- OVERVIEW OF OUR HOLIDAY AND DETAILS ON FRANCE:
We had a holiday in France from May 8th -29th 2007
We had:
- Brisbane to Singapore (seven hour flight)
- Two days in Singapore on the way over and one on the way back
- Singapore to Paris (13 hour flight …. A long flight !!)
- A week in Paris ... stayed in an apartment .....we caught trains and buses everywhere (just as well Harriet could read French at a glance)
- Hired a car and drove throughout Brittany for a week
- We drove down through down through the Loire Valley for another week
- We finally stayed in Paris near Charles de Galle Airport then flew back to Singapore (13 hour flight )
- Stayed in Singapore overnight
- Singapore to Brisbane (seven hour flight)
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Singapore:
.... Two days in Singapore on the way over and one on the way back .....
See the Blog Site of Photographs I made up._________________________________
Week 1: A week in Paris
...... we stayed in an apartment ..... we caught trains and buses everywhere …
And bought l food from local food markets.
See the Map of France at this Website ….
….. and see any location mentioned here on this Blog Site
at Google Earth ….. especially if you
are on Cable Internet ….. AWESOME !!!
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To see a section of Week 1 of our week in Paris …..
See and click on the following website on the Eiffel Tower in Paris: http://eiffeltowerken.blogspot.com/
The Eiffel Tower has 6 million visitors every year and is an important centre in the middle of Paris , you can see right over Paris, north, south, east and west.
When you see this blog site, it refers you to the official website for the Eiffel Tower: http://www.tour-eiffel.fr/
See the Blog Site of actual photos I have made up of of our trip to the Eiffel Tower.
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General Paris .....
There are over three dozen bridges over the River Seine just within Paris and dozens more spanning the river outside of the city. Examples in Paris include the Pont Louis-Philippe and Pont Neuf, the latter which dates back to 1607. Outside of the city, examples include the Pont de Normandie, one of the longest cable-stayed bridges in the world, which links Le Havre to Honfleur.
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The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine, housed in the former railway station, the Gare d'Orsay. It holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography, and is probably best known for its extensive collection of impressionist masterpieces by such painters such as Monet, Degas, Renoir, and Cezanne. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986. See this this website for more detail
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The Rodin Museum Housing Sculptures by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) the French artist ........ see the websites:
http://www.parisdigest.com/museums/museerodin.htm.
http://www.aviewoncities.com/paris/museerodin.htm
http://www.ushistory.org/districts/parkway/rodin.htm
http://www.paris-walking-tours.com/gardenoftherodinmuseum.html
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... The Rodin Museum Housing Sculptures by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) the French artist ........ see the websites:
http://www.parisdigest.com/museums/museerodin.htm.
http://www.aviewoncities.com/paris/museerodin.htm
http://www.ushistory.org/districts/parkway/rodin.htm
http://www.paris-walking-tours.com/gardenoftherodinmuseum.html
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Rodin, Auguste (1840-1917). The French artist Auguste Rodin had a profound influence on 20th-century sculpture. His works are distinguished by their stunning strength and realism. Rodin refused to ignore the negative aspects of humanity, and his works confront distress and moral weakness as well as passion and beauty.
Francois-Auguste-Rene Rodin was born on Nov. 12, 1840, in Paris. At the age of 14 he entered the Petite Ecole, a school of decorative arts in Paris. He applied three times to study at the renowned Ecole des Beaux-Arts but was rejected each time. In 1858 he began to do decorative stonework in order to make his living. Four years later the death of his sister Marie so traumatized Rodin that he entered a sacred order.
The father superior of the order recognized Rodin's talents and encouraged him to pursue his art.
In 1864 Rodin met a seamstress named Rose Beuret. She became his life companion and was the model for many of his works. That year Rodin submitted his Man with a Broken Nose to the Paris Salon. It was rejected but later accepted under the title Portrait of a Roman. Rodin traveled in 1875 to Italy, where the works of Michelangelo made a strong impression on him. The trip inspired his sculpture The Age of Bronze, which was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1877. It caused a scandal because the critics could not believe that Rodin had not used a casting of a live model in creating so realistic a work.
