Anyone Need a Bath? | Valognes - Exploring France
By bath in the title, we mean Gallo-Roman bath but... before we get started on this weeks blog, Matt and I (Jess) have always had a bit of a dispute as to how to say bath along with path, castle, laugh, France etc the list goes and and on. I am from the south of England, have lived there all my life until moving to Europe, whereas Matt spent most of his time in the north of England, venturing into Ireland for extended holidays and living in Scotland for a few years as a teenager. So, I say barrth with an emphasis on the non existent r, whereas Matt says baath, with an emphasis on the a. Help us settle the debate! Who is right (obviously me) and let us know in the comments. We will come onto the Gallo-Roman baths a bit later in the blog.
So, Valognes (pronounced val-o-nees). If you have ever got the ferry into Cherbourg, chances are you've skirted around the edges of this town. It is smack bang in the middle of Cotentin, the peninsula of Normandy. This has been an important route for millennia, starting out life as a route for ancient Greeks and Romans It is a fairly small town with a low population but there is quite a bit to see and do. Our tour took us about 4km walk including the Roman baths which are on the outskirts of town and also... we went for a delicious coffee! Thanks Les Normand Versailles!
We headed to the carpark labelled as Place du Château, thinking a château would be a great place for us to start. There was at one time, a château here, but unfortunately not now. It was built in the 14th century to replace an older 11th century residence where the court stayed. It was dismantled by order to the king in 1688, before 1944, only a turret remained but unfortunately, this has now been completely destroyed. It was a large square, surrounded by houses and government buildings, with a couple of shops thrown in for good measure. But it was ultimately a concrete car park. We hoped at this point, the rest of our trip here wouldn't be a disappointment too, and it wasn't so don't worry! I wanted to see a lesser known part of the town, the Palais de Justice. This courthouse had been here since 1834 and cost the town 107,474 Francs thats the equivalent of around 2 million pounds in todays money! The Palais de Justice had a prison added to it on the west side but it was destroyed during the bombings of 1944. The courthouse was ordered to close in 1926, along with 236 other courts in France, but only 5 years later, it was fully restored. It unfortunately closed again in 2009, and has been taken over by the Cherbourg district council. Today, it is used as local government buildings.
Just down the road from this impressive site, was the Public Garden. The only downside, is that they are currently doing work here, so its partially closed. Nevertheless, we still had a nice look around and got to find out a bit of interesting information about the place. The garden was built on an old 17th century houses plot. You can still see today some of the original archways from the house's entrance. There is a fountain built in the middle, but unfortunately not running because of the works being carried out. There is a little stream going through this town, we later found out that there was a mill on this site during the 14th century and this little stream supplied it. It wasn't a very pretty stream as it was now enclosed by concrete but I can imagine one day, long ago, it was a beautiful babbling brook winding its way through to the mill and the house's gardens.
Just over the road from this little park, is one of the most impressive buildings in the whole of Valognes. The town was known, during the 17th and 18th centuries as the Norman Versailles. This is because of the sheer amount of mansions built in the town, during the busiest period, there were over 70 mansions in this town, these were for the noblemen that wanted a bit of tranquility and countryside from Versailles and Paris. The house we were looking at is the most well known called Beaumont Mansion. This beautiful property dates from the 18th century and it is open to the public for tours around the house and through the gardens. Another perk of visiting this house, is thats it is opposite the cider museum!
This house is just over the road from a picturesque river, with flower beds on either side. We wondered through the town along the river, heading towards the church. The bells were chiming so it wasn't very hard to find! The Eglise Saint-Malo was built in 1420, during the Hundred Years War. The build lasted until the beginning of the 16th century. As with most of Valognes, the church was seriously damaged during World War II and was rebuilt. Nothing remains of the original nave or 17th century dome. The only thing that remained after WWII is the right hand side of the transept. We, unfortunately couldn't go into the church as a service was in process but it was beautiful to see it from the outside at least.
This is where we found the most perfect coffee shop for our visit. Its quite rare for us to find a coffee shop like this in France, normally we're left with a tabac with the locals having their mid day glass of wine. But this place did the most delicious flavoured latte. We were happy to say the least. I know its not that big of a deal, but when this is only the second milky flavoured latte we've had in the country (apart from Starbucks) it feels like a necessity!
From the coffee place, we decided to have a wonder outside of town and find the old Abbey. It is in a very odd place, down narrow roads in a residential area there is a 17th century benedictine abbey. This abbey has been a hospital since the French Revolution. This is because, during the French Revolution the nuns were driven out of the abbey during 1792 and it was converted in 1803. If you were to go inside, you would still be able to see 17th century altarpiece. We weren't able to go inside for obvious reasons (its a private hospital) but again, the outside was beautiful and there were some stunning flowers coming into bloom.
There have been settlers on this site since the 1st century BC and the only remaining part of this you can see is the Ancient Baths. Back in the day, Valognes was known as Alauna and these baths served as a wash place for residents of the ancient city. This Gallo-Roman baths were built, most likely during the second half of the 1st century and they were decommissioned during the 3rd century. The architecture was very symmetrical and houses cold and hot rooms as well as furnaces and a grand archway entrance. The ruins remain over 12 metres high and show the thick walls with different decoration across them of white and terracotta, it is quite amazing to see something that is nearly 2 millennia old still standing.
There has been lots of archeological interest in the site for the last few centuries and there has been hedges planted to show the outline of the ancient baths. It was found that during some of the archeological excavations that the local houses in the hamlet were in fact made out of the original walls of the Roman baths. The ancients knew how to upcycle! The use of this site wasn't actually known until the 17th century. Until this time, it was known as the "castle". During 1772, the owner of the plot of land on which the baths were, began work to destroy them. He used explosives and an artillery piece. This is what it looked like during the 1900's:
If you want to see more of Valognes check out our YouTube channel - https://youtu.be/jpz7mH3vN30
W3W
Gallo-Roman Baths ///stupidly.hushing.weeds
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