Angers is a large metropolitan city located in the central Western part of France about 2 hours from Paris and roughly an hour Northwest of Saumur - the subject of my last post.
It was once the capital city of Anjou, which to my understanding was a sovereign nation in history before it was amalgamated into France during King Louis the 14th's reign.
The city was once a stronghold in Northern France and remnants of that time can still be seen today in the large castle that is located in the heart of the city, near the bank of the river Maine.
The city has a large old town at its center as well, though the town feels very new and a hip in a very gentrification sort of way. It definitely had a happening sort of vibe about it.
Even though the cities are very different overall, it kind of reminded me of a much smaller version of Dusseldorf Germany. That may not be a great comparison but that's what comes to mind when I think about it.
The demographics of the city are quite young, which may explain that a little. There are two universities in Angers and around 46% of it's inhabitants are below the age of 30.
The old town is mostly made up of bars and funky shops but there are a few historic buildings that are very well maintained.
Above is the Maison d'Adam building or Adam's House. It dates back to the 1500's but you can barely tell considered how well it has been preserved.
To the right in the photo above is the old fish building, Maison de Poisson. I don't know much about it and it was hard to get a good picture of it because it's situated on a busy street with lots of buses and other traffic.
I believe that the next photo (above), is of the Abbey building because it sits right next to the main Cathedral. Don't quote me on that though.
There are several churches in town besides the cathedral but thats is to be expected in any city.
We didn't go into the one above but I liked it's architecture and design.
We did go into the main cathedral.
It's a major focal point of Angers and is located at the top of a staircase with a direct view of the river below.
It seemed like a place that people liked to gather around, just to talk and hang out in the sunshine on the long and wide staircase.
My wife and I always have to take turns when going inside churches because one of us always has to await outside with the dog.
The interior was very similar to most cathedrals in France.
But I really liked the organ in this one.
It had some nice dark woodwork, some interesting brown stone columns and some decent stained glass as well.
After vuewing the church we made our way over to the city castle.
It's a big structure surrounded by several large towers and a huge outer wall around the perimeter.
Within the wall is a green space with a nicely tailored garden. I imagine at one point it might have acted as a moat or a dead space to make attacking the walls very difficult.
As you can see, the castle is located directly in the main part of the city and is completely surrounded by busy roads and ordinary buildings.
You can go inside for a fee but we didn't do that. It just didn't appear to be overly interesting to us and we are almost castled out at this point.
You can also just walk around the perimeter and marvel at the sheer size of the castle wall as well as it uniquely banded towers.
Continuing around, the wall eventually sort of seamlessly blends into the natural rock of a small cliff face.
Houses are built there, which look out over a small park for kids as well as the river.
The last thing I'll say about Angers is that it is located in close proximity to the wine vineyards of Saumur so you might want to sample some local wine during your visit.
I realize that the photo below shows that I drank a beer at the restaurant. But it was an aperitif. I can assure you that I also had wine with our meal.
It just wouldn't be right for me to go into wine country and then not sample the wine.