The controversy brought Rodin more fame than praise might have. In 1880 he was commissioned to create a bronze door for the future Museum of Decorative Arts. Although the work was unfinished at the time of his death, it provided the basis for some of Rodin's most influential and powerful work. In 1884 he was commissioned to create a monument that became The Burghers of Calais. His statues St. John the Baptist Preaching, Eve, The Age of Bronze, and The Thinker are world famous. Rodin died on Nov. 17, 1917, and was buried at Meudon.
When Rodin was 76 years old he gave the French government the entire collection of his own works and other art objects he had acquired. They occupy the Hotel Biron in Paris as the Musee Rodin and are still placed as Rodin set them.
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See the Blog Site I have made up of actual photographs I took.
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Notre Dame de Paris is a Gothic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in Paris, France, with its main entrance to the west. It is the cathedral of Paris and the seat of the Archbishop of that city. Notre Dame de Paris is widely considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture. It was restored and saved from destruction by Viollet-le-Duc, one of France's most famous architects. The name Notre Dame means "Our Lady" in French. Notre Dame de Paris was one of the first Gothic cathedrals, and its construction spanned the Gothic period. Its sculptures and stained glass show the heavy influence of naturalism, giving them a more secular look that was lacking from earlier Romanesque architecture. Notre Dame de Paris was among the first buildings in the world to use the flying buttress [arched exterior supports]. The building was not originally designed to include the flying buttresses around the choir and nave. After the construction began and the thinner walls (popularized in the Gothic style) grew ever higher, stress fractures began to occur as the walls pushed outward. In response, the cathedral's architects built supports around the outside walls, and later additions continued as such.
The cathedral suffered desecration during the radical phase of the French Revolution in the 1790s, when much of its religious imagery was damaged or destroyed. During the 19th century, an extensive restoration project was completed, returning the cathedral to its previous state. See this website for more detail.
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Les Invalides in Paris, France, is a complex of buildings in the city's 7th arrondissement containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, the building's original purpose. The buildings house the Musée de l'Armée, the military museum of the Army of France, the Musée des Plans-Reliefs, and the Musée d'Histoire Contemporaine, as well as the burial site for some of France's war heroes (list below). See this website for more detail.
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A Street Planter in the Village before Napoleon Bonaparte’s Palace.
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Napoleon Bonaparte’s Palace
Napoleon Bonaparte, (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) later known as Napoleon I, was a French military and political leader who had a significant impact on the history of Europe. He was a general during the French Revolution, the ruler of France as First Consul of the French Republic and Emperor of the First French Empire.
Born in Corsica and trained as an artillery officer in mainland France, he rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led successful campaigns against the First and Second Coalitions arrayed against France. In 1799, Napoleon staged a coup d'état and installed himself as First Consul; five years later he crowned himself Emperor of the French. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, he turned the armies of France against every major European power and dominated continental Europe through a series of military victories - epitomised in battles such as Austerlitz and Friedland. He maintained France's sphere of influence by the formation of extensive alliances and the appointment of friends and family members to rule other European countries as French client states.
The French invasion of Russia in 1812 marked a turning point in Napoleon's fortunes. His Grande Armée was wrecked in the campaign and never fully recovered. In 1813, the Sixth Coalition defeated his forces at Leipzig, invaded France and exiled him to the island of Elba. Less than a year later, he returned and was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. Napoleon spent the last six years of his life under British supervision on the island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821. The autopsy concluded he died of stomach cancer though Sten Forshufvud and other scientists in the 1960s conjectured that he had been poisoned with arsenic.
Napoleon developed few military innovations, drew his tactics from different sources and scored major victories with a modernised French army. His campaigns are studied at military academies the world over and he is widely regarded as one of history's greatest commanders. While considered a tyrant by his opponents, he is remembered for the establishment of the Napoleonic code, which laid the administrative foundations for much of Western Europe. See this website for more detail.
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Napoleon Bonaparte’s Palace
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Layfette
Founded in 1893, Galeries Lafayette has always been a trend-setter in the Parisian fashion world. The multiple store complex is home to scores of famous luxury brands, but also serves as a launching padfor young and upcoming designers. ‘Lafayette Homme & Gourmet’ and ‘Lafayette Maison’, the main store, offer a vast array of ladies, men’s and children’s apparel, VO for young people, skincare products and cosmetics, food products, kitchenware, cooking utensils, table linen, crystalware, chinaware, and interior decoration items.
