Gisborne Herald
  • Gisborne Herald Home
  • Latest news
  • Business
  • Lifestyle
  • Sport

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Business
  • Lifestyle
  • Sport

Locations

  • Gisborne
  • Bay of Plenty
  • Hawke's Bay

Media

  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Gisborne

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Gisborne Herald / Lifestyle

The road less travelled

Gisborne Herald
18 Mar, 2023 11:38 AMQuick Read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

WIDE-RANGING WORKS DISPLAYED: Le Château d'Eau (The Water Tower). Built in 1867, added in 1975 to the Historic Buildings Inventory, the Water Tower was entirely transformed in 1999 into a place dedicated to the diffusion of the Visual Arts. Its ground floor of 220m2, with its two concentric spans separated by 16 columns and girdled of 14 cells, allows a unique presentation of works, either painted, carved, engraved, drawn, projected or hammered.

WIDE-RANGING WORKS DISPLAYED: Le Château d'Eau (The Water Tower). Built in 1867, added in 1975 to the Historic Buildings Inventory, the Water Tower was entirely transformed in 1999 into a place dedicated to the diffusion of the Visual Arts. Its ground floor of 220m2, with its two concentric spans separated by 16 columns and girdled of 14 cells, allows a unique presentation of works, either painted, carved, engraved, drawn, projected or hammered.

On our arrival in Bourges (France) we had a 1.5 kilometre walk to our apartment — all flat going, and the streets we walked through indicated this was going to be another great stop.

The owner of our chosen accommodation had given us a series of codes and instructions to get through the four doors into our temporary home.

They were complicated and detailed, and we had no trouble gaining entry to the apartment — but were a little concerned about the necessity for so much security.

We never did get to meet our host, so didn't get the opportunity to ask him why. We certainly never saw anything during our stay that caused us any concern.

The roomy apartment was as good as any we have stayed in on our travels.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Situated near the centre of the old town, it was in an old building that had been very tastefully refurbished.

It was the first time on this journey that we actually had a decent-sized shower.

A short walk to a well-stocked supermarket completed our day and gave us the necessary stores we needed for our stay.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

As we had moved into provincial France, it was very noticeable how laid-back the smaller towns and cities are.

We had trouble coming to terms with the fact that between midday and 3pm the streets of these small towns are almost deserted. We assume this is nanny-nap time for most of the locals.

The only shops open seem to be the cafes and the bars; busy streets just become deserted, and commerce resumes in the late afternoon and continues into the evening.

Saturday afternoons and Sundays are like a journey into the past — the streets are almost deserted, unlike in the larger cities where the locals seem to party non-stop.

The old part of the smaller cities and villages of France are all so full of history and Bourges is no exception.

The city has history, predating the birth of Christ.

It has a current population of about 65,000, covers 68 square kilometres and is approximately 169 metres above sea level.

Like the other older towns we had visited on our trip through the southern foothills of France's central mountains, the streets of old buildings seemed to go on forever.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Although these areas seem small, the winding, cobble-stoned streets can be quite confusing. Who knows where we could have ended up if it were not for the GPS app we had loaded on to our phone.

A city of art and history, Bourges is proud of its monuments, which include its old streets and half-timbered houses, the Jacques Coeur Palace and the Saint-Etienne Cathedral, which is listed on the Unesco World Heritage list.

Bourges is one of the greenest cities in France, with 135 hectares of marshland in the heart of the city and more than 50m2 of parkland per inhabitant.

Bourges seemed to have a few French travellers but generally is not geared for “international” tourists — something we really appreciated on our travels through this and the other areas we visited.

As we hadn't been able to find a calendar or a practical memento since we had left the UK, we decided to do the touristy thing and go looking for souvenirs on our last day in Bourges.

We did a search on Google and found what we considered to be a souvenir shop. Not surprisingly, even with all the travelling we have done, we still occasionally fall into the trap of taking things at face value.

The journey across town included a really neat park, a couple of landmarks we hadn't yet visited, and in due course we ended up where Google had placed what we thought was a souvenir shop.

Imagine our surprise, we ended up in a cemetery — gullible fools we are, we didn't realise that Google's translation of souvenirs became memories and, yes, Google had directed us to what we found was the local avenue of memories.

Our next stop was another lucky dip. We set off to Vichy, on another very good French train. Why Vichy? It just seemed to be a good idea at the time . . . it was, but more about that later.

Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Latest from Lifestyle

Gisborne Herald

Here come our hotsteppers: Gisborne's 98 Cents to compete at worlds

26 Jun 04:30 AM
Premium
Letters to the Editor

Letters: isite relocation, $190,000 playground renewal

20 Jun 05:00 PM
Lifestyle

Ice Block winter rave returns to Smash Palace

19 Jun 10:57 PM

Kaibosh gets a clean-energy boost in the fight against food waste

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Lifestyle

Here come our hotsteppers: Gisborne's 98 Cents to compete at worlds

Here come our hotsteppers: Gisborne's 98 Cents to compete at worlds

26 Jun 04:30 AM

Victory at nationals means place in Team NZ for Hip Hope Unite World Champs.

Premium
Letters: isite relocation, $190,000 playground renewal

Letters: isite relocation, $190,000 playground renewal

20 Jun 05:00 PM
Ice Block winter rave returns to Smash Palace

Ice Block winter rave returns to Smash Palace

19 Jun 10:57 PM
Meet the $80,000 record Hereford bull coming to Gisborne

Meet the $80,000 record Hereford bull coming to Gisborne

18 Jun 04:00 AM
Engage and explore one of the most remote places on Earth in comfort and style
sponsored

Engage and explore one of the most remote places on Earth in comfort and style

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Gisborne Herald
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Gisborne Herald
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP