Today we decided to have a day outside Paris using our book, "An Hour Outside Paris" and picked Poissy. Poissy is a far suburb from Paris to the west sitting beside the Seine. It's been there for a very long time, the first church was built around 1050 and was rebuilt in the 1200's so the rest of the town dates from the same era. The king of France Louis IX, who became St. Louis for his piety, was born there and was baptised in the church.
But first we had to get there and it turned into a rat in a maze when we tried to change trains from one line to the next. We walked around the station we were in and just had no luck finding the line we were looking for. Finally we asked the woman at the information booth and she kindly informed us that even though this station was called St. Lazare it was actually a 5 minute walk outside this station over to Gare St. Lazare to get to the other line. So we exited and headed over to Gare St. Lazare where we saw signs for the other line outside the station. So in we went and promptly all signage went dead! We wandered around for several minutes up and down escalators before we found that rather than being an underground platform like the last, these platforms were up on the same level as the long distance trains, so that only cost us an hours rooting about.
We finally caught the train and got to the station in Poissy where we descended. Our first view upon leaving the station was of the Seine and the remains of a 13th century toll bridge that had stood pretty much intact until the Allies bombed the hell out of it in 1944. Several of the piers are still standing and one can walk out to where originally stood a drawbridge used for protection in those times. In reality the old bridge would never have been able to accommodate modern barges, so there is a new bridge just downstream that is a single span. We spent a few minutes looking from the bridge before continuing on.
Our next stop was the church mentioned above, it has the remnants of the baptismal font used in St. Louis' baptism. Most of the church was built using Romanesque arches but the left aisle was built using Gothic arches, so it's certainly a transitional church. Another interesting little tidbit is the epitaph of a man who died around 1630 and somehow revived while in his tomb and lived for some period of time afterwards before "dying" a second time. He was called the "Ressurected One" the second time around. It also has some interesting polychrome wooden sculptures that have been restored. And this wasn't even what we came out to look at!
After the church we walked a couple blocks to have a very pleasant lunch sitting out in the sunshine, Deb had a faux-filet while I had preserved duck leg and thigh (confit de canard) both good. But our goal was still to be achieved and that was to see the Villa Savoye, the iconic Art Deco house designed and built by Corbusier in 1929. We started our walk toward the house when a gentleman stopped at the cross street rolled his window down and asked if we were going to the Villa Savoye, We answered "yes" and he then said, "jump in the car, I'll take you there", so trusting that we weren't about to be kidnapped we got in. He turned out to have been a retired lead attorney for a large French company who lived in Poissy, his name was Joseph and he was an incredibly nice and generous person so we were at the house in about 2 minutes.
It is still a tour de force and on the exterior looks so modern that it could have been built last week. It is certainly dated in the interior, but that is looking from 2015's eyes. It was groundbreaking for it's time. If one had the home now, merely by changing the cabinets and fixtures it would look completely modern. It is bathed in light and quite spacious with a wonderful mixture of indoor and outdoor spaces. Originally it was designed to have a garden growing on the roof and unfortunately that was it's weak spot because it always leaked. They have redone the roof and it is now watertight. We spent a couple hours just wandering from room to room enjoying his design genius. However his proposals for a redesign of Paris was quite sterile and would have ultimately changed Paris out of all recognition.
After our visit we had a very nice walk back through a municipal garden, full of blooming roses, to the train station and back to Paris.
But first we had to get there and it turned into a rat in a maze when we tried to change trains from one line to the next. We walked around the station we were in and just had no luck finding the line we were looking for. Finally we asked the woman at the information booth and she kindly informed us that even though this station was called St. Lazare it was actually a 5 minute walk outside this station over to Gare St. Lazare to get to the other line. So we exited and headed over to Gare St. Lazare where we saw signs for the other line outside the station. So in we went and promptly all signage went dead! We wandered around for several minutes up and down escalators before we found that rather than being an underground platform like the last, these platforms were up on the same level as the long distance trains, so that only cost us an hours rooting about.
We finally caught the train and got to the station in Poissy where we descended. Our first view upon leaving the station was of the Seine and the remains of a 13th century toll bridge that had stood pretty much intact until the Allies bombed the hell out of it in 1944. Several of the piers are still standing and one can walk out to where originally stood a drawbridge used for protection in those times. In reality the old bridge would never have been able to accommodate modern barges, so there is a new bridge just downstream that is a single span. We spent a few minutes looking from the bridge before continuing on.
Our next stop was the church mentioned above, it has the remnants of the baptismal font used in St. Louis' baptism. Most of the church was built using Romanesque arches but the left aisle was built using Gothic arches, so it's certainly a transitional church. Another interesting little tidbit is the epitaph of a man who died around 1630 and somehow revived while in his tomb and lived for some period of time afterwards before "dying" a second time. He was called the "Ressurected One" the second time around. It also has some interesting polychrome wooden sculptures that have been restored. And this wasn't even what we came out to look at!
After the church we walked a couple blocks to have a very pleasant lunch sitting out in the sunshine, Deb had a faux-filet while I had preserved duck leg and thigh (confit de canard) both good. But our goal was still to be achieved and that was to see the Villa Savoye, the iconic Art Deco house designed and built by Corbusier in 1929. We started our walk toward the house when a gentleman stopped at the cross street rolled his window down and asked if we were going to the Villa Savoye, We answered "yes" and he then said, "jump in the car, I'll take you there", so trusting that we weren't about to be kidnapped we got in. He turned out to have been a retired lead attorney for a large French company who lived in Poissy, his name was Joseph and he was an incredibly nice and generous person so we were at the house in about 2 minutes.
It is still a tour de force and on the exterior looks so modern that it could have been built last week. It is certainly dated in the interior, but that is looking from 2015's eyes. It was groundbreaking for it's time. If one had the home now, merely by changing the cabinets and fixtures it would look completely modern. It is bathed in light and quite spacious with a wonderful mixture of indoor and outdoor spaces. Originally it was designed to have a garden growing on the roof and unfortunately that was it's weak spot because it always leaked. They have redone the roof and it is now watertight. We spent a couple hours just wandering from room to room enjoying his design genius. However his proposals for a redesign of Paris was quite sterile and would have ultimately changed Paris out of all recognition.
After our visit we had a very nice walk back through a municipal garden, full of blooming roses, to the train station and back to Paris.
A day of architectural contrasts!
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