Galeries Lafayette is not only well known for shopping, but also has a reputation for being one of the best sightseeing spots in Paris. The splendid glass dome of Neo-Byzantine style has been classified as a historical monument. It is an architectural landmark which attracts people from all over the world. The terrasse of the building offers a splendid panoramic view of the city. The newly renovated building of the Opera Garnier House lies beneath your eyes, and if you look up, you will see in the distance the Basilica of the Sacred Heart atop the Montmartre Hill. See this website for more detail.
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WEEK 2:
We hired a car and drove throughout Brittany for a week .....
..... We then went down through the Loire Valley in week 3 …
CHARTRES: About 80km southwest of Paris, CHARTRES is a small and relatively undistinguished town. However, its Cathédrale Notre-Dame (May-Oct 8am-8pm; Jan-April & Nov-Dec 8am-7.15pm) is one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in Europe and, built between 1194 and 1260, perhaps the quickest ever to be constructed. It's best experienced on a cloud-free winter's day when the low sun transmits the stained-glass colours to the interior stone, the quiet scattering of people leaves the acoustics unconfused, and the exterior is unmasked for miles around.
See
the Blog Site of photographs on Chartres city and Chartres Cathedral.
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DINARD: We stayed at little hotel that overlooked the estuary and went off to see Mont Saint-Michel and St. Malo which were within easy driving distance.
Dinard is on the Côte d'Émeraude of Brittany. Its beaches and mild climate make it a popular holiday destination, and has resulted in the town having a variety of famous visitors and residents.History: In modern history Dinard was first settled by Saint-Malo's shipping merchants who built some of the towns magnificent houses in the town- however very few survive. In the late 1800s American and British aristocrats made Dinard popular as a fashionable summer resort, and they built stunning villas on the cliff tops and exclusive hotels such as the 'Le Grand Hotel' on the seafront during the French 'Belle Epoque'.The name Dinard comes from the Arthurian legends: Din (hill/ fort) - Arz/Art(bear / Arthur); the bear in celtic mythology is a symbol of sovereignship.Originally, Dinard was part of the parish of St-Enogat. In the late 19th century, the resort became popular with the British wealthy who built magnificent villas on the coast. Dinard rapidly expanded and became the most popular seaside resort in Europe. It started declining in the 1930s when the Jet set started preferring the Cote d'Azur. Today, Dinard is considered the one of the most "British" of sea resorts in France, however it has retained its French charm. There are 407 listed villas. The official name of the town was Saint-Enogat until 1879 when the name was changed to Dinard-Saint-Enogat. The name was changed once more in 1921 to become simply Dinard. Saint-Enogat is now just the name for the western area of the town.See this Website for More Detail
Dinard as a town is built on the Atlantic Ocean. In the photograph above., the tide is right in, being up the stone retaining wall. The question is: How did stone masons build a stone wall in location? With the Atlantic Ocean on the Brittany Coast, tides are massive, going out many metres to expose maybe a kilometre of ocean sand. It would have been inbetween the tides that walls were built. Stone retaining walls like this were common on the Brittany Coast.
See the website of other photographs at Dinard.
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Mont Saint-Michel:
Mont Saint-Michel ...... the Island and The Sea .... Brief Description: Perched on a rocky islet in the midst of vast sandbanks exposed to powerful tides between Normandy and Brittany stand the 'Wonder of the West', a Gothic-style Benedictine abbey dedicated to the archangel St Michael, and the village that grew up in the shadow of its great walls. Built between the 11th and 16th centuries, the abbey is a technical and artistic tour de force, having had to adapt to the problems posed by this unique natural site.
Tidal island
Mont-Saint-Michel seen from Spot Satellite
Le Mont-Saint-Michel was previously connected to the mainland via a thin natural land bridge, which before modernization was covered at high tide and revealed at low tide. This has been compromised by several developments. Over the centuries, the coastal flats have been polderised to create pasture. Thus the distance between the shore and the south coast of Mont-Saint-Michel has decreased. The Couesnon River has been canalised, reducing the flow of water and thereby encouraging a silting-up of the bay. In 1879, the land bridge was fortified into a true causeway. This prevented the tide from scouring the silt round the mount.
