Sarah said that she might join me on the trip, but I originally left the campus alone. When I got to the train station in Jouy, I received a call from her telling me that she just got up and she would try to get the next train. As long as she made that train, she was okay to still make the train from Paris to Orléans. I bought the tickets, and we met at the train station to start on the journey.
The train arrived in Orléans, and I started to wonder what I had gotten myself into. The station looked like it was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by buildings, and graffiti was everywhere. We followed the signs out of the train platforms only to find ourselves in a shopping mall! Definitely bizarre. There was an information booth in the mall, and we got ourselves a map of the city to accompany the print outs of the Joan sites I had brought with me.
We walked out of the mall and started walking down the main road – suddenly, I made my first Joan sighting of the day. It wasn’t anything big, just a coffee shop called Café Jeanne d’Arc. We went in, and Sarah bought a blood orange tea infusion that smelled wonderful.
After leaving the coffee shop we continued walking and it wasn’t long before I saw my first Joan of Arc statue in Orléans. It was in a main square, and I think I went a little bit overboard on taking photos of it at different angles.
From that square it wasn’t a far walk to the ‘Maison de Jeanne d’Arc,’ or the House of Joan of Arc. It was actually closed when we first arrived, and although admission was only one euro, we decided to wait until the evening since it would be free thanks to “La Nuit des Musées.”
We soon found the Rue de Bourgogne that Sarah had been looking for since she had read that it would be a nice street to walk down. We began walking, taking in the streets and checking out the restaurant menus. We decided on a Chinese place just next to the Rue de Bourgogne. The restaurant was very yellow, and we just had to take a couple of pictures to show that. The lunch was three courses, only 10 euros, and delicious!
From there we wandered back to Joan’s house, and then walked down Rue de Jeanne d’Arc. I also noticed a bakery called Jeanne d’Arc on our little walk down the road. We didn’t get very far before it started raining, and I realized that I had left my umbrella at the restaurant. Walking back through the rain wasn’t very bad since Sarah had her umbrella as well, and when I got back to the restaurant my umbrella was still there. I have a bad habit of leaving it in random buildings, I’ve found out!
Next, we headed to the cathedral in Orléans. It was neither the most nor the least impressive I have ever seen, but it was wonderful because there were a lot of Joan items around the area. This is the cathedral where Joan went to pray before going into battle. In front of the cathedral there were two monuments to her which included quotes from the trials that were held to determine her guilt. Inside the cathedral were stained glass windows that described her life’s journey. It was fun looking at each of them and determining what each window was depicting. There was also a statue of her holding her standard. I found a brochure inside the cathedral that listed all of the Joan statues in Orléans, and it actually contained a couple more statues than what I had originally known about before going to the city.
Right across from the cathedral was the tourism office, and outside of the office there was a cutout of Joan. So… How could I not?
Also nearby was the Hôtel de Ville where another very famous statue of Joan is. Again, I went overboard on photos. Since it was a Saturday, there were weddings going on all day, and I actually snuck in to take close up shots while a wedding party was still loitering and immediately before another wedding came out. We waited a few minutes just to see the happy couples, and the wedding that we saw was completely ridiculous – the outfits were so different, some modern, some not, and the bride was wearing bright orange. I’m not even sure who the groom was out of that group. The cool thing, though, is that the photographers take photos of the wedding party around the Joan statue. So if I were a real Joan fanatic (which I might be since I’m doing this little tour), I would want to get married in Orléans just to have the photos taken there ☺.
From there we walked back to Rue de Bourgogne and walked down a strip that we hadn’t seen yet, and found this little modern park area. It looked nice, but it also looked as though people had been trying to trash it – graffiti and both of the elevators taking you down to the other landing were out of order and they looked like someone had taken a gun or an ax to them. But it did provide a good view of the river from the upper landing.
There was another Joan statue across the river, close to the area where Joan was hurt during the battle. From older photos of the city, it looks like that statue was originally right at the bridge, but now it is down the street from it in its own little square.
Sarah and I were pretty beat after that, and we walked back to a café and both got smoothies as a refreshment. To kill time we went shopping a tiny bit and Sarah bought some clothes, then it was time to go back to Joan of Arc’s house!
The house was supposed to open at 6 for the event, but they didn’t open until quite a bit later. Apparently, one of the employees did not show up due to an emergency, and the one lady who was there didn’t want to open the house alone, which is completely understandable. We just waited a few minutes and pretty soon another employee showed up and we went inside the house. One of the employees told old legends that didn't really fit in with Joan of Arc, but it was still entertaining.
The house had a lot of statuettes of Joan, and general information about the hundred years’ war and how Joan saved France from the English. The house was the location where she stayed when she was staying in Orléans, and the army started fighting without her. When she found out, she quickly got ready, and a pageboy handed the standard to her out of a window as she was leaving the house. The house was recreated in the 1960s and has been a museum ever since. I’m not sure if that means that the floor plan is the same as it was in the 1400s or whether it was just built on the same location, but it is still pretty incredible that they have it there.
Out back, there was a well that had a figurine of Joan at the top of it. That was the last Joan of Arc item I found while I was in Orléans.
Overall I really enjoyed touring around the city in search of Joan of Arc items. It was sort of like a scavenger hunt where I had clues (or locations) of where I could find statues and other things, and it was an adventure to find them. It also allowed me to wander around different parts of the city from what I would normally want to explore. And while my trip to Orléans was more or less dedicated to the discovery of Joan in the city, there was the option to visit other places in the city as I came across them.
More photos: link.
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