The Doors at Pere Lachaise

It all seems a little weird that a cemetery could be a tourist attraction. Not sure why I think that though, I too have toured the graveyards of New Orleans, Santiago de Chile and now Pere Lachaise in Paris. All three evoke the same kind of 'wow', their above ground vaults are quite something. Little towns with their 'chic' neighbourhoods and the high density spots on the other side of the railway lines. The extents people go to for the dead are quite amazing. Some tombs are probably more spacious that the average Parisian studio. OK, they do house the whole family I guess. Another 'wow', is one of complete disbelief; what low down scum the human is! Evolution may have resulted in this bipedal wonder of creation, but our morals are still that of pond algae. How could you trash a tomb to steal the marble plaque???

As Calvin says, "True genius is never understood in its own lifetime". So, if you weren't around, or didn't understand them, you have the chance to visit some fairly famous bones in Pere Lachaise cemetery. Not sure you will leave with more understanding though, answers are few and far between. Amongst many others, some names you may recognise: Chopin, Grappelli, Haussmann, Ingres, Lalique, Piaf, Proust, Wilde and someone definitely ahead of his time and little understood, Jim Morrison. Hence the title of this entry...

Above, some more of the doors at Pere Lachaise. So a fair amount of talent, the music, art and literature that could come out of this little cemetery is quite something. The 'city' planning, leaves a bit to be desired, some spots have quite a 'just happened' feel about them, whilst others seem to have their own 'boulevards' within the cemetery, hopefully Haussmann found his resting spot on one of them.





















The little alleys.

















The disorganised.





















The tree'ed quartier.















Wide avenues.





















Someone got it right, they decided beautiful women should adorn their tomb. One of three such lovely sculptures.





















Weird or not, it makes for an interesting stroll.

14 juillet - Bastille day

Just a little fireworks for 600 000 of my closest friends... fantastic!

Another one or two at my flickr page.

Stroumpf Union

"Ooh what have you done with your lighting? It looks faaaabulous!"

The famous scaffolding has been lit in stroumpf (aka smurf for the non French amongst us) blue to celebrate France's presidency of the European Union. Funny that the there is only one woman leader in the Union countries too... hmm never though of her a stoumpfette Merkel before ;) Although, it isn't difficult picturing Sarko thinking of himself as papa smurf.

All lit up in preparation for the 14 July fireworks, with the 11pm white twinkles as well. Quite a sight.

The Trocadero side; the stars.

Stroumpf or not, the Eiffel Tower looks great in blue!

druggies, vertigo and cinq baies

Quite interesting to see who pops into this blog; a lot of to-be dissapointed folk it seems. One can see the directing links to this page, and many a druggy lands up here after searching for "up my nose" and "white stuff". I guess they didn't ever imagine that such a search would reveal a Calvin & Hobbes fan that has written a couple of posts on skiing and snow. I am also pleased to report that a lot of vertigo sufferers now know a little bit more about U2's concert in Santiago.

A while back I splurged on a pretty cool SB-600 speedlight for the D80. Night portraits will never be the same again, and maybe now taming the dof with enough light for that macro shot will be a little easier. Inspired by the Strobist way of thinking, I decided to toss some pepper into my home made macro studio (read: "white paper bag"); and I thought only cats were entertained by empty bags ;) I kind of like the effect.

All those wrinkly coriander seeds make me think 'biltong' hmmmm...

bloep

drip drip

A clothes horse, a pyrex dish, some water, a camera, a flash, a red candle holdery little thingy, some cardboard and a wine bottle with a cork that drips is all one needs to have ages of entertainment. Well, ages... as in up to the point when you wear out the flash batteries.

After a while the flash stopped refreshing in time, probably a good thing, not only because of the quite cool gunmetal grey drops, but it is probably also healthier for the marriage this way ;)

Recharge your batteries! A blue one on my Flickr page.

Simply Beautiful

The legs and feet ache... not quite the athlete I used to think I was. It's a good ache however, the kind one gets from too many hours of dancing. It is cool to be back on the floor with one of the greatest dances: tango, the Argentine variety.

No photos of the tango, but rather, the closest I can get with a completely unrelated object, here's a water drop. Ok, maybe it isn't that close after all, but it's what occupied me this morning, and wet me this afternoon. It is summer and still raining in Paris, what's with that? These aren't the tropics! There is something childlike about velib'ing home in the rain, I kind of like it (warm rain that is), as for the drops, I quite like the effect. Like tango, something simple can be beautiful.

Another take on the water drop is on my flickr set. I need some practice on both the photos and tango, in the meantime, hopefully my feet will forgive me.