At low tide surrounded by mud flats - seen from the air
On 16 June 2006, the French prime minister and regional authorities announced a €164 million project (Projet Mont-Saint-Michel[1]) to build a hydraulic dam that will help remove the accumulated silt and make Mont-Saint-Michel an island again. It is expected to be completed by 2012.[2] . See this website for more detail
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ST. Malo: (Breton: Sant-Maloù; Gallo: Saent-Malô) is a walled port city in Brittany in northwestern France on the English Channel. It is a sub-prefecture of the Ille-et-Vilaine department.
History: Saint-Malo during the Middle Ages was a fortified island at the mouth of the Rance River, controlling not only the estuary but the open sea beyond. The promontory fort of Aleth, south of the modern centre in what is now the Saint-Servan district, commanded approaches to the Rance even before the Romans, but modern Saint-Malo traces its origins to a monastic settlement founded by Saint Aaron and Saint Brendan early in the 6th century. Its name is derived from a man said to have been a follower of Brendan, Saint Malo.
Saint-Malo had a tradition of asserting its autonomy in dealings with the French authorities and even with the local Breton authorities. From 1490–1493, Saint-Malo declared itself to be an independent republic, taking the motto "not French, not Breton, but Malouins".[3]
Saint-Malo became notorious as the home of the corsairs, French privateers and sometimes pirates. (In the nineteenth century the city's "piratical" notoriety was portrayed in Jean Richepin's play Le flibustier and in César Cui's like-named opera derived therefrom.) The corsairs of Saint-Malo not only forced English ships passing up the Channel to pay tribute, but also brought wealth from further afield. Jacques Cartier, who sailed the Saint Lawrence River and visited the sites of Quebec City and Montreal — and is thus credited as the discoverer of Canada, lived in and sailed from Saint-Malo, as did the first colonists to settle the Falklands – hence the islands' French name Îles Malouines, which gave rise to the Spanish name Islas Malvinas.
The commune of Saint-Servan was merged, together with Paramé, and became the commune of Saint-Malo in 1967.
Saint Malo was the site of an Anglo-French summit in 1998 which lead to a significant agreement regarding European defence policy. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac stated that "the [European] Union must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises".
See this website for more detail and see the Blog Site of Photographs I have made up.
Perros Guirec ……. We stayed in a little Hotel for two nights.
There was a little ancient seaside town of Perros Guirec with the old stone built buildings everywhere. The grey slate rooves where common as in all the towns and villages of France. The little hotel we stayed in for two nights had a hand-built – stone wall on the road boundary with a covered a litch - gate at the end of the wall. See the photographs above. The actual hotel is the last building on the left. You went down some stone stairs to the entry office. It was right on the sea and very picturesque.
See the Blog Site of Photographs .....
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BREDAT: We went by ferry out to this little island ..... all day ..... just AWESOME!!!
Two kilometres off the coast at Pointe de l'Arcouest, 6km northwest of
Paimpol, the
ÎLE DE BRÉHAT – in reality two islands joined by a tiny bridge – gives the appearance of spanning great latitudes. On its north side are windswept meadows of hemlock and yarrow, sloping down to chaotic erosions of rock; on the south, you're in the midst of palm trees, mimosa and eucalyptus. All around is a multitude of little islets – some accessible at low tide, others
propriété privée, most just pink-orange rocks. All in all, it is one of the most beautiful places in
Brittany, renowned as a sanctuary not only for rare species of wild flowers, but also for birds of all kinds. Individual private gardens are also meticulously tended, so you can always anticipate a magnificent display of colour, for example in summer from the erupting blue acanthus.
See more detail on the island at
this web site.
This old fishing village is very popular for its old church, its beautiful beaches and the English-style houses on the Pointe du Décollé. In the summer, a lot of rich Parisians live there, and, with the near-by villages of Saint-Briac or Dinard, it's possible to meet a lot of French "stars" in the area.
Fantastic point of views on the Pointe du Décollé, hill of La Garde Guérin and the Pointe du Nick.
See this website for more detail .....
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TREGUIER: From our hotel at Dinard, we went driving to this town as it had a special cathedral. There was a special religious procession on this day. The cathedral, remarkable in having three towers over the
transept, one of which is surmounted by a fine spire, dates from the 14th and 15th centuries. It contains the sumptuous modern mausoleum of
Ivo of Kermartin (St Yves; d. 1303), a canon of the cathedral and patron saint of lawyers. The building of the cathedral was largely due to him. The
Pardon of Saint Ivo, a religious festival, attracts an international audience drawn from the legal profession. To the south of the church there is a
cloister (1468) with graceful arcades.
