Valenciennes - June 18th - 20th
After leaving the De Martels on Tuesday morning, we took the train to Valenciennes. You know where that is, right? Neither did we before the world cup. Valenciennes is in the NE part of France, less than 15 miles from the border with Belgium and about 70 miles from Brussels. Valenciennes has about 40K people in the city, but about 400K in the metro area.
We didn't have high expectations about Valenciennes, but we ended up really enjoying it. We were there for only 2 nights.
Valenciennes is first mentioned in 693 in a legal document written by Clovis II (King of Neustria and Burgundy back in the day). In 1008, a terrible famine brought the Plague. According to the local tradition, the Virgin Mary held a cordon around the city which, miraculously, has since protected its people from the disease. Since then, every year at that time, the Valenciennois used to walk around the 9 mile road round the town, in what is called the tour of the Holy Cordon.
In 1677, the armies of Louis XIV of France captured the city and in 1678 the Treaty of Nijmegen gave the French control of Valenciennes.
During World War I the German army occupied the town in 1914. They were finally driven out by British forces at the Battle of Valenciennes in 1918. A significant personality of this period was Louise de Bettignies, a pupil of the Ursulines in Valenciennes from 1890 to 1896. Fluent in four languages (including German), in 1915 she created and directed the main British intelligence network behind enemy lines, nearly 60 km (37 mi) from the front around Lille. Arrested at the end of September 1915, and imprisoned in Germany, she died of mistreatment in September 1918 two months before the Armistice. It is estimated that she saved the lives of nearly a thousand British soldiers by the remarkably precise information she obtained.
In the Second World War, on May 10, 1940, the town's inhabitants fled by road and it was abandoned to looters from the French army. A huge fire devoured the heart of the town, fuelled in particular by a fuel depot. German troops then occupied the ruined city on May 27. On September 2, 1944, after bloody fighting, American troops entered Valenciennes and liberated the city.
Read MoreWe didn't have high expectations about Valenciennes, but we ended up really enjoying it. We were there for only 2 nights.
Valenciennes is first mentioned in 693 in a legal document written by Clovis II (King of Neustria and Burgundy back in the day). In 1008, a terrible famine brought the Plague. According to the local tradition, the Virgin Mary held a cordon around the city which, miraculously, has since protected its people from the disease. Since then, every year at that time, the Valenciennois used to walk around the 9 mile road round the town, in what is called the tour of the Holy Cordon.
In 1677, the armies of Louis XIV of France captured the city and in 1678 the Treaty of Nijmegen gave the French control of Valenciennes.
During World War I the German army occupied the town in 1914. They were finally driven out by British forces at the Battle of Valenciennes in 1918. A significant personality of this period was Louise de Bettignies, a pupil of the Ursulines in Valenciennes from 1890 to 1896. Fluent in four languages (including German), in 1915 she created and directed the main British intelligence network behind enemy lines, nearly 60 km (37 mi) from the front around Lille. Arrested at the end of September 1915, and imprisoned in Germany, she died of mistreatment in September 1918 two months before the Armistice. It is estimated that she saved the lives of nearly a thousand British soldiers by the remarkably precise information she obtained.
In the Second World War, on May 10, 1940, the town's inhabitants fled by road and it was abandoned to looters from the French army. A huge fire devoured the heart of the town, fuelled in particular by a fuel depot. German troops then occupied the ruined city on May 27. On September 2, 1944, after bloody fighting, American troops entered Valenciennes and liberated the city.
Lycée Antoine Watteau
A high school named for Antoine Watteau, a French painter whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement, as seen in the tradition of Correggio and Rubens. He revitalized the waning Baroque style, shifting it to the less severe, more naturalistic, less formally classical, Rococo. Watteau is credited with inventing the genre of fête galantes, scenes of bucolic and idyllic charm, suffused with a theatrical air. Some of his best known subjects were drawn from the world of Italian comedy and ballet.