Visiting Le Havre

Le Havre is a big city next to our vacation base, so we visited it. According to wikipedia the city was reconstructed after World War 2, because of its vast demolution. The reconstruction was done by a team of architects. They followed a common masterplan while designing the new city. The design of all

Monuments created by mother nature …

… or rather by water, wind and sun.

The coast of the normandie consists of calkstone and thus it is not as solid as i.e.grantie or basalt. Sun heats it up during the day, while it cools down during the night. These changings in temperature bring cracks in the rock, where the water (i.e. the rain) can attack the stone furthermore. 

A fascinating coast

Last year on our trip to Brittany we passed this area but were unable to stop because of a lack of time. So we came back this year and had a look at this part of the French coast. Amazingly the coast looks different then the coast in Brittany. Even both coasts we visited had high cliffs and both are located at the British channel, they are different. There are completely different plants growing on top of the cliffs.

Our vaccation home

Our homebase was near Étrétat, a few kilometers north of Le Havre and only a few hundret meters away from the cliffs at the coast. The vaccation home was a quite old building with wooden floors squeaking at every footstep. Maybe it’s used to be an old farm house. Nevertheless, it was big engough to give us enough room to stay and use it as a base for our trips around.

In the Normandie the archictrure is quite different from the architecuture in Brittany even both

I’m back ….

from France again.

This time I was in the Normandie with six other photographers. It was a great time. We saw much of the beautiful landscape, interesting cities and fascinating churches.
The weather was execellent and most of the time we had sunshine, although it was quite cold and sametimes windy. Nevertheless, I’m satisfied with the weather we got during this early April at the Atlantic ocean, even the weather forecast proposed not so good weather.

Stay tuned for the next posts.
;

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Trains in France

France is one of our neighbours and We share a long common border. Nevertheless there are so many things much differnent in both countries. Do you remember my post on the cemetry or how to cover a roof? You could also have a look at my posts on Brittany, to see photos of the houses over there.

Now I show you a few trains.

l’Hôtel des Invalides

I have to admit, I was kind of surprised when arriving at Les Invalides (The National Residence of the Invalids). I expected to visit a church, but arrived at a military museum. So we didn’t enter it and were satisfied to watch it from outside.When visiting a museum, regardless what they are exposing, you need at least half a day to walk around an watch the exhibition.

It’s an impresive building glowing

Being mobile in Paris

When in Paris and want to come around to see the interesting monument, galleries, shops or what elss is interesting for you, you have to move. You can go by foot, take the bus or the metro or you can take a bike. A bike? Yes!

The Parisian streets are crowdes with cars and pedestrians. The French style

Standing on a higher gruond

It’s not so easy to get an overview over Paris, even there are no skyscrapers. But the houses are still high enough, to avoid overlooking the city. There are also not hills around Paris, except the Montmarte Hill. So, when standing in front of Sacre Coeur, you can have a good sight over the city. You can also climb up the Eiffeltower.

But I’d recommend going up the only skyscraper of Paris. With around 200m it’s smaller than the Eiffeltower, but you can also see the Eiffeltower. But from where?

Visiting Louvre Palais

You know, Louvre palace was the city palace of the former French kings (do you remeber Louis XIV, the “Sun King”).

You can’t imagine, how big this palace is. I was really impressed by its size. It’s build like an edgy horse shoe (or a rectangle with one open side). There is a large garden (now a park) at the open side: the Tuilleries. I can really understand,

The Eiffeltower …

… is definitely the monument in Paris, you think about first, when you hear about that city. And it is true. It dominates the city and is viewable from many sites.

You can watch the tower from a distance or watch it from nearby. You can also watch it from the place located directly under it, because it is standing on four feet and leaving a big square between the feet.

The tower was build