12 Sights in Le Mans, France (with Map and Images)

The Hôtel de Vignolles is located in Old Mans, Place Saint-Pierre. It was built in 1549 by Jean de Vignolles. The hotel was never finished. Its architecture is of a local Gothic style. Its circulation axis is resolutely vertical due to its transition architecture. The hotel is part of a particular position in the city, bringing a revival to the traditional 15th century party. The hotel is widely marked by the stately architecture of Haut-Maine, however. However, it attests to similarities in the roots of rural and urban seigniorial residences. If its construction is not, by definition, luxurious; Its spreading on the ground is monumental compared to the other hotels built mainly in height, within the Old Mans. Its particular architecture situates it halfway between Parisian architecture and Loire architecture, such as the position of the city and its natural attractions on the map of France. There is no doubt that Vignolles was particularly attentive to the effect produced on the visitor. First, he wanted to bring more Parisianism to Le Mans with its external architecture. Then he took into account the visitor's approach. The goal was certainly to impress, flatter and dominate all the fine flower of regional Protestantism and in particular Saumur Protestantism. The Hôtel de Vignolles is the typical example of the National Hotel National which will be built in Paris as elsewhere in France until the middle of the 17th century. Property of the city of Le Mans since 1926, the hotel is partially classified as historic monuments in 1946. Even today, the restorations continue, a division in two of the hotel in 1799 having deeply marked or even disfigured its original beauty .

Wikipedia: Hôtel de Vignolles (FR)

The Collegiate Church of Saint-Pierre-la-Cour is a former collegiate church located in the city of Le Mans. This is the former church dedicated to the Counts of Maine whose palace was adjacent. Built like the cathedral straddling the Gallo-Roman wall, it is attested as early as the High Middle Ages. Initially a simple chapel, it was endowed with a chapter of canons by Hugh I, who was also the first count to consider St. Peter's as his personal chapel. The collegiate church then benefited from the rise of the county dynasty, and Count Elijah I had it rebuilt at the end of the eleventh century. Until the Revolution, it contained the relics of Scholastica, the patron saint of Le Mans, who was invoked in particular against fires. Henry II of England restored the collegiate church in the 12th century, but it was the addition of the monumental two-storey chevet in the 13th century by Charles II of Anjou that gave the building its imposing stature.

Wikipedia: Collégiale Saint-Pierre-la-Cour (FR)

The Palais du Grabatoire is the current episcopal residence of the bishop of Le Mans. It is a former canonical palace built in the first half of the sixteenth century for Jean de Couthardy. The palace is located in the Cité Plantagenet district, the historic heart of Le Mans. The building faces the west door of St. Julian's Cathedral, Place du Cardinal Grente. Its name has been commonly reduced to Grabatoire or the Hôtel du Grabatoire. Its surface is of an unusual size. Very few documents, books or magazines from Le Mans have retraced the history of the building. It is one of the city's most underrated landmarks. The Grabatoire has been listed as a historical monument since 1927.

Wikipedia: Palais du Grabatoire (FR)

The Wright brothers, Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright, were American aviation pioneers generally credited with inventing, building, and flying the world's first successful airplane. They made the first controlled, sustained flight of an engine-powered, heavier-than-air aircraft with the Wright Flyer on December 17, 1903, four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, at what is now known as Kill Devil Hills. In 1904 the Wright brothers developed the Wright Flyer II, which made longer-duration flights including the first circle, followed in 1905 by the first truly practical fixed-wing aircraft, the Wright Flyer III.

Wikipedia: Wright brothers (EN)

Parc de la préfecture is a French public garden located in the city of Le Mans. It is located just behind the prefecture of Sarthe. This park is private, not usually accessible and reserved for the prefecture. It is, however, open to the public during Heritage Days. The park is exactly 22,630 m² and is included in the former ensemble of the Abbey of La Couture, including the monastic buildings, the abbey church and the enclosure. It is particularly known for having been the place of inspiration for the poem Mardoche by Alfred de Musset, who was visiting Le Mans at the time.

Wikipedia: Parc de la Préfecture (Le Mans) (FR)

The Maine Museum of Archaeology and History, or officially the Jean-Claude-Boulard Carré Plantagenet Museum, is a museum located in the city of Le Mans, in the Saint-Nicolas district, close to the central sector. Completely restored and refurbished by architect Bernard Althabegoity, it was officially inaugurated on June 19, 2009 and was opened to the public the following day.

Wikipedia: Musée d'archéologie et d'histoire du Mans (FR), Website

Le Mans Cathedral is a Catholic church situated in Le Mans, France. The cathedral is dedicated to Saint Julian of Le Mans, the city's first bishop, who established Christianity in the area around the beginning of the 4th century. Its construction dated from the 6th through the 15th century, culminating in 1430 and it features many French Gothic elements.

Wikipedia: Le Mans Cathedral (EN)

The Gallo-Roman wall of Le Mans, also called the Roman wall of Le Mans, in the city formerly called Vindinum or Vindunum, capital of the Gallic people of the Aulerci Cenomans, was built during the Late Roman Empire, at a time long assumed to be the end of the third century but which more recent studies now place at the beginning of the fourth century.

Wikipedia: Enceinte romaine du Mans (FR)

The Musée des 24 Heures du Mans, created in 1961 as the "Musée automobile de la Sarthe", then renamed the "Musée des 24 Heures - Circuit de la Sarthe" in 2009, is a French museum dedicated to motor racing located near the main entrance of the 24 Hours circuit in Le Mans.

Wikipedia: Musée automobile de la Sarthe (FR)

The Tessé museum is the Museum of Fine Arts in the city of Le Mans in France. It offers many guided tours on various themes and is located on the sidelines of the natural frame of the quinconces of the Jacobins and the Park of Tessé.

Wikipedia: Musée de Tessé (FR), Website

Philippe François Marie Leclerc de Hauteclocque was a Free-French general during the Second World War. He became Marshal of France posthumously in 1952, and is known in France simply as le maréchal Leclerc or just Leclerc.

Wikipedia: Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque (EN)

Paul Henri Benjamin Balluet d'Estournelles de Constant, Baron de Constant de Rebecque, was a French diplomat and politician, advocate of international arbitration and winner of the 1909 Nobel Prize for Peace.

Wikipedia: Paul Henri Balluet d'Estournelles de Constant (EN)