal of statutes being nothing new. The current statute of Stanislas was put in place in 1831. The other two sides of the square were filled in with buildings to create a unified look and an Arc de Triomphe which glorified Louis XV. The Bishop’s Palace has been converted to being the current day Opera House and the Fine Arts Museum is in what had been the College of Medicine.
There are very intricate gilded wrought iron gates at the four corners of the square and two of
When We Leave Toul We Will Motor Through
this moat area of the city - quite interesting the corners have very ornate fountains. The gilded gates have given Nancy its nickname of “City With Golden Gates” – when you see them that is not a surprise as they are truly impressive.
It was a very full day of walking around the city of Nancy, but well worth our time in coming. We are glad that we could easily make it here by land so that we didn’t have to miss this gem of a place.
The next day was quite a rainy day so we stayed on the boat and tried to get caught up on a few things. It is always a welcome break at times from the exploration of the area that we are in.
Many of the towns here have an event which is called Lumiere which is where they light up a prominent building in the town with a story to tell. We heard that in the past Toul had this on the Cathedral, but this year they were doing it on the backside of the Hotel de Ville (city hall). It started at 10:45PM so had the full day for other exciting things such as walking to get groceries,
and dropping off a shoe to be repaired at the cobbler. One thing we always have to chuckle at is that many grocery stores have an “American” section of food offerings. One of the most common item in it is marshallow fluff (and many times it is strawberry flavored), but other times it is peanut butter, maple syrup or other such items. The price of these items are “over the top” and you wonder how many people actually buy these items. It must pay as most stores have at least a small section of these. In the photos you will see that there was pancake mix from Mississippi with a price tag equivalent to $7.40 and Arkansas peanut butter for $9.10 Needless to say we are very happy with purchasing products from the local countries!
There was quite a crowd at the Hotel de Ville (city hall) for the show. When we first got there the show hadn’t started yet so you could see the buildings in normal lighting. It is located right next to the Cathedral so had a chance to see both. When the lights started there were some on the Cathedral as well, but the main
show was on City Hall. It was suppose to last for 22 minutes, but unfortunately they had some technical difficulties on the first night (they do it for 2 weeks) and it ended a little early. It was a very impressive display all created by lighting and sound effects. We would have actually liked to have known the story that it was telling – we could tell some of it, but definitely missed quite a bit. We were told that it was telling the history of Toul so we did pick up some of the details from the information we had already learned. Hopefully they work out the technical problems for the rest of the time that it is showing.
Unfortunately the next morning Bob slipped and fell landing quite hard on a moss covered board at the marina. As a result he stayed on the boat while Janice did the last of the errands we typically do before leaving a port. The last grocery shopping trip for the essentials, picked up the repaired shoe at the cobbler and even stopped at a 2
nd hand clothing shop and found a very nice raincoat for herself. We also enjoyed the
Many Stores Have an "American" Section
we laugh at what we see, but not at the prices! fact that you could find plenty of these while in the UK – this is the first one we have seen since being in France.
It is interesting how we always seem to just sense that we have been in one place long enough and we know then that it is time to move on. After being in Toul for 6 days we both knew that the next day it was time to move on. We would definitely recommend this as a stop to make for any body coming through this area.
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