France - One photo a day (thread open to all)

[brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Athenax

Please post Château de Versailles.

When I find an interesting pic I'll post it. There's no point posting pics that everybody has already seen. If you find an interesting little-seen pic, you can also post it.

[brisavoine]

Douce France... A quintessential French village in the mother of all French regions, the Île-de-France, the historical heart from where France started.

[Athenax]

Originally Posted by brisavoine

When I find an interesting pic I'll post it. There's no point posting pics that everybody has already seen. If you find an interesting little-seen pic, you can also post it.

Thanks. I just sent you a pm of link to some photos coz I don't know how to resize it.

[brisavoine]

Paris sera toujours Paris...


(picture taken by a coworker of French forumer Cyril in December 2007 from the top of Montparnasse Tower)

[Nijal]

Très belle photo!

[brisavoine]

Slow-pace life in a small village in the wine region of Alsace. Alsace is one of the most beautiful and prosperous regions of France but it is underrated in France, I don't know why. Tourists always look west and south but never east.

[Jonesy55]

Originally Posted by brisavoine

Alsace is one of the most beautiful and prosperous regions of France but it is underrated in France, I don't know why.

That's because Elsass is not really french is it

Nice picture, I've never been to this part of France but it looks a bit like the Mosel valley area just over the border in Germany.

[brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Jonesy55

That's because Elsass is not really french is it

Don't be silly now. It has nothing to do with that. I know many people who move to Strasbourg like they'd move to Nantes or Toulouse. In fact you as in Englishman would probably feel more in a foreign country in Northern Ireland than a Frenchman would in Alsace. I can imagine a Parisian moving to Strasbourg (in fact I know some), but I cannot imagine a Londoner in his/her right mind moving to Belfast.

In reality it just has to do with the idea of "east". In France "east" has a bad reputation. All the bad things come from the east. The Huns came from the East, the Germanic invasions too, and more recently the German invasions. Winter comes from the east. Civilisation is west, barbarim is east. Maybe it's cliché, but in the psyche of people it plays a role. It's not just Alsace. Regions like Lorraine, Champagne, Franche-Comté are not popular among French people. They would hardly spend their holidays there. And it's a bit unfair because these regions have nice landscape and towns too, like everywhere in France.

More broadly speaking, it's something I've always found amusing. In England the regions along the Channel have a very good reputation, people want to move there, they are seen as sunny and fun places compared to the rest of England, whereas in France the Channel coast has not a good reputation, it's really not a place where people would like to move, yet it's exactly the same Channel as the one in England that is so popular. Same with eastern French regions. In Germany the Palatinate, the Rhine Valley with its castles and vineyards are all very popular, they are thought of as one of the best part in the country, yet Lorraine and Alsace which are just the same as Palatinate have no such good reputation in France, and few tourists go there. It's just the southern tropism. These regions have the bad luck of being in the north and east of the country, which is entirely artificial when you think about it, because it they were in the west of Germany or in the south of England they'd be very popular in these two countries.

It's funny the way these things work...

[brisavoine]

Here is another Alsatian village, Kaysersberg, displaying typical Alsatian architecture (the village in the pic before, Hunawihr, did not really display traditional Alsatian architecture, but the picture was so great with the granny and her dog... it's an out-of-this world scene that you can actually witness if you travel deep in rural France... I once crossed a village in the middle of nowhere in southern France at sunset in summer and three old ladies were sitting on a bench at the entrance of the village and discussing so peacefully, resting their hands on their canes, it was a surreal scene).

For the records, in Kaysersberg, the lovely village shown below, the French extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen came first in the first round of the 2002 French presidential election. Extreme-right vote is very strong in rural Alsace, that's the dark side of it. But then Kaysersberg people apparently learned better beacuse in the first round of the 2007 presidential election Jean-Marie Le Pen came only fourth in the village, behind Nicolas Sarkozy, François Bayrou, and Ségolène Royal.

[MonsieurAquilone]

I did notice a big move towards Sarko around the East when I watched TF1's coverage of the election. Perhaps the East is slowly moderating itself ...

[pierretoulouse]

That is a truly beautiful picture.

[Jonesy55]

Originally Posted by brisavoine

Don't be silly now. It has nothing to do with that. I know many people who move to Strasbourg like they'd move to Nantes or Toulouse. In fact you as in Englishman would probably feel more in a foreign country in Northern Ireland than a Frenchman would in Alsace. I can imagine a Parisian moving to Strasbourg (in fact I know some), but I cannot imagine a Londoner in his/her right mind moving to Belfast.

I was only joking

There are some Londoners who move to Belfast though, stats for 2005 show 1,400 people moving from Northern Ireland to London but 1,700 people moving the other way.

In fact London is rapidly losing population to most parts of the UK, only international immigration keeps the population of the capital increasing.

In total 242,000 people moved from London to another part of the UK while only 161,000 moved from the UK regions into London.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBAS...eets/D9440.xls

[brisavoine]

Aujourd'hui, another random village of France, Chichilianne, in the wild Vercors region. Ah, the joy of kids away from the stress of big cities! The area looks so peaceful now, but 65 years ago the Vercors was one of the main hideouts of the Résistance, and many résistants were killed by the Germans in the area. I'll post more about the Vercors tomorrow.

By the way, there are about 36,000 villages in France, so there must at least one where you'll fit in.

[Mishevy]

This is just too idyllic! Out of this world....

[MonsieurAquilone]

C'est aussi une région bien connue parmi les grimpeurs professionels de la France! Quelle belle vue!

[brisavoine]

As promised, here is a view of the Vercors mountains (only a small part of the Vercors mountain range is visible in the foreground and in the background). If the Vercors did not lie so close to the Alps, it would probably be one of the most visited areas of France. Unfortunately (or fortunately), it is completely overshadowed by the world-renowned French Alps, and not so many people visit the Vercors, which is great if you enjoy wild and unspoilt places free of mass tourism.

[brisavoine]

Crater at the summit of the Piton de la Fournaise on the island of Réunion. Piton de la Fournaise is the most active French volcano. Tomorrow I'll show a picture of the last eruption in 2007.

[Nijal]

Impressive!

[brisavoine]

Lava flow meeting the ocean during the last eruption of the Piton de la Fournaise in April 2007. Look at the size of the trees for an idea of the eruption's scale.

[Mishevy]

Hopefully there are no people living around there.