Surprise

It’s so typical of Paris. Just when you thought she’d revealed all her sightseeing secrets, she casually casts another jewel in your path. So it was on Sunday we stumbled across the Domaine National de Saint Cloud. I’d seen a picture of it on one of those Monuments Nationaux flyers you see in museum cashiers and hotel lobbies. Not having heard anything else about it, we’d assumed it would be some third-rate park or wannabe Jardin de Versailles.
It turned out, of course, to be a magnificent surprise. Four hundred and sixty hectares of manicured lawns, ancient forests, breathtaking vistas and monumental fountains, all perched above the Seine at the western edge of the city. There used to be a grand château; home to Catherine de Médicis (she got around, didn’t she?), Marie Antoinette and Napoleon amongst others, it was burned down during the Prussian siege in 1870. Now all that remain are the expansively lovely grounds laid out by le Nôtre, empty and echoing. They are an enchanting fusion of formality and wildness, with grandiose water-features (a 90-metre Grande Cascade) in stark relief against densely wooded groves. For us, the melancholy sense of lost grandeur was deepened deliciously by the red autumnal richness of the soft and mamfy* day; fragrant wood-smoke curling from half-hidden tea houses nestled rustically amongst the trees.
Enthralling to realise that all this is so close to the tourist-trodden trails of the capital, tucked away at the end of Métro lines 9 or 10, a serenely evocative treasure to discover. I am filled with delight by this city which continues to astonish me with new wonders and unexpected riches.

* from the self-styled acronym for "mists and mellow fruitfulness", with apologies to Keats.

Converted

When it comes to cathedrals, I’ve always been a Gothic kind of guy. Addicted to the vertical high of a soaring Gothic nave, I have dragged LSP* across half of Europe in search of spidery stone buttresses, jewelled rose windows, fan-vaulted cloisters and flamboyantly filigreed facades. (Phew. Alliteration overload. Sorry.)
Howsomever.
Eight days in Burgundy have opened my eyes to a different style of architecture: the Romanesque. Older, simpler and sturdier, this precursor to the flashy frippery of the Gothic has a particularly strong presence in Burgundy, with every village seeming to have an older, more steadfast example. And there are of course the stirring masterpieces of Fontenay, Vézelay and (what’s left of) Cluny which anchor this region so robustly in the Romanesque.
So what is it about this style which has converted me? Compare the following images:

The first is the gloriously Gothic crossing and transept of the Eglise St. Ouen in Rouen. Delicate, dizzying perfection. The second is the aisle of the Romanesque Abbaye de St-Philibert in Tournus. Rough, massive and uneven; and yet, to me, so much warmer and more eloquently moving. Because I realise that what captivates me about Cathedrals is not so much the genius of the architecture itself, or the beauty of the buildings. Rather, it is the people who built them, and the subsequent generations of men and women who came to worship and marvel, who leave such a powerful imprint on the place.
Somehow I feel closer to the countless artisans and pilgrims before me when I can see the flawed humanity of their creation – the rough-hewn chisel marks forming an infinitely more immediate connection than the exquisite coolness of smooth stone.That’s not to say I’ll never go Gothic again in my historical ramble through religious architecture… but for true resonance, it’s (good, old) Romanesque for me.

* Long-Suffering Partner