Near the cathedral there is a statue of Ernest Renan, a native of the town. As he was a prominent skeptic, author of the "pagan" Prayer on the Acropolis, the 1903 unveiling of Renan's statue, which also included a depiction of the goddess Athena, led to widespread protests from the Catholic church. The town also houses the Renan birthplace museum.
The port and harbour are picturesque, containing many pretty waterfront restaurants and crêperies. There are dramatic views of the quayside.
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SAINT LUNAIRE: Saint-Lunaire (Breton: Sant-Luner) is a commune in the Ille-et-Vilaine department in Bretagne in northwestern France.
This old fishing village is very popular for its old church, its beautiful beaches and the English-style houses on the Pointe du Décollé. In the summer, a lot of rich Parisians live there, and, with the near-by villages of Saint-Briac or Dinard, it's possible to meet a lot of French "stars" in the area.
Fantastic point of views on the Pointe du Décollé, hill of La Garde Guérin and the Pointe du Nick.
See this website for more detail .....
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We had a two night stay in Josselin at a Bed and Breakfast place owned by an English couple (Ann and Brian Bird) who had come over and restored the house in three years ..... travelling back and forth to England. See their website at:
http://www.brittany-france.com/maisondeloiseau.
The house was built 300 years ago in the 1700's. They had to virtually restore everything except the stone walls. We could look out from our unit and see wonderful old restored houses next door. Ann and Brian showed us by photographs what those houses looked like in the wintertime ….. covered with snow and -13 degree centigrade
…. Very cold for our Australia experience!!
Also see the blog site of Josselin where we stayed. and see website on Josselin. It was welcome relief as they were so helpful and wonderful. It was actually wonderful to hear the English language being spoken after French for two weeks. Harriet could converse in French in a very capable way and I had to just listen and see the emotional interchanges between and the French people and Harriet. Many could speak a little English if you asked them if they could.
Josselin: History from this website as given above …..St Meriadek is said to have founded a chapel there during the 4th century. It became a stronghold of the House of Rohan.In 1351, during the Breton War of Succession (part of the Hundred Years' War), two groups of approximately 30 English knights (led by Robert Bramborough, the English captain of Ploërmel) and Franco-Breton knights (commanded by Jean de Beaumanoir, captain of Josselin) staged an arranged combat at a spot halfway between the Chateau de Josselin and Ploërmel. The Franco-Breton side eventually won after killing or capturing the English force, including Bramborough. This episode was later known as the Combat of the Thirty.The old fortress can still be seen today, although only four of the original nine towers remain after the Cardinal Richelieu ordered the castle partially demolished in 1629.________________________________________________VANNES: Vannes is located on the Gulf of Morbihan at the mouth of the Vannes River. It is a market town and often linked to the sea.History: Darioritum (first name of Vannes) was founded in the first century BC by the Romans.The diocese of Vannes was erected in the 5th century. The Council of Vannes was held here in 461.The first historical ruler of Vannes was Waroch. See further detail and the photo gallery at this website.
Vannes Cathedral or St. Peter's Cathedral, Vannes (French: Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Vannes), which also carries the title Basilica, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Vannes, Brittany, France. It is the seat of the Bishops of Vannes.
The present Gothic building was erected on the site of the former Romanesque cathedral. Its construction extends from the 15th to the 19th centuries, or if the length of the existence of the 13th century Romanesque bell tower is included, a total of seven centuries of construction. For further deatails, see this website. 
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SAUMUR: Saumur is a commune in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France.
The historic town is located between the Loire and Thouet rivers, which join to the west of the town.
See more detail on the town at this website. See the blog site of Saumur I have made up.
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Chateau de Chenonceau (Chateau is French For Castle): The
Château de Chenonceau is castle near the small village of
Chenonceaux, in the
Indre-et-Loire département of the
Loire Valley in
France. It was built on the site of an old mill on the
River Cher, sometime before its first mention in writing in the 11th century. The current manor was designed by the French Renaissance architect
Philibert Delorme.
See more detail on this castle at this website.
See the Blog Site of photographs I have made up .....
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Week 3: We drove down through down through the Loire Valley for another week .....