Bordeaux - le vin

Obviously there is Bordeaux - the wine, no surprise here, but what was a surprise was the beautiful little town of Saint Emillion. Great wines come from St Emillion, but instead of enjoying the wines wherever you are, rather go enjoy the town. Lurking on the side of a hill you get a great view over the vineyards. With such charm, comes the inevitable; touristy and commercial, but it didn't detract.

Apart from the wine, take a chance to sample a Bordelais special; the cannelés.

Food and wine always tastes better in the right ambience, a bottle of red in St Emillion must be hard to beat.

Bordeaux - les plages

I said Bordeaux was more than just good wines, but I never really imagined that it was beaches. Yes, just a little drive away, or a slightly longer drive if your sister-in-law is navigating, are lovely beaches, big dunes and a calm bay... and in the bay, live oysters. So there are cute little towns all over the place that seem to live off oysters... I mean tourists... who like oysters and, yes, we're back to... crisp white wine.

On the way to Cap Ferret, one of those little oyster towns, small wood houses with serious charm.


































Lunch near Cap Ferret, and of course we had oysters.




































The beach at Arcachon as the rain clouds briefly threatened.

When my backside was small enough to still fit on the cardboard pallet, from two dozen beers, I remember using said cardboard as a antipodean equivalent of the toboggan. Heading down white sand dunes at what seems to the small backside as serious speed. It is a pity that they don't make six packs bigger nowadays, because a beer box would have come in handy for the highest dune in Europe, the great dune of Pyla on the bay of Arcachon, just a long drive from Bordeaux.

Wishing you sand in your jocks.

Bordeaux - la ville

What a great little city! Bordeaux is charmingingly cute, just about all the buildings are of the old stone type, and the mayor seem to be doing his best to add to the friendliness by adding trams and pedestrian streets.

There's a student town feel about it; lots of little cafés and pubs and some very trendy I-want-to-eat-out-here 'quartiers'. Much to the distress of many a Bordelais, especially the boyfriend or husband variety, Bordeaux is home to what is said to be one of the longest pedestrian shopping streets in Europe; Rue Sainte Catherine.

The Garonne river, that skirts 'centre ville', is wide and less personal than the Seine, so you don't feel like 'over there' is still part of Bordeaux, in fact we never did make it to the other side.

I guess it best that I explain that Bordeaux isn't in some warped space time where gravity works at 30 degrees to the earth... in fact it is the new street photography shoot from the hip style.

There is so much more to Bordeaux than great red wines.

Houston we have a problem…

Living in Europe, one gets quite used to small. Estate agents call it quaint or charming, when really all it means is cramped. What with little apartments, little cars and narrow roads, one forgets what space feels like. So, you can imagine the non culture shock of a trip to Texas.

The Lone Star State: big, huge, open, sprawling. There is one thing they aren’t short of, and that’s land. Another thing in plentiful supply is gas. No, I don’t mean from the black beans I mean gas for the trucks. No, not trucks like 18 wheelers, I mean trucks for you, your woman, lil'uns and shopping bags. I have no idea why the Europeans are worried about the emissions from their little 1.4 diesels, and giving green incentives etc…. The US of A must be home of global warming, you can almost feel the desert forming behind the monstrous 5.4 gas slurping pick up trucks as they make their way across Texas, probably about 5 Frances worth of expanse. Everyone is whinging about the all-time high gas price; three and a halfish dollars a gallon. Yeah right, you get no sympathy here, how about scraping your trucks and buying a normal car?

A new theory; humans fill what space is available. I don’t mean spread out either. You see, Paris is cramped, little cute roads small shops and elbow bumping restaurants. Houston is huge, just keeps going, 6 lane highways with four lane service roads, front yards, back yards, shopping malls and trucks. Just like each of the cities; the French are thin and Americans are huge. I guess it doesn’t help having food everywhere. Every company we visited had a food preoccupation, and no ways do you have a meeting without first feeding your face.

What a stark contrast, but something about the states works. People are open and friendly, if you would like to consume it you can find it, and wait for it… clients actually get service, now that’s something the French could try.

If you are looking for charm you may as well give Texas a skip, but if you want some great food, and lots of it, big cars and don’t care about global warming then you can find your headquarters in Houston.

Just up the road, only a dirt cheap tank of fuel away, is Austin. Now here you find charm. Small enough to understand and big enough to have everything, what a great town.





















View of Austin from the Capitol.





















A view of Texas from the capitol.





















And, a view of the capitol itself. Another version of the same can be seen at my flickr page.

Wishing you dirt cheap fuel and great fajitas.

bunnies and chocolate

So what does a chateau, a medieval tower and a huge garden have in common?

They are all within an Easter long weekend's drive from one another. These are Fontainebleau, well a corner of it, the old tower of Provins (a little town where guys still dress up in tights) and Vaux-le-Vicomte's historically important garden. More photos when I get down to serious blogging. Just imagine trying to find your Easter eggs in a garden like that!