Monday 24th June. We found religion!

I have never seen so many monstrous sized marquees in my life as were being readied for an evangelical festival starting next week with an expected 200,000 nuts descending on this religious hotbed of a town which is twinned with Bethlehem for goodness sake. We headed in to investigate the town immediately realizing it was monday and so of course everywhere was shut. We needed an orange shop and the net had promised it would be open. We arrived at 9.35am 5mins after the scheduled opening time. We had hardly seen a soul on the way into the centre but as we arrived at the orange store, a queue of 9 people waited service. What is it about the French and their obsession with these appauling stores. We had no choice but to wait and as usual around 30mins patience was rewarded with a young girl who even spoke some english. I awaited the usual incomprehension when I asked for a recharge but was amazed when she replied, no problem sir and true to her word we left 5 mins later with two months recharge set up. wow what a day, do I love orange!
Back to Doucette for eggy brekky and wait for an afternoon town tour when hopefully a few things would be open and the weather might brighten a touch as it was an unusually dull morning.

Time to take in some of the religious history,  The source of this towns religious fervour was the visions of nun Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1673. The story goes that in a series of visions over 18 months she was instructed to set up the devotion to the sacred heart of christ. To cut a long story short, with the help of her publicity agent of the day a chap called father claude de colombiere the followers of the sacred heart grew in number and eventually recieved papal approvals. Margaret was canonised in 1920, Claude later in 1992. Margarets chapel of appirations holds her remains in Paray.

Paray is a beautiful town. The sense of piousness is accentuated even by the abundent use of white flowers to decorate the beautifully kept borders

 

 where even the swans harmonise with the peace of the place.

 

 

First stop the truly magnificent Basilica and cloisters.The cloisters sheltered us from a brief shower

 

 and the roman towers of this remarkable edifice were built in the 11th and 12th century. You can spot slight differences in the design as a result.

 

Inside the importance and wealth of the town is reflected in the immaculate condition of the building, we particularly loved the cieling paintings 

From the back the basilica looked just as impressive.

 

We visited the chapel of appiritions and were pleased to see that the numerous shops selling religious pieces were not as gawdy as I had supposed. We moved onto the 1930`s built chapel with the interred remains of St. Claude de Colombiere. The mosaic works and the gold sarcophagus are stunning in what is a particularly elaborate interior.

Time still to take in an art and stain glass window exhibition in the old hotel de ville where I took a call from smeds who needed a starter motor sourced. It was good to be able to help him for a change.

We left Paray at 5pm only to be held up by a broken ecluse resulting in us failing by one lock to reach our intended destination. Still a cold pork lentils and artichoke hearts provided sustenance after the days trials although we decided the hearts are not for us. Settled to watch Hot Fuzz, leant to us by Pam. Good to have some earthy entertainment after a day of contemplation.