Something else historical with Hans-Jurgen? Morning or afternoon in Angers?

Saumur – Tours – Chenonceau – Chaumont  are some towns reachable by train that  Hans-Jurgen knows about and would enjoy accompanying some or all of us. He also mentions La Baule and Le Croisic (a day in a fisher village of the Atlantic Ocean.)

He also knows a lot about the history of Angers. He writes a bit about this:

“Long ago”, I wrote … I think the best way to present Angers to Anglo-Saxon visitors is with the help of two travel books, one by Henry James (A little tour in France – 1883-84), and the other by a less prominent author, Anne Hollingsworth Wharton (In Château Land -1911).
These travel books evoke the history of Angers, from an Anglo-Saxon point of view, they explain the reasons why Angers was known to them, and why they came (Henry James was very disappointed, Anne Wharton, on the contrary, spent several days with a party of Americans of Quaker – origin, and was enchanted); I can show you the hotel that they stayed in and that both authors praised.
They came to Angers because in the historical consciousness of educated Americans, the city is the cradle of the Plantagenet dynasty. Richard the Lion Heart, being the grandson of a count of Anjou …
There even is a not very well-known play of W. Shakespeare (that must have been played more often in the 19th century), The Life And Death Of King John; the first act of the play is situated under the city walls of “Angiers”. All this can be read during a visit of the town, starting from the château and the tapestry (which is the “must-see” of Angers).
There is another Shakespeare play featuring another Count of Anjou, René d’Anjou – Le Roi René – in his play Henry VI, situated at the time of Joan of Arc …”

I recommend we schedule two visits with Hans-Jürgen…one train trip and one morning (or afternoon) with him and whatever he wants to share with us about the history of Angers. Let’s discuss this in our next calls and give him some dates, and some specifics.