An iconic tree-lined lane in Uzes, Provence.
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An iconic tree-lined lane in Uzes, Provence.
Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway (DN&SR) viaduct, Whitchurch, England, United Kingdom, UK
The last 30 miles or so were hard, but we could feel the cool lake breeze as we approached our destination.
The alley leading to the entrance portal of the Château de Chenonceau, Chenonceaux, Loire Valley, France
Some background information:
On our first visit of the Château de Chenonceau (when this picture was taken) we explored the château and its gardens, but we did not get to the southern bank of the River Cher, from where you can take much better pictures. However, we made up for that two years later, when I took those two photos:
www.flickr.com/photos/pkitt/51964784827/in/album-72157719...
www.flickr.com/photos/pkitt/51966342745/in/album-72157719...
The Château de Chenonceau is a French château spanning the River Cher, near the small village of Chenonceaux in the French department of Indre-et-Loire. Hence, it is a water palace and as such one of the best-known châteaux of the Loire Valley. The Château de Chenonceau is situated about 40 km (25 miles) to the southeast of the city of Tours. It is also called "Château des Dames" (in English "Château of the ladies"), because it were mainly women, who decided its history and fate.
The estate of Chenonceau was first mentioned in a document in the 11th century. The current château was built between 1514 and 1522 on the foundations of an old mill and later extended to span the river. In the 13th century, the fief of Chenonceau belonged to the Marques family. The original château was torched in 1412 to punish the owner, Jean Marques, for an act of sedition. In the 1430s, he rebuilt a château and fortified mill on the site. However, Jean Marques' indebted heir Pierre Marques found it necessary to sell the estate.
Thomas Bohier, Chamberlain to King Charles VIII of France, purchased the castle from Pierre Marques in 1513 and demolished most of it (resulting in 2013 being considered the 500th anniversary of the castle), though its 15th-century keep was left standing. Between 1515 and 1521 Bohier built an entirely new residence. The work was overseen by his wife Katherine Briçonnet, who delighted in hosting French nobility, including King Francis I on two occasions.
In 1535 the château was seized from Bohier's son by King Francis I of France for unpaid debts to the Crown. After Francis' death in 1547, Henry II offered the château as a gift to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers, who became fervently attached to the château along the river. In 1555 she commissioned Philibert de l'Orme to build the arched bridge joining the château to its opposite bank. Diane then oversaw the planting of extensive flower and vegetable gardens along with a variety of fruit trees. Set along the banks of the river, but buttressed from flooding by stone terraces, the exquisite gardens were laid out in four triangles.
Diane de Poitiers was the unquestioned mistress of the castle, but ownership remained with the crown until 1555 when years of delicate legal manoeuvres finally yielded possession to her. After King Henry II died in 1559, his strong-willed widow and regent Catherine de' Medici forced Diane to exchange it for the Château Chaumont. Queen Catherine then made Chenonceau her own favourite residence, adding a new series of gardens.
As Regent of France, Catherine spent a fortune on the château and on spectacular nighttime parties. In 1560, the first-ever fireworks display seen in France took place during the celebrations marking the ascension to the throne of Catherine's son Francis II. The grand gallery, which extended along the existing bridge to cross the entire river, was dedicated in 1577. Catherine also added rooms between the chapel and the library on the east side of the corps de logis, as well as a service wing on the west side of the entry courtyard.
On Catherine's death in January 1589, the château went to her daughter-in-law, Louise of Lorraine, wife of King Henry III. Louise was at Chenonceau when she learned of her husband's assassination, in August 1589, and she fell into a state of depression. Louise spent the next eleven years, until her death in January 1601, wandering aimlessly along the château's corridors dressed in mourning clothes, amidst sombre black tapestries stitched with skulls and crossbones.
Henri IV obtained Chenonceau for his mistress Gabrielle d'Estrées by paying the debts of Catherine de' Medici, which had been inherited by Louise and were threatening to ruin her. In return, Louise left the château to her niece Françoise de Lorraine, at that time six years old and betrothed to the four-year-old César de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme, the natural son of Gabrielle d'Estrées and Henri IV. The château belonged to the Duc de Vendôme and his descendants for more than a hundred years. The Bourbons had little interest in the château, except for hunting. In 1650, Louis XIV was the last king of the ancien régime to visit.
In 1720, the Château de Chenonceau was bought by the Duke of Bourbon. Little by little, he sold off all of the castle's contents and many of the fine statues ended up at Versailles. In 1733 the estate was sold for 130,000 livres (corresponding to 2.1 million $ today) to a wealthy squire named Claude Dupin. His wife, Louise Dupin, was the natural daughter of the financier Samuel Bernard and the actress Manon Dancourt. She was regarded as an intelligent, beautiful, and highly cultivated woman.
