There are no Grenadier Guards and you don’t have the Queen waving from a balcony.”Beryl agreed. “The 1951 Festival had a concept that ‘we’re British and this is what we can do’ The Dome is much more cosmopolitan and less insular. There are people from every ethnic group here and the atmosphere is great. You can give people information and entertainment, as is the case in the Journey Zone. It’s a pity they didn’t do that with more of the other zones.”But there is one extra dimension that needs to be added in – the £750m cost and the additional millions that have helped bail the Dome out of the series of crisis this year “You can’t justify it on costs,” argued Maurice.

“Ultimately, if you look at all the money that has been pushed into the Dome, then it isn’t worth it. I find myself thinking they could have used the money to build a couple of pioneering hospitals; that would have been a great legacy.”So what will be the Dome’s epitaph? Our information pack, written before the opening, still has that prediction of 12 million visitors hanging like an albatross around the whole venture’s neck. How laughable that seems now, but what if expectations had not been raised so absurdly high?”We were led to believe the Dome was the greatest thing ever,” said Maurice “It isn’t, but it’s still great fun. The Festival of Britain was all about the way ahead with the new technologies.

The Dome is how the ‘way ahead’ turned out, for better or worse. The question is: what will the next one, presumably in 2051, be like?”. Poitiers is a small town in mid-western France with a famous name and a long history. Charles Martel’s victory at Poitiers in 732AD halted the Moorish advance into Europe; the Black Prince won a notable battle here in 1356, early in the Hundred Years War; and Rabelais and Descartes attended the University, founded in the 15th Century as a rival to the Sorbonne. Poitiers is a small town in mid-western France with a famous name and a long history. Charles Martel’s victory at Poitiers in 732AD halted the Moorish advance into Europe; the Black Prince won a notable battle here in 1356, early in the Hundred Years War; and Rabelais and Descartes attended the University, founded in the 15th Century as a rival to the Sorbonne.
But in post-medieval times its population declined and it became something of a backwater, a staging post on the road to Bordeaux and the capital of an impoverished agricultural region, the Vienne.

A 19th-century gazetteer lists its main products as stockings, woollen caps, gloves and combs.Yet the modern fortunes of Poitiers have been transformed by Futuroscope, the European Park of the Image, that opened here in the mid-1980s. Poitiers itself remains a pleasant French country town on a hill between two rivers, its largely pedestrian centre accentuating the homely atmosphere of the place, in sharp contrast to the futuristic theme park celebrating the latest advances in cinema technology and visual imagery, five miles to the north.Futuroscope is an exemplary development, combining a leisure facility, the theme park itself, with a technical lycée, the engineering faculty of the university, research institutes – the National Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering School – and an industrial site. The brainchild of the local senator, René Manory, the whole development attracted massive investment and has transformed the economy of the region.Why go? Futuroscope is Poitiers’ one big statement. But the town whispers many smaller ones: an unspoilt town centre with fine examples of Romanesque and Renaissance architecture, excellent restaurants, alluring shops, and the dynamic youthful atmosphere of a university city. It is quite possible to spend all one’s time at Futuroscope and ignore Poitiers, or vice versa; but, taking the two together, theme park and town make a unique package of contrasting attractions.Why now? As well as Christmas markets and other seasonal events, this year Poitiers is displaying one of the world’s largest Christmas crÿches: extending over 250 square metres, and including 300 traditional Provençal carved figures called santons, it is on display at the Chapelle Saint-Louis in the Collÿge Henri IV from 9 December to 14 January.The mission The real glory of Poitiers is its Romanesque architecture.