Travel stories combine established facts about a place and first-hand observations -- a telling detail about the cuisine, perhaps, that also serves to illustrate the story-teller’s worldliness. With an almost non-existent French vocabulary with which to negotiate, I badly needed Poitiers, a medieval city and prehistoric site of habitation in west-central France, to speak for itself in giving an account of my stay. So my sightseeing became the compilation of a visual primer, an ABC that reflected not only the historical presence of commerce amid the Romanesque wonders of saints Radegonde, Pierre and Our Lady, but one that also acknowledged Poitiers’ role in the story of Joan of Arc, one of the patron saints of France. Words would come to me, I hoped.

I spent nine numbingly cold days in the region in January. Daily, I climbed the half-dozen flights of steps onto the plateau skirted by the River Clain that is the site of the old walled city.  On first impression, Poitiers has the lovely soft yellowy-grey colour of colonial Sydney. When newly cleaned, the local limestone looks almost weightless, alarmingly so in the case of the restored façade of Notre Dame la Grande.

As I stride towards the city centre, the beginnings of an alphabet assemble readily. “A is for l’agence immobiliere”; “B is for le boulangerie”; “C is for le cordonnerie”. (A parallel primer would have an ABC of “l’addition”, “la banque” and “le cout”, but I don’t need an accountant to tell me not to keep two sets of books.)

The first of these, les agences immobilieres, estate agents, are in terrible abundance in Poitiers, grossly outnumbering all other services. While the estate agents have a place in my story, the bakers are central to my impressions, for, as you come upon Notre Dame la Grande in the market square, it’s obvious that the shapes that make up the very affecting, roughly formed, human, animal and botanical figures that animate this 11^th and 12^th century church’s western façade are also found in the boulangerie.

Indeed, this hectic surface of pale-dough-coloured figures seems newly created by the hands that daily shape the round boule, the long baguette, the thinner ficelle, and the pain petit or bread roll. (The tissue wrapping paper from the little boulangerie-patisserie at 35 rue de la Tranchee lists 13 other breads.)

By the way, you may be appalled by the proximity to the church of the Brutalist, or just “municipal monstrous”, cement market building, but a 17^th-century painting shows that the proximity to commerce  was even greater with stalls attached to the church wall.

Even in this city of footwear-punishing stone-cobbled streets, the other artisanal practice that initiated my primer, le cordonnier, the shoe repairer, surely cannot long survive the global   focus on throw-away goods. However, I found three within the centre, although, sadly, M Mallet of Chez Bottine in rue de la Tranchee was never open when I called by, his window steamed up on a minus-2-degrees Wednesday.

“D is for department.”  France is divided administratively into departments that make up regions.  Poitiers, the capital of the region of Poitou-Charente, is in the department of Vienne. I’m told French children still learn their lessons by rote, but even said in a French up-and-down sort of way, this is a very dull par. You might prefer “D is for dejeuner” – but it’s a bit early for lunch.

With  “E for l’eglise”, “F  for la faience”, and “G for gothique”, I would hope to give some indication of the cultural significance of this site, not only with its ancient churches (including the variously mutilated and mutated St Hilaire le Grand,  celebrated as being on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela), but also the many Neolithic and Roman ceramic vessels and sculptures that have been unearthed in the greater region and that now form part of the collection of le Musee Sainte Croix. And speaking of the museum, “H is for l’homme” and the singular beauty of L’homme en rouge, painted in 1905 by Odilon Redon, (on loan from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris), hung in the Symbolist section.

Thus far into my alphabet, you should feel that you’re getting to know Poitiers like a book. And, perhaps like Joan of Arc, I should not only hear voices, but understand them.   “I is for idée fixe”. In Poitiers, I became slightly fixated on “J for Jeanne d’Arc”. Or perhaps the Maid chose me.

In 1429, the persistence of the Maid of Orleans, the inspired country girl who, only early last century was immortalised as St Jeanne, resulted in her being sent by a wary Dauphin (whom she hoped to see crowned Charles VII) from Chinon, where he held court, to Poitiers to be interrogated by worthies including the Archbishop of Reims and the Inquisitor of Toulouse. Purportedly, in the immense hall of what is now called the Palace of Justice, the Maid was formally interrogated by those whom she only hoped to aid in the fight against the English.

By the way, Orleans is about 220 kilometres north-east of Poitiers and no doubt also felt the effect of the 20^th-century English invasion of France that was achieved not through military tactics, but thanks entirely to les agences immobiliers.

To stand inside the Palace of Justice is itself worth a visit to the city. From the 10^th to 12^th centuries, the palace of the Counts of Poitou and the Dukes of Aquitaine occupied this site. The palace was enhanced by the building of this dining hall, the Salle des Pas Perdus, as it is called, between 1191 and 1204. Just why Alienor of Aquitaine, or Eleanor as she is called in English history, thought such a grand hall was necessary I can’t say.  Its name “the hall of lost footsteps” was a measure of its enormity: a footfall was silenced by its vastness. It still feels as if it is the biggest interior in Europe although it is only 50 meters long and 17 metres wide. The proportions feel perfect.

