Nemours and Moret-sur-Loing Arc

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Paris

   It is a gift from the ruler of Egypt, about three thousand years old, and it was set up here in 1836 on the spot where the guillotine stood during the Revolution. Louis XVI was executed on this square in 1793, and so, in the Terror that followed, were over a thousand others. Now the square is a roundabout with fountains, ringed by traffic and framed by the Tuileries gardens on one side and the Madeleine church on the other. The banks of the Seine in this part of the city are UNESCO listed.

   Read the complete Paris write-up.

2. 2. Nemours

   Nemours lies on the Loing river, in the southern corner of Seine-et-Marne, where the landscape changes from the forests of Fontainebleau to the gentler farmland of the Gâtinais. It is a town of about fourteen thousand people, with a grey-stone centre, a canal beside the river and a medieval castle that still stands guard over the bridge. A good place for lunch, in other words, with enough to look at between courses.

   Read the complete Nemours write-up.

3. 3. Moret-sur-Loing

   Moret-sur-Loing is what an impressionist painter would have ordered if asked for a small medieval town. It sits on a quiet bend of the river Loing, where an old stone bridge with a mill arches over the water, and the whole composition, with a church tower, reflections and drifting willow, is the one that Alfred Sisley painted again and again after settling here in the 1880s. He is buried in the local cemetery. The town was fortified in the Middle Ages, and two great gates, the Porte de Samois and the Porte de Bourgogne, still stand at the ends of the main street, which runs between them past old houses and tiny courtyards.

   Read the complete Moret-sur-Loing write-up.

4. 4. Paris

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Paris write-up.