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

[brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Mishevy

Hopefully there are no people living around there.

Well actually there are people living around the volcano. Réunion is a very densely populated island, and although the side of the island where the volcano is located is the least populated, there are people living there nonetheless. The lava flow on the picture happened in the commune of Saint-Philippe, and the nearest settlement was the village of Tremblet, located only 3 km (2 miles) from the lava flow, where the 400 inhabitants had to be evacuated for few days. Some kids were even intoxicated by the toxic fumes and had to be sent to the hospital. The RN2 highway was covered by the lava flow which cut all road traffic on the eastern coast of Réunion. French road authorities have since reopened the road above the cold lava flow. I have fascinating pictures showing work on the still warm lava flow to reopen the road, but I can't turn this thread into a Réunion thread unfortunately.

If you click on the link below you can see great pictures of the 2006 eruption, and above all an increadible video of the eruption, with sound! You gotta hear that. I once witnessed a minor eruption in Costa Rica, some years ago, and the noise is the most extraordinary thing about an eruption. I'll never forget the noise.

http://www.fournaise.info/eruption30aout2006.php

[brisavoine]

What about ski in the morning, beach in the afternoon, and casino in the evening? The fort of Antibes on the French Riviera with the backdrop of the snowy Mercantour peaks.

[brisavoine]

Today, another of France's 36,000 villages: the village of Roussillon, in Provence, with its colorful houses in typical Provençal style, perched on top of a hill overlooking the beautiful Provence countryside.

[MonsieurAquilone]

I remember this all too well!!! This lovely little town is amazing!

[Nijal]

Originally Posted by brisavoine

What about ski in the morning, beach in the afternoon, and casino in the evening? The fort of Antibes on the French Riviera with the backdrop of the snowy Mercantour peaks.

It's amazinf that high mountains are so close to the coast!

[brisavoine]

Back to northern France! In complete contrast with the warm and welcoming village of Roussillon, here is a fortified church in the village of Wimy, in Picardy. This picture is perhaps not as aesthetically pleasing as the ones shown in this thread before, but it's very interesting for several reasons. First it shows the dark red brick and slate roofs that are typical of buildings in Picardy. This is quite similar to the style of architecture in southern Belgium, and completely different from the style of buildings in Provence. Second, this church is a typical example of the fortified churches and villages that dot Picardy. The rather flat Picardy, located to the north of Paris, was the main route of invasions into France. The English, the Germans, the Spaniards, the Russians, they all invaded France through Picardy (if you wonder about the Spaniards and the Russians, the former invaded France from the Spanish Netherlands, and the latter in 1814 after the failure of Napoleon's Campaign of Russia). Living in the corridor of invasions, people in Picardy fortified their villages, and even their churches, to protect themselves against looting and murdering soldiers and mercenaries.

More broadly speaking, these pictures of Roussilon and Wimy reveal the incredible diversity of France. Picardy and Provence are almost as different as Belgium and Italy: their weather is different, their native languages are different (Picard and Provençal, which were replaced by French only in the 20th century), their landscape and agriculture is different, the mentality of their people is different (the cold mentality of Picard people, almost Germanic, who have witnessed so many wars and endured so much hardship, vs. the warm and expensive nature of Provençal people, very Latin, used to a sweet life, at least compared with Picardy, away from the turmoils affecting the rest of Europe), and yet both places are France. When you think about it, France is a country that should never have existed; places as far apart and different as Picardy and Provence had absolutely nothing in common except that they spoke Romance languages, nothing predestined this vast territory extending from the Pyrenees to the North Sea to ever become a single united country, and yet that's just what happened. I hope with these pictures you can get a sense of the diversity of the provinces that have come to form this country called France which even French people know only very partially (personally, by editing this thread I'm discovering some places I had never seen or heard of before).

[Federicoft]

We are often surprised by diversity when visiting foreing countries mainly because we fail to relate more than a preconceived idea to it.

Then you discover there's a whole world beside that.

It's true for France, but for Belgium and Italy as well.

[Mishevy]

@brisavoine, thank you for presenting all this incredible diversity and beauty to us, you're quite successful at it

[brisavoine]

And so far we've seen only a small part of it. I haven't even touched on Quercy, Poitou, Basque Country, Berry, Bresse, Auvergne, French Flanders, Lozère, Roussillon (the province, not the village), Anjou, Champagne, and many more. I'll try to cover all the provinces, eventually. Like I said, there are between 36,000 and 37,000 towns and villages in France. If I showed one each day, it would take 100 years to show them all!!

[Justme]

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.

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...

Interesting. Anyway, I love Strasbourg, and being the closest major town in France to where I live, I try to visit as much as possible. In fact, I was there last week, popped over from Frankfurt for the day.

[Nijal]

Originally Posted by brisavoine

Loool a fortified church! I have never seen it before!

[brothejr]

Yea I'm going to have to agree with the others that is one sweet looking church!

[brisavoine]

There's more to Picardy than just severe fortified villages and bleak WW1 battlefields. Here are for instance the beautiful Gardens of Valloires. The Cistercian Abbey of Valloires was built in Gothic style in the 13th century, but it was later completely destroyed due to the repeated invasions of Picardy. The abbey was rebuilt at the beginning of the 18th century. Saved during the French Revolution due to the care of the local lord (who himself miraculously survived through the period), it was given back to the Church in the 19th century, but the Church was again kicked out by the French govenment in 1906 when Church and State were separated. The abandonned buildings served as a Belgian military hospital during WW1 (the battlefields were only 80 km/50 miles away). The buildings survived the two world wars.

