France

While walking around the northeastern Lorraine city of Metz I stumbled across a street called Rue de la Manufacture, with a small sign that tobacco was produced here many years ago. Although there were no signs, I wondered if this building was used as a shed for storing the leaves? It was very similar to sheds that I’ve seen in the southern US, where the leaves are hung and allowed to ferment or dry out of whatever it is they want to happen to the leaves:

It sounded like an interesting historical topic (producing tobacco in France!), so I did a little research on Wikipedia and found out this might be the case. You can see the Rue de la Manufacture below, and just to the right and up you’ll see Imp. Belle-Isle, where the northeastern most building (with the grey roof) is the arial view of the snap I took:

I think it’s just wonderful how you can dovetail a photography hobby with an easy bit of historical research, to find out things like this!

 

You have to look and think about this one a little bit:

There are mask signs sprayed all over the streets in the northeaster Lorraine city of Metz, but it struck me as interesting how this one was juxtaposed with a deviation sign. It made me think, I hope these times are just is “Covid deviation.”

I took this snap while walking around the historic northeast Lorraine city of Metz:

This is Louis Leygue, a sculpteur of quite some fame based in the general area of Bourg-en-Bresse, in France – a region probably most famous for its Poulet de Bresse chickens.

I was really surprised to find this here, since I did no research and was just walking around. Here is one of his most important works:

Here you can read more about the artist:

This is a lion in the north central French town of Châlons-en-Champagne,

Continuing the series, a snap from a different point-of-view

Nothing special, just what I thought was a very interesting snap of a tree in Mulhouse, France,

Continuing the series, this is the church,

Continuing the series, I think this may be the justice department building but I’m not sure and wasn’t bothered to walk over and find out:

This is the main city hall in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté village of Belfort,

As artistic a snap as I thought I could take of a building in the French village of Belfort, in the region known as Bourgogne-Franche-Comté,

Yes, if Bourgogne sounds familiar then it probably is: it’s the original French word that is translated as Burgundy, and it’s where the French wine of the same name comes. Belfort itself is an interesting place with many historical sights and an often-flipped past; at times it belonged to Germany.

OK, more formally known as a lateral move irrigation machine, these things are just amazing. They have an astonishing amount of electronics, including servo motors that move the wheels.

I took this snap in the winter, in Alsace. This seems to be a so-called two wheel model, since there are two wheels per assembly.

I tried to look up how much one of these babies cost (capital costs, not operating costs), and I was surprised to find a few things. First, the costs are usually reported per hectare or acre. Second, there is a huge range in the costs, from USD 300 per acre to USD 6’000 per acre, depending on the features and functionality.

Continuing the series, just as I showed the efforts by the French to re-ignite the southern French language of Langue d’Oc, here’s a snap of what’s happening in Alsace, on the border with Germany, where the language of Alsacienne has been falling into obscurity:

I don’t know the statistics, but speaking from experience I have interacted with a large number of people who speak Alsacienne. It’s a bit tricky for me to understand, it seems to be a mixture of French and German – but I can generally follow along and get the gist of what people are saying. Interestingly, in most cases when I’ve interacted with someone speaking Alsacienne and they realize I am struggling, they jump back to French rather than German – so my guess is that French rather than German is the stronger element.