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We're recently back from our second trip to France this year. We spent the week in Le Mans because, after driving through the city on our way to the Circuit de la Sarthe for the 24 hours race a few times, we decided that we'd rather like to see what it looked like. And we can report that it is gorgeous!
We stayed in the Ibis Centre which was very handy for the old town and the tram. As hotel breakfasts are extortionate, we ate instead in various little cafes (for the 
bargain-hunters amongst you, we noticed that the Brioche Doree (Rue des Minimes, just off Rue de la Port) had a good breakfast offer - which we didn't try). The restaurants in the old town are a bit more pricey than those off the Place de la Republique - there are some nice little brasseries and pizza places around Republique - but I think that some of the best meals we had were in the old town. Some restaurants we tried were: La Chamade on Rue Doree; Les Trois Sonnettes on Rue des 3 Sonnettes; Le Nez Rouge on Grande Rue (brilliant but you may have to book). We did also have a great pizza in the Le Mans Legend cafe on Rue de la Port amongst all sorts of race memorabilia - well you've got to haven't you?!
Day one was spent in the cathedral and wandering around the old town and looking at the amazingly intact Roman walls. There's a lovely market in the square below the cathedral on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday mornings so we popped down and got ourselves some fruit. We also picked up a Le Mans City Pass for 10€ from the Tourist Information Office. 
This gives free entry into one of the museums plus a 24 hour public transport ticket and half price entry into lots of other museums and attractions. We decided to use our free entry to go to the museum of the 24 hour race out at the circuit 'cos it's the most expensive to get into and would also take us on a tram and a bus so we could use our public transport voucher too.
So, day two was spent at the Circuit de la Sarthe. The tram will only take you so far on non-race days (it will actually take you to the back of the circuit, but there's no way to get round to the front from there if it's a non-race day and the circuit is closed). We then took a bus which dropped us about half a mile from the circuit and we toddled off in search of cars. On the way we passed a bar that we'd last been in about 10 years ago after the 24 hour race. Then it was packed with the drunk and tired of all nations and the only food it had left was croque. Damn fine croque as I recall - although I may just have been tired and hungry at that point! I've got to say that, on that occasion, the bar didn't look like somewhere you'd normally want to spend a lot of time but today, when it wasn't packed with tired and emotional race fans, it looked very nice.
We had lunch in the cute little cafe at the circuit museum - you can see some of the exhibits from the cafe too (look over Mr H's shoulder as he downs his lunchtime pression). The museum doesn't just have Le Mans winning cars but includes a 'history of motoring' section which has everything from the earliest steam-powered road vehicles (death-traps on wheels they seemed to me) right through to Minis. 
Then it was into all the iconic Le Mans cars: Bentley, Lagonda, Lotus, GT40, Audi, etc, with a little Porsche exhibition to end. The tourist pass gives half-price entry to the circuit on non-race days so, as we could hear the sound of engines coming from there (someone testing perhaps?) we decided to go and have a look. What we actually found were members of the ACO's 'Passion 24 Club' taking their cars round the Bugatti circuit on a track day. There were some fascinating cars waiting to go on track: some rare French things 
that even Mr H had only seen in books and not seen in real life. There were also a gratifying number of British makes: Lotus, Jag, Morgan, MG, Triumph, all French-owned with only a couple of English number plates amongst them. We had a great time; going up into the grandstands; watching from the pit-wall and sticking our heads out of the gaps that they push the pit-boards through on race days. It was worth so much more than the couple of euros each that we'd paid to get in!
Then, as we were coming away from the pits, who should roll up but Vicki Butler-Henderson and a film crew to do a piece to camera before driving the new Ford Mustang round the circuit. Shown on Channel 5 on Friday 21st October 2011 and which I think you can catch online on C5's 'on demand' service. All that and I got to go on a tram as well! That's what I call a good day out.
Of course Le Mans has very strong claims on English sensibilities, and not just because of the 70,000 Brits who invade every June. Geoffrey of Anjou (Plantagenet) married Empress Matilda (daughter of and heir to Henry I of England) in Le Mans and his son Henry (who became Henry II of England) was baptised there. Following the death of Henry's son King Richard I (Cœur de Lion) his widow Berengaria retired to Le Mans. As an aside, Geoffrey of Anjou's mother was Eremburga of La Flèche - the town Chippenham is twinned with. Le Mans itself is twinned with Bolton. Yes, Bolton... What, in the name of all that is holy, possessed them to twin with Bolton? They'd obviously never visited it. However, the Bolton Food Cafe on Rue de Bolton did very nice breakfasts - no black pudding though...
As well as the amazing Roman walls by the river there is a Roman bath house (only open for orgainised visits on Tuesdays booked through the Tourist Information office so we didn't manage to get there) and remnants of Roman wall under the Plantagenet era stonework. The archaeological and history museum Carré Plantagenêt has a great view of the back of the Hotel de Ville and the surviving Plantagenet buildings 
incorporated into it. In one of the rooms in the museum that has Middle Ages period tombs (pictured above) there was a brilliant animation projected onto the blank walls telling the story of the Plantagenets. In French, of course, so I couldn't understand a bloody word but it was fantastic. We also visited the Musée de Tessé which is the city's fine arts museum. There are one or two little gems in there, but the absolutely bestest thing is that downstairs, as well as displaying all their Egyptian antiquities, they have full-sized reproductions of the tombs of queen Nefertari and an official called Sennefer! They were great and more museums should do things like that. I bet they're very popular for school trips 'cos the little buggers can wander through an almost real Egyptian tomb - something very few of them will ever get to experience.
The churches we visited were wonderful too. We don't get much Romanesque stuff in Britain so it's really nice to see Romanesque buildings when we go abroad. Although the stonework can seem heavy the light just poured in (mainly because most of the windows didn't have stained glass) and many of them didn't need additional electric lighting. Highlights were Notre Dame de la Couture and Notre Dame du Pre. Notre Dame du Pre was smaller but seemed more original, so it was an interesting contrast to the larger and more central Notre Dame de la Couture which seemed to have been 'mucked about with' (technical architectural term!) a bit more.
If you do make it to Le Mans we highly recommend the bar Flaceau. It's down a little street off the Grande Rue behind Le Nez Rouge. It's only open at night and you think that you're walking into someone's house - and you are, because they open it as a cocktail bar. The two rooms of the 'bar' are furnished in what for us would be Regency style, so I'm thinking 'Empire style' as it's in France? And there's a terrace which over-looks the remains of the Roman baths and the gardens people have planted within the ruins. It's utterly wonderful and we could have spent the entire week there.
So, in short, we had a brilliant time (despite thinking that someone had nicked my case on the Eurostar to Paris - ten minutes of panic that I hope never to experience again. And, if you're the complete a*sehole who moved my case and stuck it under a seat half a carriage away, I hope your arms rot and drop off. Not that I'm bitter at all...)
Labels: architecture, cars, France, holidays, Le Mans, motor racing, restaurants
