A mounted Louis XIV with Notre Dame in
background - a long walk up, but worth it
St Pierre - shades of Chartres with its different spires
I noticed reference to the museum of the 'Centre d'histoire de la résistance et de la déportation' when we arrived. It wasn't high in my priorities, but while here there have been other visual commemorations. A street near where we had coffee one morning had the following plaque
My french is not great but basically I think it commemorates
the life of a resistance member, Antoine Fonlupt, who was assassinated
in 1944 at 24 years of age.
And over the road from our hotel there is a restaurant named after 'The White Rabbit"
Lapin Blanc!
We have not made the museum but it is located on the former site of a French military health school (École de Santé Militaire) and opened in 1992, it chronicles the French Resistance. The school was occupied by the Germans in the spring of
1943, and used by Lyon's Gestapo chief, Klaus Barbie, to torture resistance members.
Whilst we have made an emotive pilgrimage to Gallipoli and The Somme to remember relatives and Australian heroes on this trip, we often forget the extraordinary efforts of others and our own Nancy Wake, the 'White Mouse'.
A footnote too as we unwind, a true test of your explorations is the condition of the tourism maps - freyed on the folds and almost in pieces at the end of your visit!!
I remember going into the resistance museum. Nearby there was also a museum that had a bunch of the best Associated Press photos from around the world! It was awesome.
ReplyDeleteFrom memory it's also near a spot where you can take a trainish thing up the hill on the far side of the city...