Oradour sur Glane

Today was the travel day I was most worried about back home in Seattle (in hindsight, yesterday’s train debacle day was the day I should have worried about the most, but hey…)

We are now hauling Sam and Kris around with us and so anything I mess up disappoints 3 other people instead of just Ron. But, nonetheless, my plan was this:

• Take a cab from our hotel in Bordeaux to the train station
• Take a 45 minute train from Bordeaux to Angouleme
• Hope that some woman named Stephanie is really there to pick us up at the train station in Angouleme
• Have Stephanie drive us 84 kilometers to…

Oradour sur Glane

Ron and I seek out a lot of World War II sites when we travel. Oradour sur Glane had been on my list for quite a few years but it’s hard to get to. Oradour sur Glane was an ordinary French village until June 10, 1944. On June 10, the SS came to the village – presumably because an SS officer was being held prisoner somewhere nearby – and so in retaliation they killed all 643 people in the village. They shot the men in the legs so they were immobilized and then lit everyone on fire. They gathered the women and children in the church and then threw in incendiary devices. Afterwards they burned and razed the entire village.

General Charles de Gaulle decreed that the village would remain frozen in time – exactly as the Nazis left it – as a statement against Nazi cruelty and war. And that’s what we saw as we walked those sad streets today. It’s sobering and terrible, but important to me that we made the trek to pay our respects.

Here are a few pictures. In the third one down, you can see an entire family, killed. The cemetery was full of gravesites showing entire families.

Stephanie turned out to be the best driver we’ve had so far in France. As to the rest of them, it’s been hard to tell if they’re trying to drive me somewhere or crash our car. Stephanie drove the speed limit, used her turn signals and played French reggae for the entire route. Against my fears otherwise, she happily waited for two hours while we toured the Oradour memorial.

We had Stephanie drop us off at the historical center of Angouleme to wander for a few hours before we caught the train back to Bordeaux. We ambled off in the direction of the Old Town and were amazed to see the Angouleme is a gorgeous little city. With a population of 41,000, Angouleme is drowning in gorgeous architecture. Here’s some of what we saw. If you’re nearby, go check this place out!

This is the Cathedral of St. Pierre from about 1105. It’s a Romanesque cathedral vs. the more common Gothic cathedrals in France. We turned a corner in an alley way and came upon this place – incredible!

We turned another corner off the main pedestrian shopping street and saw these two buildings. The first one is the Palace of Justice – in the neoclassical style from 1826.

The next one houses the tourist office and a hotel:

Here’s their bank and a random street nearby

The crazy thing is that these buildings are all within a 5 minute walk of each other. It’s like an architectural Disneyland and I loved it!! If you get the chance, stop in Angouleme!

We’re back in Bordeaux now, field trip over, everyone happy. Successful transit of four people through my adventurous circuit and it was worth the effort, don’t you think, Sam??