See the blog sites:
- http://francebrittanyholiday.blogspot.com/ Brittany: May 19th - 20th 2007 ..... Perros Guirec ……. We stayed in a little Hotel for two nights.There was a little ancient seaside town of Perros Guirec with the old stone built buildings everywhere. The grey slate rooves where common as in all the towns and villages of France. The little hotel we stayed in for two nights had a hand-built – stone wall on the road boundary with a covered a litch - gate at the end of the wall. See the photographs in the blog site. You went down some stone stairs to the entry office. It was right on the sea and very picturesque.
- http://chateauxvillandry.blogspot.com/ Brittany: Week 3 … May 19th - 20th 2007 ..... Chateaux de Villandry ……. Villandry was completed toward 1536 and was the last of the large chateaus built in the Loire Valley during the Renaissance. Villandry was built by Jean le Breton, one of François I’s Finance Ministers, whose coat of arms can be seen on the gable of the left-hand dormer window. His most impressive achievement in this field was the construction of Chambord, that vast flight of regal fancy, which Le Breton supervised under the aegis of François I.
While directing this project, he built for himself nearby a small replica of Villandry called Villesavin near the Chambord chateau. Le Breton had first been ambassador to Italy where he spent all his time studying the Italian Renaissance art of gardening. In order to build the present chateau, Le Breton had razed an old XIIth century castle, from which he had only kept the old tower that can be seen behind the main courtyard.Villandry stayed in le Breton family until 1754 and then became the property of the Marquis de Castellane, the King’s Ambassador who came from a very illustrious noble family from Provence. He built the Classical style outbuildings that you can see on either side of the front courtyard. He redesigned the interior of the chateau to meet the standards of comfort of the XVIIIth century which are much closer to those we know today than to those, which were applied during the Renaissance.
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DETAILS ON FRANCE: In France you find there nearly 60 million French people who: - Work 35 hour weeks
- Take seven weeks of paid holidays/year
- Take an hour and a half for lunch
- Have the longest life expectancy of any in the world
- Eat the richest food on the planet
- A people who keep alive their local shopkeepers
- Who love nothing better than going to the public market on Sundays
- Who finance best health care system in the world
- A people who’s companies are the least unionized and the most productive among modern countries
- Whose post-industrial consumer society ranks among the most prosperous in the world
Also image a country where:
- The citizens have so little civic sense that it never crosses their minds to pickup after their dogs or to give to charity
- Where people expect the State to do everything because they pay so much in taxes
- Where service is rude
- Where the State is the most centralized and pervasive in the world
- Where the civil – servant class amounts to less than one quarter of the working population
- Where citizens tolerate no form of initiative or self rule
- Where unions are so pervasive they virtually dictate the course of government and even run French ministries
You go throughout France and you are upon history at every village and town … houses built in the 17 th century are frequent and there are many castles Chateaux as they are called in France) which date from the 1500’s (Medieval times ) ...... Hand built stone walls are everywhere ….. in house walls, garden / property walls church / cathedral walls and buildings of stone.
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Read the book: ‘Sixty Million Frenchman Cannot Be Wrong ….. What Makes the French so French?’ by Jean Benoit Nadeau & Julie Barlow (His wife).
Imagine a country in a broader sense that:
- Is geographically green for most the year then winter comes as we learnt at Josselin (a small town we stayed in for two days in Brittany)
- Where it snowed and the temperature got down to -13 0.
- There even rainfall across the whole country as it is bounded by two seas and there no mountain ranges to modify the rainfall
- The soils are very rich and that leads to frequent small farms which are farmed very intently all over
- France Situated in Western Europe, France is the second-largest country on the continent, with an area (including the island of Corsica2) of 547,030 sq km (211,209 sq mi). Comparatively, the area occupied by France is slightly less than twice the size of the state of Colorado. It extends 962 km (598 mi) N–S and 950 km (590 mi) E–W. France is bounded on the N by the North Sea and Belgium, on the NE by Luxembourg and Germany, on the E by Switzerland and Italy, on the South by the Mediterranean Sea, on the SW by Andorra and Spain, on the W by the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic Ocean, and on the NW by the English Channel, with a total boundary length of 6,316 km (3,925 mi), of which 3,427 km (2,130 mi) is coastline.
- France 's capital city, Paris, is located in the north central part of the country.
