Nancy and Art nouveau - June 4

Our impressions of Nancy were colored by the clarity of the air that went with the bright, dry weather. After an early morning walk/run, we sat in the courtyard of the B&B and ate breakfast: crocks of full-fat yogurt, loaves of slightly sour white bread, chocolate croissants, fruit salad, preserves, coffee and juice. Then we set off to walk the city.

First we walked through the old covered market, which had gorgeous produce, breads, meringues, preserves, gorgeously arranged, and, among other things, a vendor with chocolate bark into which was pressed such lavender, spice seeds, and other edible bits in artistic patterns. The French never seem to forget the visual aesthetics when it comes to food. We also stopped at a bright, precise, almost clinical patisserie that seemed to specialize in a kind of pastry with an ampoule of liqueur on top. (Unfortunately, our pictures didn’t come out.)

The oldest part of Nancy is a historically incoherent but entertaining mix of old buildings: an arsenal that is now a school, a government office building with a strange faux-ceiling at the top of a stairway, the 14th century city gate, a 19th-century college building.

It also has a large public park with a garden of trained roses, a Rodin sculpture, a rather small and casual zoo, and what looked like a wood-and-bamboo sculpture that was actually some sort of house for bees and other insects.

Nancy isn’t particularly known for its churches, but we liked going into the coolness of the

baroque St Sebastien, which is behind an open-air market - a rare opportunity to listen to a church organ (it sounded like a couple of organists were working out registrations for the next Sunday). The 18th century cathedral Notre-Dame, right near our B&B, was also impressive and pleasant. The night before, we saw that the steps in front were a bit of a hangout, including some young people practicing hiphop moves.

There was a pretty impressive trompe-l’oeil painting on the side of a building near Place Stan. In fact, it’s even hard for us to tell what was real in the photograph.

But the best reason to visit Nancy is to see its art and architecture from the late 19th and early 20th century, created by a cluster of artists of glass, wood, metal, fabric, and architecture known as L’Ecole de Nancy.

Following Michelin and some good maps from the tourist office, we first walked up and down streets of the busy downtown, to see some of the art nouveau buildings created for businesses. These included an apothecary, a bank, some business building that is now a McDonald’s; and a nice restaurant by the train station of the Grand Central Oyster Bar variety (nice place for break).

Then we headed toward a residential art nouveau area, with some fancy mansions and apartment houses; and finally, to the Ecole de Nancy Museum, which is full of furniture, paintings, glasswork, etc.

Nancy does some conspicuous self-marketing. Its public transit system is known as STAN (Societe de Transports de l'Agglomeration Nancienne, but obviously also a nickname for Stanislas, much better branding than Metro); and its tourist office is full of objets of a familiar variety.

The fact is that we did love Nancy.

other entries: intro to our trip
June 3 - Reims to Nancy, madeleines, Stanislas, etc.
June 5 - driving to Alsace, and a bit about the Guide michelin (vert)


Our photo album on picasa