In 1989 the world-renowned French landscape architect Gilles Clément created the Gardens of Valloires at the abbey. The gardens cover 9 hectares, which is approximately one-third the size of the Tuileries Gardens in Paris, and contain 5,000 species of Asian plants and shrubs (particularly some beautiful rose gardens).

The buildings in the picture are not really in the Picardy style (contrary to the fortified church before). Here it's basically the quintessential northern French style, known the world over as just the "French style".

[brisavoine]

Let's now leave Picardy and head to the old province of Quercy in southern France. We have to cross 800 km (500 miles) of France to reach Quercy where we'll arrive tomorrow. On our way this is the kind of roads we'll drive on. This is a typical French countryside road, by a late afternoon in midsummer.

Plane trees were planted on a massive scale along French roads in the 18th and 19th centuries to provide shade in summer for travellers. Roads like this one are unfortunately fast disappearing. Plane trees along roads have become a fatal hazard for inebriated young people returning home from partying in night clubs and whose cars often crash on the trunks of plane trees. Associations of parents have formed calling for the cutting of trees to save the life of young people, and tree cutting along roads has started on a large scale in some French regions. In Gers, a famous tourist area, the departmental council decided to cut all the trees along the country roads, which created outrage among Parisian lovers of the beautiful Gers countryside.

As often, there's a gap between occasional tourists who would like the countryside to remain unchanged and tended for tourists, and people actually living in the countryside who want to adapt their environment to modern and safe life. Environmental associations are also outraged by the massive tree cutting along French roads, but local mayors and councilors who order the trees cut say they can't live with the death of young people on their conscience. The thought of young people crashing on plane trees in the early morning is haunting many rural mayors and councilors.

How much longer will we find such beautiful traditional roads?

[Nijal]

Originally Posted by brisavoine

Let's now leave Picardy and head to the old province of Quercy in southern France. We have to cross 800 km (500 miles) of France to reach Quercy where we'll arrive tomorrow. On our way this is the kind of roads we'll drive on. This is a typical French countryside road, by a late afternoon in midsummer.

Plane trees were planted on a massive scale along French roads in the 18th and 19th centuries to provide shade in summer for travellers. Roads like this one are unfortunately fast disappearing. Plane trees along roads have become a fatal hazard for inebriated young people returning home from partying in night clubs and whose cars often crash on the trunks of plane trees. Associations of parents have formed calling for the cutting of trees to save the life of young people, and tree cutting along roads has started on a large scale in some French regions. In Gers, a famous tourist area, the departmental council decided to cut all the trees along the country roads, which created outrage among Parisian lovers of the beautiful Gers countryside.

As often, there's a gap between occasional tourists who would like the countryside to remain unchanged and tended for tourists, and people actually living in the countryside who want to adapt their environment to modern and safe life. Environmental associations are also outraged by the massive tree cutting along French roads, but local mayors and councilors who order the trees cut say they can't live with the death of young people on their conscience. The thought of young people crashing on plane trees in the early morning is haunting many rural mayors and councilors.

How much longer will we find such beautiful traditional roads?

You are maybe exagerating.
This type of road is not disappearing. And this is not only young inebriated people who crash on those trees, but also common people.

[Federicoft]

How can sober people crash on a tree on the edge of a straight stretch of road? They are either drunk or drive well above speed limits, or both.

Anyway, although it's sad to see those roads disappearing, I think life should come first.

[Halabalooza]

nice to see theres more to france then paris

[Giri]

Those roads are now more or less saved : they were a problem in the 70s when the road map in France was weak. Now, there are highways everywhere.

Still a problem for the local alcoholized youth though. And sometimes, those trees just waste some marvellous views.

[brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Nijal

You are maybe exagerating.
This type of road is not disappearing.

Originally Posted by Giri

Those roads are now more or less saved : they were a problem in the 70s when the road map in France was weak. Now, there are highways everywhere.

I think you guys are not fully aware of the issue. You can check the website of the association Trees and Roads for instance. Trees and Roads try to save trees along roads, and map all tree lined roads of France. There's a petition on their website to save the trees in Gers, you can sign it:
http://www.arbresetroutes.org/index.html

On the opposite side, here you have the blog of a woman and department councilor in Lorraine who is adamantly in favor of cutting trees along roads. She writes: "Now that death penalty is abolished, as a mother I can't stand that a tree sentences a child to death just because he/she has violated the traffic code." "I love nature and trees, but I prefer people : they are an integral part of nature, and killing people is like killing nature !" You can see her blog here:
http://www.claudine-becq-vinci.com/a...-15607117.html

So you see, it's still an actual issue, not something back in the 1970s.

[Giri]

If you read the websites, you'll see that the thematic is now about better infrastructures to make those regions more favorable to economic investments.

What can we do about it ? Personally, I miss the good old times of under-development when my very home region was "out" of History. But with decentralization in the 80s and now europeanization, it appears that regions cannot live anymore on subsidies from Paris and intend to make their regions "dynamic".

The issue is then more global : I personally refuse the "normalization"of France. I know what Spain looks like and I don't France to commit the same errors. But people elect people that favour policies I oppose. What can I do about it ?