The BSO goes to Alençon

Alençon Town

There was much discussion prior to the trip of what Alençon might be like. 'Basingstoke's twin town? Probably lots of roundabouts and an ugly IBM building!' was typical of the comments. Those few people who had been there before quietly said 'actually it's quite nice...' but for the most part they were ignored.

Well, when we arrived many of us were taken by surprise. Alençon is a charming market town with lovely streets and building everywhere you look. Our hosts were clearly proud of their home as they showed us around, and no wonder. Below are a few pictures to get a flavour of Alençon; simply click on the small image to see the full size version in a new window; close the window to return to this page.

castle_river_thumb.jpg (2273 bytes)
Castle and river		 castle_thumb.jpg (2453 bytes)
The castle, now
used as a jail		 castle2_thumb.jpg (2562 bytes)
Front of the castle		 hoteldeville_thumb.jpg (2313 bytes)
The town hall		 palaisjustice_thumb.jpg (2223 bytes)
The court of justice
street_thumb.jpg (2922 bytes)
A street		 street2_thumb.jpg (2995 bytes)
Another street!		 halftimber_thumb.jpg (3050 bytes)
A typical
Normany building		 notredame_thumb.jpg (2776 bytes)
Notre-Dame church		 regionalassembly_thumb.jpg (2432 bytes)
The regional assembly
alley_thumb.jpg (2726 bytes)
There are lots of
narrow alleys
between buildings		 halleble_thumb.jpg (2779 bytes)
The Halle au Ble,
where we were met. 
Built in C19 as a
corn exchange		 patisserie_thumb.jpg (2445 bytes)
The window of
a patisserie		 postoffice_thumb.jpg (2672 bytes)
The post office		 mainstreet_thumb.jpg (3302 bytes)
The main street

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Gallery index:
The Journey | Arriving | The rehearsal | The concert | Sunday morning | Our hosts | The town

 

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