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OCTOBER 2007 : FRANCE
Collapsing at the Charles de Gaulle airport hotel: too knackered to enjoy its 4-star splendour.
Toulouse: exchanging baguettes for bayonets: detail on WW1 memorial.
The Portuguese flag - queue anthem!
Don't you just love those peely-barked Eurpoean trees? Reminds me of my skin disease...
Your humble narrator wearing entirely inappropriate T-shirt.
Squinting in the Toulouse sun - no, sorry, she's Asian, that's all ;-)
Note lower street sign in the Occitan language, which apparently only a few crusties in the countryside still speak.
Nosey Toulouse resident.
Postbox livery enables you to detect it in the night.
Ah, good old Gallic breakfast on the Place du Capitol in Toulouse.
Pin, shortly after the above breakfast.
Local anarchists protest world injustice by wading through a tiny pond.
Toulouse - the Pink City - which is really a kind of orangey-puce.
Them bilingual French/Occitan street signs again.
An artisan in the Quartier Japonais.
Nice shutters, madame!
Toulouse's famous Something-or-Other Cathedral.
Inside the same...
...and damn hard to keep the camera still during those long exposures...
If you look closely, you can see a mighty French organ at the end.
Now if I just tilt the camera up I can get this splendiferous type of shot that the masses never think of...
...and then repeat ad nauseum.
And we're out of the Something-or-Other Cathedral...
...and into another.
Cor, look at them arches. No big organs, though.
Southern French Everyday Architecture Series #1.
Looking across to the part of Toulouse we never got to see, since someone's feet were tired.
Local inhabitants chill - and get obsessive over cleanliness and hygeine.
Of to the town of Albi on a day trip, and the mighty cathedral appears, its gigantic proportions not quite fully evident.
Cafe on the way to the cathedral - borderline crap/cool, innit?
Through the narrow medieval streets, and the ridiculously big size of the cathedral is becoming apparent.
Almost impossible to get the bugger into the viewfinder.
Let's try it again with the camera this way round.
After some comedic linguistic exchanges we settle on a swish restaurant near the giant church, and this was the delightful dessert.
The Big Cathedral's rear end.
And again, with Pin, and a tiny human near the base of the structure for scale.
Inside, where it seems smaller somehow...
...like an inverted Tardis...
...only completely different...
Why are we never allowed to go upstairs in these places?
Let's get another view of that red monster!
And what the hell...another!
And now let's shove Pin in front of it...
...hand the camera to Pin, who is congenitally predisposed to chronic 'wonky camera angle' syndrome, et voila!
Even falling down on the ground couldn't stop Pin's itchy trigger finger from snapping this gem.
Southern French Everyday Architecture Series #2.
Southern French Everyday Architecture Series #3.
Another great baguette sandwich down the hatch on the way to Lourdes.
See earlier comments about Pin's problems with holding cameras level.
Candles. Lourdes.
The church thingy at Lourdes built over the grotto in which some young bird saw a manifestation of something Holy in the 19th century. Now the town is a monument to tacky religious consumerism.
The faithful ascend the steps to the first station of the cross on their knees. The daft buggers.
Pin: front, Lourdes: behind.
On to Carcassonne in Aude province: Pin grimaces at the pine nuts salad 'n' cheese I forced her to eat on the main square.
Yes, that blurred thing in the background is Carcassonne's Citadel.
All Hail the Great Leader!
Southern French Everyday Architecture Series #4.
Southern French Everyday Architecture Series #5: a deceased Boulangerie.
Up close 'n' personal to the gurning guardian of the Citadel.
Where'd she go?
Hmm...can't remember why I included almost the exact same photo again here...too late to delete it!
Pin reads up on the history of the mighty fortress.
We have gained the inner bastions!
Now to assault the final line of crenellations...
Closer.....closer....
...and we're in!
Now, can we make it to the Romanesque shithouse in time?
Ah, the red-roofed splendour of Languedoc!
Heretical Cathar roof tiles!
Southern French Everyday Architecture Series #6.
Southern French Everyday Architecture Series #7.
The retreat from the Citadel...
...pausing only to take umpteen shots of the same thing...
...each time a little further back...
...and sometimes with a couple of UFOs in the frame.
A squat flat-roofed church in Carcassonne called 'Dom'.
Back in Paris, Pin slumps in our quaint hotel in the 7th arrondissement. Note enlarged stomach area.
We're knackered, but we only have one evening in Paris, so off we go to nearby Les Invalides...
...where I attempt an arty photo with a couple of hanging banners...
...and look like a twat as Pin almost manages to hold the camera straight.
Inside, we bump into the giant chocolate sarcophagus of Mr.Napoleon...
...gawp at the arches...
...gaze at the dome...
...photograph some churchy type thingy...
...and get a little closer to the chocolate-covered tomb of old Boney.
The inner courtyard of Les Invalides - and us cheeky foreigners managed to get in without paying!
Hands on hearts for a quick rendition of 'Land of Hope and Glory'!
The spurs of a giant...we legged it before he showed up.
Back outside we headed off for the nearby river Seine, noting this nice little addition to a street sign.
After promenading along the riverbank we looped back to view this larger copy of Tokyo Tower.
Late summer, blue sky, the Eiffel Tower and a few startegically placed flowers - it doesn't get any better.
Yeah, like I said above.
Pin does well with the camera here, except for lopping the top off the tower.
Pin + Tower
Just time for yet another shot of that ol' tower.
Pin in front of the Ecole Militaire...
...and the self-same building bathed in that wondrous early evening light. From here we headed to a restaurant for a good slap-up meal, to return to the Orient next morning. Yeah!
All images © 2008 Andy Lightfoot: no unauthorised reproduction without the author's prior consent. Enquires to that effect should be directed here.
01/2010 : Ujina, Hiroshima
01/2010 : Recent Pictures
09/2009 : Spain
05/2009 : Kyoto, Otsu and Shiga, Japan
03/2009 : Hokkaido, Japan
09/2008 : Britain and France
04/2008 : Chubu, Japan
10/2007 : France
03/2007 : Kyushu, Japan
10/2006 : Norway
08/2006 : Kansai, Japan
03/2006 : Australia
09/2005 : Czech Republic
08/2005 : Tokyo, Japan
03/2005 : Australia
01/2005 : Hiroshima and Kyoto, Japan
09/2004 : Britain, Finland and Germany
03/2004 : New Zealand
09/2003 : France and Switzerland
03/2003 : New Zealand
12/2002 : Hiroshima, Japan, Denmark and Sweden