Cruise Egypt - France - Le Mans

Le Mans is strikingly lively and creative, but far from being a "museum town". Its historic heritage has made this mediaeval town the most popular film location for French cinema. Le Mans is just 50 minutes from Paris by TGV, set on the main European London-Madrid line.

Today combine to make Le Mans a "pioneer" town as regards quality of life, all served by an inspired and enterprising town policy, the proximity of the capital, the charm of the surrounding countryside. An atmosphere that is both friendly and committed, you can feel in this town a certain buzz, on closer inspection, and yet. In 1873, too often remembered for its rillettes (potted meat) and its 24 Hour car race and the fact that it witnessed the birth of the first automobile in history, the fact seems crazy because this town has been so neglected for so long. Le Mans is on the way to becoming the next fashionable weekend destination of coming years, toulouse and Montpellier, like Nantes.

Rome and Constantinople, along with the surrounding walls of the two Imperial capitals, is one of the best preserved military buildings from the Roman world, marked out with eleven towers and adorned with black and white geometric patterns, 300-m-long surrounding wall, this red 1. You can admire the beautiful Gallo-Roman wall built under Diocletian in the 3rd century, above the old tanneries district, along the Sarthe River. Vegetation and sky, water, not expecting to find such architectural gems or such harmony between stone, le Mans immediately impresses visitors, less famous than neighboring Tours or Angers!

Still stands against the Romanesque and Gothic cathedral of St Julien today, with its pleated forms, this mysterious pink sandstone rock. 000 years ago and left an impressive menhir symbolizing both fertility and the centre of the universe, the Celts erected the town's historic nucleus over 5, at the summit of the mound dominating the river.

Vieux Mans welcomes several film crews every year and each time its inhabitants are happy to act as extras. Rard Depardieu) or The Man in the Iron Mask (with Leonardo di Caprio) were filmed, you will find the locations where the finest scenes of Cyrano de Bergerac (with Gé in front of the house of Queen Berengaria (Richard the Lion-Heart's widow lived and died in Le Mans in the 13th century). Dicis stayed and which is still considered the town's most beautiful residence; where Marie de Mé grand'Rue, at 54, tel de Sceaux, there Renaissance period mansions such as the Hô. Turrets and corner pillars and gilded wooden sculptures, ades, 14th century half-timbered faç with its winding alleys, around the cathedral Vieux Mans (the old town) is a magnificent real life film set.

This cathedral is where where Henry II of England was baptised in 1133 and where the funeral of Queen Berengaria took place (in 1230). All made during the Hundred Year War by the master glassmakers of Le Mans, mainly red, it boasts one of the finest sets of mediaeval stained glass windows, like the cathedral of Chartres. Which rises to 34 metres (112 ft), lily-shaped stone filigree and its choir, 13 radiating chapels, it is one of the greats of Gothic architecture with its double flying buttresses, begun in the 11th century and completed in the 15th. You might make an exception for the cathedral of St Julien - one of the biggest and most luminous in France, even if cathedrals are not your cup of tea.

A contemporary composer has created a piece of music to be broadcast at the same time as the video images: this is the "concert des anges" (concert of the angels), using these instruments. . . Double flute and string drum, buisine and oliphant, bagpipes, rebec, chiquier, é such as the mandora, each angel plays a forgotten medieval instrument, ade of the building; the musical angels painted on one of the frescoes of St Julien's cathedral will be projected onto the faç this year. 000 visitors played the game, last summer over 100. Re" show will enable you to discover the history and treasures of the town; this free "son et lumiè. The gardens and cobbled alleys will be submerged by monsters and celestial figures of mediaeval imagination, ades of the houses, the faç the Gallo-Roman surrounding wall, the cathedral square, every night from 1st July to 31st August.

Which provided inspiration for some of Vivaldi's finest concertos, is entirely devoted to this now rare instrument, histoire de la mandoline, an attractive boutique, nearby. A specialist in the repair of old and new wind instruments; e, musicians or collectors will discover L'atelier d'Orphé. A leading bookshop known throughout France, comic book fans will head for Bulle, in the old town. Is full of boutiques and craft shops that you will find nowhere else, unlike many towns in Europe where more or less the same shops are always to be found, le Mans.

Min is a passionate antique dealer; gilles Mé. Bastien Drouet is the favourite clockmaker of all the locals; sé. Nelly Bichet is a milliner and fashion designer of great talent. Prides itself on restoring old chairs and traditional saddles; the Crapeau Guindé. Grav'Or is a superb boutique specialising in glass engraving for cruise liners. Which perpetuates the Le Mans tradition of creating and restoring stained-glass windows, and don't hesitate to visit Atelier Avice. Famous for his spiral staircases, ois Jousse, renowned for the purity of his stones and the wrought-iron craftsman Jean-Franç the jeweller Houillon, among them the great chocolate maker Jacques Bellanger, le Mans is also the home of six MOFs (Meilleurs Ouvriers de France - Best Workmen in France).

Touraine goats and the Coucou de Rennes (a rustic chicken native to Brittany), bayeux pigs, the Ferme de la Prairie is a fascinating place where dying breeds of domestic animal are bred for example Percheron horses. Pheasant and the very rare red partridge), wild boar, birch trees and oaks) in which many wild animals live wild (roe deer, chestnut trees, 112 acre) natural area is mainly covered with hedged farmland and a forest (Scots and maritime pines, this 450-hectare (1. Which every weekend attracts thousands of locals who come to relax with their families, l'Arche de la Nature is an exemplary creation, from this point of view. Barely 10 minutes from the town centre, one of Le Mans' greatest charms is to be able to find yourself immediately in the countryside.

You can attend classical music concerts in the evening, in summer. Daniel Humair for the 2006 edition), stefano Di Battista, aldo Romano, jacky Terrasson, attracting the greatest jazzmen of the moment (Richard Galliano, pau has hosted the Europa Jazz Festival, the Abbaye de l'É every spring (from 1st April to 1st May) for the last 27 years. The abbey church and the dormitory restored to its original layout, but also the sacristy whose walls are adorned with beautiful 14th century paintings, here you will discover the recumbent figure of the queen (in the chapter house). This imposing building has been superbly restored over 30 years. This is one of France's last Cistercian abbeys, dowager countess of Maine and widow of Richard the Lion-Heart (who died on a crusade), daughter of the king of Navarre, founded in 1229 by Queen Berengaria. Pau is a lovely place set on the edge of the Huisne river in a 13 ha (32 acre) park where deer roam freely, the Abbaye de l'É 4 km (2.5 miles) from Le Mans town centre.