Louise Dupin's literary salon at Chenonceau attracted such leaders of the Enlightenment as the writers Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Fontenelle, the naturalist Buffon, the playwright Marivaux, the philosopher Condillac, as well as the Marquise de Tencin and the Marquise du Deffand. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was Dupin's secretary and tutored her son. Rousseau, who worked on Émile at Chenonceau, wrote in his Confessions: "We played music there and staged comedies. I wrote a play in verse entitled Sylvie's Path, after the name of a path in the park along the Cher."
The widowed Louise Dupin saved the château from destruction during the French Revolution, preserving it from being destroyed by the Revolutionary Guard because "it was essential to travel and commerce, being the only bridge across the river for many miles."
In 1864 Marguerite Pelouze, a rich heiress, acquired the château. Around 1875 she commissioned the architect Félix Roguet to restore it. He almost completely renewed the interior and removed several of Catherine de' Medici's additions, including the rooms between the library and the chapel and her alterations to the north facade, among which were figures of Hercules, Pallas, Apollo, and Cybele that were moved to the park. With the money Marguerite spent on these projects and elaborate parties, her finances were depleted, and the château was seized and sold.
José-Emilio Terry, a Cuban millionaire, acquired Chenonceau from Madame Pelouze in 1891. Terry sold it in 1896 to a family member, Francisco Terry. In 1913, the château was acquired by Henri Menier, a member of the Menier family, famous for their chocolates, who still own it to this day.
During World War I Gaston Menier set up the gallery to be used as a hospital ward. During the Second World War, the château was bombed by the Germans in June 1940. It was also a means of escaping from the Nazi-occupied zone on one side of the river Cher to the "free" zone on the opposite bank. Occupied by the Germans, the château was bombed by the Allies in June 1944, when the chapel was hit and its windows destroyed. In 1951, the Menier family entrusted the château's restoration to Bernard Voisin, who brought the dilapidated structure and the gardens (ravaged in the Cher flood in 1940) back to a reflection of its former glory.
An architectural mixture of late Gothic and early Renaissance, Château de Chenonceau and its gardens are open to the public. The château has been designated as a Monument historique since 1840 by the French Ministry of Culture. Today, Chenonceau is a major tourist attraction. It receives more than 800,000 visitors each year and is the most visited château in France, apart from the Royal Palace of Versailles.
The Château de Chenonceau is also regarded as one of the haunted castles of France. Occasionally when the moon is full, Catherine may be seen combing the hair of her rival, Diane. On other occasions, Diane was seen standing unhappily in front of her bedroom mirror. At least, several people have stated that. Well, everyone has to decide for themselves whether she or he believes in ghosts or not.
Since 2000, the Château de Chenonceau belongs to the UNESCO Word Heritage Site "The Loire Valley between Sully-sur-Loire and Chalonnes" with its many breathtaking châteaux. Altogether there are more than 400 of them in the Loire region.
Luftbild von einer Pappelallee im Ackerland
Exmouth, East Devon, UK - 9th May 2024
Thing Of Beauty
Hothouse Flowers
Look out your window on a winter's morning
Your breath is steam and there's frost falling
And the sun casts a spell upon the road
A thing of beauty is not a thing to ignore
Great song of beauty
Stand by the river on a moonlight evening
Lovers are loving and grievers are grieving
And the water does a dance upon the stones
I sit and listen, I will not ignore
A thing of beauty is not to be ignored
Can't you see (can't you see)
The secrets of the dawn? (thing of beauty)
Can't you feel (can't you feel)
Can't you feel it in the place that you come from? (thing of beauty)
Face up to morning
Face up to day
Face up to reality
And face up to your ways
Second image from our trip to Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains last Saturday.
This was shot using my 70-200 lens, as I wanted to compress the scene.
A beautiful tree lined street, with hardly a car in sight.
Hope you like "Thing Of Beauty"
Cheers, Mike
Seen in Hoge Veluwe National Park, Netherlands
Near Waterloo Cross, Mid Devon, UK - 18th February 2024
We left the Bugline Trail at Merton, then headed south through lake country toward our destination at Ottawa Lake in Kettle Moraine State Forest. After a rest stop at Nashotah Park, this stretch of Waterville Road provided a quiet tree-lined respite from traffic.
Luftbild von der Schlossallee in Valley