Research will tell you that from the 1380s to about 1416, three “monumental stoves” were installed at one end of the space, decorated with Gothic statuary and surmounted by a gallery. The three open fireplaces, side by side, that you see today are each the size of a small chamber. Once, green and gold majolica tiles, apparently the work of Jehan de Valence, received those silenced footsteps. Today, you pace stone flags in getting the measure of this space.

In telling this episode in the Maid’s story, you might employ   “K for kadamitas, kadamitatis” meaning loss, damage, harm, military defeat, or misfortune/disaster.  (You try thinking of an appropriate French word beginning with K, and, after all, Latin was the official language of the time of the 100 Years War, although, astonishingly, a transcript of these proceedings has not survived.) And, most tellingly, “L for lumiere.”

Was the eternally youthful Jeanne permitted to mount the stairs to the platform and enjoy the benefit of its triple fireplaces? Her face would have been illuminated by the vast, stone-traceried window that fills the wall above the gallery. I glimpsed, between train seat backs on a day trip to Lathus, the face I imagine Jeanne  having, the mouth twisted in thought,  but the voices in this teen’s head were downloaded, not divine.

Finding nothing improper in her, Jeanne’s inquisitors advised the Dauphin of her “goodness, humility, chastity, piety, propriety and simplicity”. You know the rest: two years later condemned as a heretic and burnt at the stake, aged 19.

In the Salle des Pas Perdus, I stood and listened. The hall is crossed by busy advocates going about their adversarial business, the sound of their footsteps crossing those of Jeanne’s returning me to thoughts about cordonniers. I watched a female advocate in some approximation to male, medieval attire (for what else is a black gown and stiff white neckwear?) advising her client, and thought how much  Jeanne’s fate was sealed by her refusal to wear feminine dress.

Enough of Jeanne for the moment — but speaking of women’s work, “M is for Monoprix,” a supermarket refuge from the cold where the prepared foods include delicious couscous with fresh mint and the ubiquitous grated-carrot salad with vinaigrette.

"N is for non”;  “O is for oui”. No, yes, January is hopeless for concerts, but, delightfully, “P is for Poulenc.”  Francis Poulenc’s genius for composing to the rhythm of the spoken word was inescapably apparent at a free lunchtime concert in the Mediatheque Francois-Mitterand, the central library. While his sonata for piano, four hands, was being ably tackled by Tao Xie and Elodie Griscelli, fellow conservatoire students chatted loudly (well, you have to speak loudly over a Steinway) sitting at tables on the other side of the foyer.

Out on the street again, “Q is for quincaillerie”, another of those “erie” words signaling a shop or premises. While door furniture and other hardware, obtainable from Maison Grassin, at 47 rue Marne, makes desirable if too weighty souvenirs, DIY is a language I no longer try to decipher.

Cities are full of signposted names and sober words of direction.  The wire enclosure of gaudy, gossiping budgerigars in the Parc de Blossac is authoritatively labeled, but that doesn’t make the sight and sound of these Australian natives in the frosty surrounds of these liberatingly extensive formal acres, established in 1770, any less bizarre.

I’m in a dilemma as I muse over what I’ve seen. Should I order names, and the letters of the alphabet, in a certain sequence to make life seem straightforward or try to reflect the disorientation felt in medieval streets that don’t comply with a grid? I press on with the route I’ve chosen.

“R is for Radegonde”, the saint whose  church with its massive single chamber is so affecting in its austerity. Radegonde died in 587 and her sarcophagus has been on this site since then although this building dates from the 11^th century. There is something awful about the great cliff of  masonry with which  the nearby Cathedral of St Pierre turns its back on  this very significant church. However, St Radegonde’s, being on less elevated ground, has a natural claim to this bend of the river and coffee is to be enjoyed at a bar by Pont Joubert as you gaze out on a misty morning and contemplate the fates of pious women.

“S is for sejour.” I stayed in a studio apartment, part of the Paris-based Residhome Apparthotel chain, called Sejours et Affairs Lamartine, at 14 boulevard Pont Achard, right by the station.  I recommend it if you are prepared to make the seven-minute climb up into the city. There is a bus, but why bring the frustration of bus-waiting on holiday with you?

On zero-degree days, never were illuminated signs more welcome than those that signal the traditional bar: “T is for tabac.” After five minutes revere over a café noir in one of these  no-nonsense interiors and I’m ready to go on grasping for words to bring home from Poitiers.  Were the fine minds of the day exercised by doubts about the legality of Jeanne’s immolation in Paris, in May, 1431? Or were they too occupied with the formation of the university in that year? “U is for Universite de Poitiers.”

Businesses are closing: it’s time for lunch. The panache of half-square-metre napkins and piped jazz make a restaurant lunch much better value than paper-bagging. “V is for Vingelique”, at 37 rue Carnot, where lunchtime plat du jour and dessert costs just 10.3 euros.  Or, “V is for verre”, the material of the Musee Sainte Croix’s blue-and-white medieval reliquary bowl of unknown manufacture, looking so audaciously moderne, its big blobs of opaque white glass unsettling everything you felt about the  grimness of the Dark Ages.

“W is for web,” what else? Online, one moves between past and present, home and away, and there  always seem to be letters before ones eyes, but my Poitiers primer ends  here — not with “X,Y,Z”, but with a fast train to Paris – you know,  a TGV.