Saint-Dié-des-Vosges is a French commune, capital of the Deodatie
and arrondissement of the Vosges department. Located in the
historical and cultural region of Lorraine, the town is now part of
the Grand Est administrative region.
Its inhabitants are
called the Deodatians.
The capital of a Merovingian ban at a
remarkable bend in the Meurthe valley, the town of
Saint-Dié-des-Vosges has continued with prestigious Christian
monasteries and sanctuaries, welcoming pilgrims and the sick. If in
the twelfth century, the Saint-Dié church, erected as a chapter and
its canons tried to found a city around their collegiate church and
began to surround it with walls and towers, it was in the following
century that the lower town lorraine was truly born from an
association between the Duke of Lorraine and the collegiate church.
It is in Saint-Dié, within the Vosges gymnasium, that the
Planisphere of Waldseemüller was published in 1507 which contains
the first mention of the word "America" , name given in honor of
the explorer Amerigo. Vespucci, on a card titled “Universalis
Cosmographia”. This is how the city still honors the title of
Godmother of America.
After the fire of July 27, 1757 in the
city center, the main street was rebuilt under Stanislas, Duke of
Lorraine for life. A rectilinear French town planning promotes
arteries and bridges3, thus the rue Stanislas, the rue des
Trois-Villes, the Grand Pont. The city is developing with the road
of the French authorities. Center of subdelegation, it brings
together forestry administrations, justice and especially bishopric
erected in 1777.
The town experienced an industrial
boom between 1830 and 1890. It is known for its clearance sale at
the end of September, heir to its autumn fairs. The International
Geography Festival was founded in 1989 by a private association,
chaired by the mayor. The aim is to celebrate the discipline of
"geography" at the beginning of October with exhibitions,
conferences, events and recognition prizes, in particular the
Vautrin-Lud prize crowning a career as a researcher and rankings for
participation in the exhibition of scientific posters.
The
city takes its name from the Christian saint Dié, founder of ban and
chorevishop monk of the Colombanian rite (of Saint Colomban, Irish
monk), called in Latin Deodatus, in French Déodat or Dieudonné,
abbreviated by custom in Dié. The Latin base persists in the
gentile. Long called Saint-Dié, the town officially took its current
name of Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, sometimes abbreviated by the acronym
SDDV, as of December 29, 1999. The former name, shorter, is
sometimes still used . We can also trace the name of the toponym of
Saint-Dié with the Vosges, to the oldest charter of Charlemagne,
drawn up in Aix-la-Chapelle, January 13, 769, where the toponym of
Saint-Dié in Latin is followed of the infra Vosago silva mention.
Churches
1 Saint-Dié Cathedral, Place du Général de Gaulle,
88100 Saint-Dié-des-Vosges . The cathedral was built in the 12th
century in Romanesque style and enlarged in the 18th century with
the main facade and the two red sandstone towers.
Église
Notre-Dame-de-Galilée (immediately adjacent to the Cathedral, on the
other side of the cloister). Romanesque church from the 12th
century.
2 Eglise Saint-Martin, Rue d'Hellieule . Neo-Romanesque
red sandstone church from 1902 with a steep tower.
3 Chapelle du
Petit-Saint-Dié, 7 rue Déodat (300 m southwest of the station) . The
chapel was built in the 15th century on the site of the former house
chapel and tomb of Saint Deodatus (eponym and patron saint of
Saint-Dié).
Buildings
1 Tour de la Liberte, Parc Jean
Mansuy . The Freedom Tower was built in 1989 to celebrate the 200th
anniversary of the French Revolution in the Jardin des Tuileries in
Paris and rebuilt after the celebrations in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges and
opened to the public on July 14, 1990.
2 Usine Claude-et-Duval
(manufacture Claude-et-Duval), 1 avenue de Robache (150 m north of
the cathedral) . The hosiery and knitwear factory was built in
1948-51 according to a design by the internationally renowned
architect Le Corbusier and today employs 80 people. It has been a
UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2016.
Museums
3 Pierre
Noël Museum . Regional museum of the Vosges with archaeological
finds from Celtic and Roman times, paintings by local artists from
the 17th to 20th centuries, handicraft objects (faience and
porcelain), militaria, stuffed animals and objects from traditional
everyday culture.
