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Pierre Loti Museum, Rochefort, France | |
| A decorated French naval officer sails the world and describes it in his romantic novels. Loti's house is now a fascinating museum in Rochefort. | ||
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Louis Marie-Julien Viaud (1850-1923), better known by his pen name Pierre Loti, was a decorated French naval officer, but more famous as a novelist. Loti's novels featured settings and descriptions of the exotic locales he encountered during his naval career, most famously in Constantinople (Istanbul) His Rochefort residence is the Pierre Loti Museum, stuffed with curiosities brought back from his travels, with some rooms fitted out as a pseudo-Ottoman mosque, but in 2012 the museum was closed due to the need for extensive repairs. When it may re-open is unclear.
In the meantime, audio-visual displays of the house and items from its collections are on display at the Musée Hèbre de Saint Clément, 65 avenue du Général de Gaulle (tel +44 (0) 5 46 82 91 60). Loti's tomb is in the Maison des Aïeules, his summer home in the town of Saint-Pierre-d'Oléron on the Île d'Oléron.
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Pierre Loti Monument, Rochefort.
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