From this website: is the following information given:
- Population and size: France is the largest country in Western Europe. The population is currently 58.5 million, and the country is about twice the size of the UK at approximately 550 000 square kilometres. (NB: The UK has a population of 57.6 million people inhabiting an area of 244 111 square kilometres.) The population density is 105 inhabitants per square kilometre but more than 50% of these live in towns of over 50,000 people. Many rural areas are underpopulated, some seriously so.
- Climate: France has three main climate types. Brittany and Normandy and the west of the country have an oceanic climate, with mild winters and cool summers, changeable and with a fair amount of rain. The central areas have a continental climate with hotter summers and colder winters, with this becoming more marked the further east one progresses. The Mediterranean areas are sunny and dry, with winds and storms in the winters, and very hot summers.
- France in the EU: France joined the EU in 1957. As part of the Eurozone, France will be using Euros from January 1st 2002, alongside francs for an initial changeover period.
The national currency will be phased out in June 2002. One of the 'four freedoms' established by European Union legislation is the free movement of citizens within the Union
(the other three are free movement of goods, services and capital), which means that anyone who is a citizen of one Member State has the right to take up residence in another.
- The French economy and the role played by agriculture: Amongst the 58.5 million inhabitants of France are 3.5 million foreign residents, of whom 1.4 million are EU citizens. Although the country is Europe's leading producer and exporter of farm products, only 3.9% of the total workforce is employed in agriculture. There are 735,000 farms and 997,000 farmers and farm workers. France is the EU's main producer of sugar beet, and is the second largest wine producer in the world. She also produces more cereals and oilseeds than her European neighbours. Tourism is also important to the economy, with 62.4 million tourist visiting the country in 1996. France has 17.3 million tourist beds of which 16.1 million are in rural gites, camp sites and youth hostels. An increasing number of farmers are now offering tourist accommodation in the form of chambres d'hotes (bed and breakfast) or self-catering gites. Some have established themselves as fermes auberges, or farm restaurants, offering specialities of the region.
See the blog sites:
- http://josselinkap.blogspot.com/ ... which is a summary of our two day stay in Josselin.
- http://francebrittanyholiday.blogspot.com/ Brittany: Week 2 … May 19th - 20th 2007 ..... Perros Guirec ……. We stayed in a little Hotel for two nights.There was a little ancient seaside town of Perros Guirec with the old stone built buildings everywhere. The grey slate rooves where common as in all the towns and villages of France. The little hotel we stayed in for two nights had a hand-built – stone wall on the road boundary with a covered a litch - gate at the end of the wall. See the photographs in the blog site. You went down some stone stairs to the entry office. It was right on the sea and very picturesque.
- http://chateauxvillandry.blogspot.com/ Brittany: Week 3 … May 19th - 20th 2007 ..... Chateaux de Villandry ……. Villandry was completed toward 1536 and was the last of the large chateaus built in the Loire Valley during the Renaissance. Villandry was built by Jean le Breton, one of François I’s Finance Ministers, whose coat of arms can be seen on the gable of the left-hand dormer window. His most impressive achievement in this field was the construction of Chambord, that vast flight of regal fancy, which Le Breton supervised under the aegis of François I.
While directing this project, he built for himself nearby a small replica of Villandry called Villesavin near the Chambord chateau. Le Breton had first been ambassador to Italy where he spent all his time studying the Italian Renaissance art of gardening. In order to build the present chateau, Le Breton had razed an old XIIth century castle, from which he had only kept the old tower that can be seen behind the main courtyard.Villandry stayed in le Breton family until 1754 and then became the property of the Marquis de Castellane, the King’s Ambassador who came from a very illustrious noble family from Provence. He built the Classical style outbuildings that you can see on either side of the front courtyard. He redesigned the interior of the chateau to meet the standards of comfort of the XVIIIth century which are much closer to those we know today than to those, which were applied during the Renaissance.
http://mont-saint-michelanditsbayphoto.blogspot.com/
...... Mont Saint-Michel ...... the Island and The Sea .... Brief Description: Perched on a rocky islet in the midst of vast sandbanks exposed to powerful tides between Normandy and Brittany stand the 'Wonder of the West', a Gothic-style Benedictine abbey dedicated to the archangel St Michael, and the village that grew up in the shadow of its great walls. Built between the 11th and 16th centuries, the abbey is a technical and artistic tour de force, having had to adapt to the problems posed by this unique natural site.
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