Various
4 La Bure Celtic Camp (camp
celtique de la Bure; 6 km north of the city center) . Fortified
hilltop site from the 2nd to 1st century BC. (La Tène period).
Saint-Dié is located on the edge of the Ballons des Vosges Regional Nature
Park, on the western slope of the Vosges. The upper Meurthe flows through the
urban area.
Neighboring municipalities of Saint-Dié-des-Vosges are
Hurbache and Denipaire to the north, Saint-Jean-d'Ormont and Ban-de-Sapt to the
north-east, Nayemont-les-Fosses to the east, Sainte-Marguerite and
Saulcy-sur-Meurthe in the south-east, Taintrux to the south, Les Rouges-Eaux and
Mortagne to the west, and Saint-Michel-sur-Meurthe and La Voivre to the
north-west.
The city's name goes back to the legendary hermit Deodatus, Bishop of Nevers,
who is said to have died here in 679. It is mentioned in the Treaty of Meerssen
in 870 as one of the important places that was added to the new empire of Louis
the German (Regesta Imperii I, no. 1480).
In 1507, Martin Waldseemüller
published a map in Sankt Didel in which the newly discovered continent of
America was named for the first time – after Amérigo Vespucci, to whom
Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann attributed the discovery.
French
influence in the region, which was part of the Holy Roman Empire, steadily
increased. In the late 17th century, Alsace was annexed by France, and Lorraine
fell to France in 1766. Some Alsatians moved here from the Reichsland
Alsace-Lorraine, which was established in 1871.
The city has given its
name to a diocese since 1777.
After the systematic and almost complete
destruction by the retreating German Wehrmacht and the deportation of the male
population to Germany for forced labor in November 1944, the city was rebuilt in
the sober style of the 1950s according to plans by Le Corbusier. General Hermann
Balck, who was responsible for the destruction, was sentenced in absentia by a
French military court to 20 years hard labor.
By plane
The nearest airport is Strasbourg (SXB; 85 km). There is a direct
train once a day (10:03) from Enzheim airport station to Saint-Dieu (journey
time 1:45), otherwise you will have to change trains in Strasbourg and Selestat,
and in total it will take a good 2 hours .
By train
The Saint Dieu des
Vosges train station is served approximately once an hour by Regional Express
(TER) trains from Nancy via Luneville, the journey takes just over an hour.
Nancy has a TGV connection to/from Paris. The TER runs five times a day from
Épinal to Saint-Dieu, and the travel time is also one hour.
About nine
TER trains run from Strasbourg to Saint-Dieu on weekdays (less often on
weekends), the route corresponds to the A09 schedule. The nearest major railway
station on the Alsatian side is at Selestat (Schlettstadt), 45 km away, on the
Strasbourg-Colmar-Mulhouse-Basel line. There you can take a bus to Saint-Dieu
every two hours. From Strasbourg you need a total of 1:45 hours by bus and
train, from Colmar 1.5 hours, from Basel SBB 2:10 hours.
Arriving from
Germany, the train journey is cumbersome and lengthy: for example, from Freiburg
(Breisgau), which is only 100 km away, you have to change trains at least twice,
which takes at least 2:45 hours, from Saarbrücken - 150 km . km, even more than
3.5 hours.
By bus
On weekdays, bus 30428 runs every two hours from
Celeste train station to Saint-Dieu, travel time 70 minutes.
On the
street
Saint-Dieu-des-Vosges is located on the N 59 highway, which looks like
a motorway, which leads from Celeste/Strasbourg in one direction and
Lunéville/Nancy in the other direction. From the prefecture of Épinal, take the
D420 to Saint-Dieu (50 km/55 minutes). It is about 85 km from Nancy (travel time
about an hour); from Strasbourg 90 km (a little less than an hour and a half).
From Freiburg I. You drive almost 100 km via Rigel and Selestat (about 1:45
hours); from Basel on the A35 and Colmar 130 km (also 1 hour 45 minutes); from
Saarbrücken via Sarreguemines, French A4, Sarbur and Baccarat 150 km (about 2
hours); from Karlsruhe on the A5 motorway, past Offenburg, Strasbourg and
Selestat 170 km (just under 2.5 hours).