We have been in Roanne’s port during two winters now. As it will be our last one, we think it appropriate to aim our attention on Roanne itself. This first picture shows the edge of the town and the river Loire with one of its weirs in the background as seen when entering Roanne from the south/east.

A short walk from where we are moored there’s the central square, Place de l’Hôtel de Ville. It will be no surprise at all if the town hall is to be found just there.

The same square, unfortunately surrendered to ‘the holy cow’, being the ever present (private) car. Ah well, there’s a bus station too.

When looking towards the front of the town hall –see the second picture- Le Théâtre Municipal is situated at the left hand side.

Although this blog attends (almost) entirely to the public space of Roanne, we could not resist to show the interior of the old theatre to you.

Another square is the Place du Maréchal de Lattre de Tassigny. The church is named after Saint Étienne, typically enough Stephen/Stefan(us) in other languages.

he side wall, already visible on the picture before this one, is entirely blind. Especially the ‘Romeo and Juliet-balcony’ looks very real, we think. Left of the blind wall the donjon of the (remains of the) Chateau de Roanne is visible.

A second, stunning, example of bringing a blind wall to life. All, repeat: all, you see is painted. Apart from the outdoor café, that is. (Is it???)

Roanne’s busiest shopping street now, being the Rue Charles de Gaulle. Every itself respecting town has streets named after Charles de Gaulle, Jean Jaurès, Léon Gambetta and more – no doubt we forget one or two. Roanne is no exception.

Place du Marché. The local authorities have chairs and tables randomly fixed to the pavement, like visible here. In a few months, during the summer, it’s a nice opportunity to sit down in the shade of the plane trees and watch the passers going by.

Everywhere in France there's a lot more than one sees at (horizontal) street level. High and wide gates are to be seen very often, giving access to ….? Most of the time the gates are closed, reason for keeping what’s behind a mystery. Here’s an open gate –on the Place du Marché by the way- offering a view of what’s behind it. Well, that does not look bad at all!

Just an example, on the Avenue Carnot, of a typical French front-façade. Fortunately well maintained which is, unfortunately, not always the case.

A view of the Avenue Gambetta (there he is again!), looking towards the ochre-ish coloured train station. Buildings that still show ‘grandeur’.

Another example of what looks like a house of someone of Roanne’s bourgeoisie alongside the Avenue Gambetta. Large and stylish are the qualifications that spring to mind.

Roanne’s train station building, dating from the start of the 20th century. Before that Roanne had its own tramway system.

This building, already visible on the former picture, is Roanne’s cinema-building, Le Grand Palais. It contains 9 auditoria, resulting in an overall capacity of 1.900. We’ve recently been twice in the 5th auditorium, enjoying opera’s directly broadcasted from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London. The quality could hardly be distinguished from being in the opera house itself.

A picture of the rail track, roughly from Lyon towards Vichy and Clermont-Ferrand. In the foreground the rear side of the cinema-building is visible; the train station in the background. As always it’s less attractive behind the buildings than it is…

…in front of the buildings. The Cours de la Republique (Avenue de la Gare) is leading to the left – in front of the cinema-building and the train station. When looking up, a bit higher than the commercial outlets, there’s a lot of beautiness.

Another example of a fine building in Roanne, at the corner of the Rue Alsace-Lorraine and the Rue Noelas.

When walking into the already mentioned Rue Noels a gigantic façade can be admired. It is a part of the large ‘Lycée Jean Puy’. We’ve written about Jean Puy two weeks ago – when we had visited Roanne’s ‘Le musée de Beaux-arts et d'Archéologie Joseph Déchelette’.

The last picture for this week’s blog. Leading back from the train station area this is the Rue Jean Jaurès (there he is as well!). The square from where we started with the second picture is visible in the far background. Bye for now.