Cire Trudon

3 August 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Paris / Île-de-France Reading Time:  9 minutes

Plaques Cire Trudon in Paris © Mu/cc-by-sa-3.0

Plaques Cire Trudon in Paris © Mu/cc-by-sa-3.0

Cire Trudon is a French candlemaker. Founded in 1643, it was the provider of the royal court of Louis XIV, as well as most of the great churches of France. Cire Trudon was the biggest wax-producing factory in the French Kingdom during the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1762, in his encyclopaedia The art of the wax producer, engineer Duhamel du Monceau, praises the skills of the Trudons and gives the manufacture as an example. Such a level of quality led to King Louis XIV elevating Charles Trudon to the French nobility as Count Trudon des Ormes.   read more…

Les Invalides in Paris

14 March 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, Paris / Île-de-France Reading Time:  13 minutes

Hôtel des Invalides, as seen from the Tour Montparnasse © Jens Peter Clausen/cc-by-sa-3.0

Hôtel des Invalides, as seen from the Tour Montparnasse © Jens Peter Clausen/cc-by-sa-3.0

Les Invalides, commonly known as Hôtel national des Invalides (The National Residence of the Invalids), or also as Hôtel des Invalides, is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, the building’s original purpose. The buildings house the Musée de l’Armée, the military museum of the Army of France, the Musée des Plans-Reliefs, and the Musée d’Histoire Contemporaine, as well as the Dôme des Invalides, a large church with the tombs of some of France’s war heroes, most notably Napoleon Bonaparte.   read more…

On the Canal du Midi from Toulouse to the Mediterranean

14 May 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  10 minutes

Carcasonne © Pinpin

Carcasonne © Pinpin

The Canal du Midi (Occitan: Canal de las Doas Mars, meaning canal of the two seas) is a 240 km (150 mi) long canal in Southern France (French: le Midi). The canal connects the Garonne River to the Étang de Thau on the Mediterranean and along with the Canal de Garonne forms the Canal des Deux Mers joining the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. The canal runs from the city of Toulouse down to the Mediterranean port of Sète—which was founded to serve as the eastern terminus of the canal. The Canal du Midi was built by Pierre-Paul Riquet.   read more…

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