A renaissance man for the twenty-first century!
Here is the Auvergne city of Clermont-Ferrand, looking down from about halfway up the famous Puy de Dome volcano that sits just outside the city.
That black spot in the center is the city’s cathedral – and it’s black because Clermont-Ferrand is located right smack dab in the middle of a volcanic park, so all the stone is a rich black lava-based stone.
Continuing the series, it makes me wonder how much foot traffic is required to wear down hard stones like these?
While scoping out the area near Béziers in the south of France on Google Maps, my eyes spotted this interesting thing:
Was this a special French signal to extraterrestrials? Was this perhaps a secret French nuclear installation? I had to check it out!
Well, as you can see from the snippet in Google Maps, not only can you check it out but in fact there is a small, one-lane farm road that lets you drive right through it! Here’s what I saw, rows and rows of drainage ditches:
Indeed, there were a series of drainage ditches – all filled with water – that were feeding radially into a center point. I spotted a nearby hill – at the top of which, coincidentally, is a Roman archeological site called L’Oppidum d’Énsérune, and from that place you can really see how huge this place is:
I discovered a bit more on Wikipedia. Turns out that this site dates back to the thirteenth century! Originally this land was a swamp, and they created this pattern in order to drain the swamp. I would have loved to walk into the center of the installation, but there were a number of “private property” signs – and, to be honest, I was a bit worried I might accidentally fall into some type of a sink hole, or perhaps into one of the “sixteen vertical shafts” that Wikipedia talks about – so I’ll leave that on my bucket list for a later date.
This snap is sad for a number of reasons. When I saw this tank, at this angle, in this light, looking longingly out into the fields where, in its youth, it was running about and shooting and deflecting bullets and driving over people, it somehow made me very sad. Not that these activities were good things; quite the opposite. But that this tank still had a wonderful condition but could not do what it was designed to do.
But now I am even more sad, because this is the Alsacian village of Kaysersberg where, just a few months later, the noted celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain took his own life.
Well, if I stopped my car and got out I could have probably taken a better snap. It was pretty impressive:
Sorry, there’s no other word to describe it. Stop in any rest area in the Alsace area of France, and you’ll be sure to see plenty of storks strutting around.
But, try to walk up to one. They won’t attack you. They won’t run away. Instead, they shrug their shoulders and turn their heads away, to send a “oh pleeeeeeeease” message: I am a stork, you idiot, haven’t you seen a stork before? Just go away, you jackass, and let me look for some tasty frogs to eat.
Even if you are not rich and famous, you’ve probably heard of the finest in French crystal, known as Baccarat Crystal.
Well, it gets its name not from the most famous company that manufactures it (Baccarat Crystal) but from the village of the same name.
The village is nestled deep, deep within the Vosges Mountains of Eastern France – and it’s quite a bit like Appalachia, in the United States. Yes, you can come here. No, nobody will try to stop you. But let’s just say, if you were to ask the French Gendarmes about the wisdom of your decision, they would probably encourage you to go somewhere else.
Here is a snap from the village:
And here is another snap:
And here is another snap:
Since the times of the Holy Roman Empire scholars have continued to ask whether it is possible to take a bad photograph of a good cow – and despite the best efforts of the finest religious scholars and philosophers, the answer is – always – time and time again – a resounding NO!
I took this snap in the south of France, Les Pays des Portes du Haut-Doubs, just a few kilometers from the border to the Jura region of Switzerland.
I assume its a statue of the Virgin Mary, but to be honest I am not quite sure. Anyway, it’s an artistic a snap as I thought I could take in this incredible sunlight!
As artistic a snap as I thought I could take of the gateway to the French city of Beaune, the heart of the Bourgogne region of France:
As artistic a snap as I thought I could take of a church steeple in the center of the western French city of Bordeaux,
As artistic a snap as I thought I could take of water pouring out of a drainage canal in Alsace, on its way to the Rhein river:
Just for the record: the photos I post are never in any way retouched or enhanced or changed – except for cropping. OK, and maybe a very simple color correction a la Google.
But in this series of blog posts entitled FAKE I publish some rather interesting images I have enhanced in some way. This picture was enhanced using a more severe color correction option offered by Google Photos.
Continuing the series, here is another spectacular building I spotted in the western French city of Bordeaux:
Nestled on the far left side of Europe sits the country of France, and nestled on the far left side of France sits the little village of Soulac-sur-Mer, and nestled on the far left side of Soulac-sur-Mer sits a tiny residential neighborhood where all the houses have ceramic facades and – unbelievably – names!
The name of this house is Les Bleuets:
The village sits right at the top of the Cote d’Argent, so probably this is an attempt by the local chambre de commerce to draw tourists.
I thought this was quite an artistic snap of a church behind some trees just outside of La Roche-sur-Yon in the Pays de la Loire region of France:
If you go to France you’ll find the entire country – no matter where you look – is filled with works that they call art. And surprisingly, many of them are in fact art! This is a work of art I snapped in the Ill de Napoleon region near Mulhouse:
I’m quite shocked that the prevalence of Covid-19 is as high as it is, because there is no other country in the world that is so well prepared for a zombie apocalypse as France. I’ve written about the robo-hotels, the robo-food, the robo-stores – as well as the zombie-proof outside laundry machines.
Here’s another snap to continue the series, showing not only an outdoor laundry but also robo-bread and robo-pizza capabilities!
Continuing the series, as everyone knows France is filled with incredible villages dating back to the Middle Ages. Many of them are famous and they get lots of tourists.
But . . . some of them are so remote that tourists have never visited. When small children in these villagers happen to see an “outsider” (in French: étrange éetranger) they recoil in fear because they think they are the only people on the planet – and some of them later need professional counseling.
Donzenac is one of these villages. You probably won’t find it on Apple Map or Google Earth – it is located so deep within France that – even if you knew what you were looking for – it would take you many hours and a lot of luck to come across this place, and of course any locals you might stop to ask would refuse to acknowledge that this place even exists!
As you can see, even the signs are written 100% in French, because they assume that no étranges étrangers would ever come here:
Well, OK, maybe 1-2 Germans have been here – but certainly no more than that!
I took this snap in front of some kind of big monument in Bordeaux. I never stopped to read who this was – nor do I particularly care – what is the sense of trying to show a historical figure who is wearing a rain coat?
Anyway, I liked the way the light bounced off his face so I am quite happy with how this snap turned out!
Continuing the series,
Soulac-sur-Mer on the western coast of France (also known as the Côte d’Argent – or Silver Coast) has got to be one of the more unusual towns I’ve seen. There’s nothing particularly impressive about the Hôtel de ville, as this snap shows.
But in future snaps I’ll show what some of the very usual buildings in this village look like.
I spotted this breathtaking pine cone attached to a pine tree in a park in the Western French city of Bordeaux,
Probably my favorite aspect of travelling is visiting places that no other tourists are likely to go. Recently, I had to chance to visit a very remote section of western France, a tiny (almost microscopic) village of Le Verdun-sur-Mer, where the confluence of the Dordogne and Caronne Rivers form a delta with the Atlantic Ocean,
Interestingly, it reminded me very much of the delta where the Mississippi River in the U.S. empties into the Gulf of Mexico.
Continuing the series,
