Angers France
Frequently Asked Questions
At the Cale de la Savatte on the Maine river, directly below the castle. Two minutes' walk brings you to the fortress entrance.
The fortress and the Apocalypse Tapestry first, allowing two hours. Then Saint-Maurice cathedral and the Maison d'Adam, ten minutes' walk from the quay. La Doutre, across the Pont de Verdun, if time allows.
The largest surviving medieval tapestry in the world: about a hundred metres of wool woven around 1375 for Duke Louis I of Anjou, after the visions of Saint John. It hangs in a deliberately dim gallery to protect the fibres.
Strikingly so. The original dyes, preserved on the reverse of the weave, keep a remarkable intensity: seven-headed dragons, collapsing cities, angel musicians. The low light is part of the conservation.
Because it is a military fortress, not a pleasure residence. Built in the 1230s under the regency of Blanche of Castile, it lines up seventeen towers striped in dark schist and pale limestone over nearly half a kilometre, almost without windows, to hold the border against Brittany.
A complete contrast with the exterior: formal gardens, vines, the royal lodge and a chapel fill the courtyard like a village behind its walls. From the ramparts the view runs over slate roofs, the cathedral and the river below.
A fifteenth-century half-timbered house on Place Sainte-Croix, behind the cathedral apse, covered in carved figures that are earthy and sometimes cheeky. It is one of the most photographed sights in the region.
A local invention: domed vaults known as Angevin or Plantagenet, which lighten the nave and let a white light in. Saint-Maurice cathedral is reached from the castle by the Montée Saint-Maurice and its wide stairway.
The old tanners' and hospitallers' quarter, off the rushed tourist circuits. Around Place de la Laiterie, half-timbered houses and leaning facades surround the twelfth-century Saint-Jean hospital, which houses Jean Lurçat's Song of the World.
The euro and French. Cards are accepted everywhere; the pedestrian streets around the cathedral are full of patisseries and wine bars where you can try an Anjou white or a crémant.
