Wednesday
Tours and Poitiers
The trip from Rouen to Tours was chock full of surprises. They started with a lack of communication with our driver, who spoke neither English nor French. The drive itself was not what we expected, taking us back through Paris before heading southwest to the banks of the Loire. We lost our driver and his bus and gained a new one of each, losing only one passport, inadvertently left on the first bus, in the change from one to the other. Luckily, the passport was recovered before the end of day.
Our first view of the Cathedrale St. Gatien in Tours was from our hotel windows, the first night we were there. That was just a prelude to the sight of this building, with its magnificent towers, in the bright light of morning.
The organ is located in the south transept, where it has beautiful stained glass windows on three sides. The case, much of it dating from the sixteenth century, was stunning in the light, and we had fun drawing the Great Trumpet just to watch the angel atop the central tower raise a sculptured trumpet to its lips. We also enjoyed our two-hour visit, playing the new Kern organ housed in the case.
A short ride south from Tours brought us to Poitiers, a city associated with both Eleanor of Acquitaine and Joan of Arc. For us, the greatest appeal was the Cathedral of St. Pierre, with its Clicquot organ of 1789.
We also had time to enjoy some of the city center of Poitiers, including the Romanesque Church of Notre Dame la Grande. The sweeping lines of its striking new organ case stand in sharp contrast to the solidity of the building itself. Our hotel was outside the city center, isolated in a business park, where we had a great time enjoying each other’s company, watching French rabbits run through the wide open spaces around the hotel, and sampling some of the region’s finest bottled produce.
Thursday
Souvigny
Thursday morning began with a long ride across the center of France, giving us an up close look at part of the country other than cities and autoroutes. We entered the small town of Souvigny and began our visit with a trip to the museum. A multimedia exhibit on the organ occupied us for some time before we went to the nearby church.
After we listened to titulaire Henri Delorme improvise in a style appropriate to the 1782 Clicquot, we had to put our organ visit on hold. It was only the first time on this trip our visit to an organ was delayed while a funeral mass was held in the church. Nevertheless we had time to quietly inspect the organ, including its unusual motorized pumping mechanism, during the service. We then had time to play, giving most us of our first chance to try out a pedalboard à la maniere française.