le château symétrique

This little château is almost completely symmetric as seen from the street in front.  This reminds me of those little games in the Sunday paper when I was growing up... "find all the things that are not symmetric in this castle".

morning view of the château

Yesterday, there was a beautiful early morning light on the château in Amboise as well as on this tree that seems reluctant to give up its leaves this autumn.  Fortunately for me.

le champ d'or

I snapped this field of gold on the outskirts of Amboise a few weeks ago.

a Thanksgiving toast

Some wag left a little offering to this statuary at the entrance to the château Chenonceau.  And I'm offering this as a distant toast to all my American friends and family celebrating Thanksgiving today.

the insect hotel

This brand new insect habitat has been installed along one of bike paths near here.  Doesn't look like too many have checked into this little hotel yet.

Billy ?

The title suggests a very old play on words in the States. The word "kid" can mean either a young goat or a young person.  And the most famous outlaw of the old American West was known as "Billy the kid".  In any case, this Billy does not appear too threatening.

Le titre suggère un jeu très ancien sur les mots dans les États. Le mot «kid» peut signifier soit une jeune chèvre ou une jeune personne. Et le plus célèbre bandit du Far West américain était connu comme "Billy the Kid".  Savoir plus sur ce bandit ici,  En tout cas, ce Billy ne semble pas trop menaçant.

les feuilles ginkgo d'or

As usual the golden ginkgo leaves were wonderful this autumn.  Here's a last look.

ce banc est overt le dimanche

I think this old bench still has some working Sundays remaining.  May you have a relaxing Sunday.

(The title is a little play on French words for bench, un banc, and bank, une banque.)

lever de soleil

For a little change of pace, this Saturday I am posting a sunrise.  This is in fact a long skinny cloud and not smoke coming out of my neighbor's chimney, although I did try to make it look that way.

quasiment rouge

This is as close to a tree with red leaves as I have seen around here.  Bon weekend !

high flying over the levee

It's amazing what can be done on a bicycle like this.  I caught this fellow in mid air jumping straight up onto the top of the levee wall (about a meter / three feet) !  The top of the wall is somewhat narrow so this is not easy needless to say.  I'm glad he was wearing his helmet.

la nouvelle piste cyclable

I found this new section of a hiking/cycling trail just last week.  It meanders along wooded areas and open fields alike.  I had it all to myself on this sunny autumn afternoon.

il est presque terminée

Even after giving up its grapes for this year's wine harvest, this vineyard continues to please with its bright autumn colors.  But it's almost over.

le pylône électrique

Sometimes it's OK to shoot directly into the sun.  I decided this was one of those times with this tower of power.  I like that rhyming phrase.  Besides, it is also the name of a famous R&B band in the States.

I wanted to title this "the tower of power" translated to French, but everything I could come up with left the idea lost in translation.  For example, just translating each word individually results in tour de force (just try it with Google translate).  But as is often the case, you just can't translate an English phrase to French by substituting individual words.  Believe me, I've learned that the hard way.  So, while tour is the French word for tower, this type of steel tower is called a pylône.  And the English word power can be translated to force but not when it relates to electrical power.  Interestingly, that phrase tour de force actually means something totally different to Anglophones.  Now I suppose you're going to ask my why that big thing in Paris is not le Pylône Eiffel !?

l'eglise de Pocé-sur-Cisse

The bright, late afternoon sunshine really lit up the facade of the church on this beautiful autumn day.

coucher de soleil de novembre

I almost missed this one... I had to run to the bridge Leclerc.  It was over about two minutes later.

le château de Pocé en automne

This little known château has a wonderful collection of trees on its secluded grounds.  And now they are really showing some of the brightest fall colors that I have seen in the area.  And because of that, today I will offer a bonus photo of these same trees taken from another angle.

Many thanks for all the kind comments to yesterday's post.  Bon weekend à tous !

automne à la place du marché

I like to return to the market place from time to time to capture it in different seasons and different weather.


Today, I was honored to be the subject of a little story in the newspaper about my adventures in Amboise with this blog.  You may read the online version of it here from the web site of La Nouvelle République.  Un grand merci à l'auteur Magalie Basset !


Si vous êtes un visiteur première fois à ce blog, vous pouvez afficher ensemble toutes les vieilles photos (sans les descriptions) sans afficher chaque "post" de blog (qui a le description)  ici.



Update on 16 November 2014 to the original post :

The following is my translation of the Nouvelle République story.  I only made minor changes from the literal translation to make it more readable in English.  I embedded a few notes in brackets.

 “The Loire is magnificent.  In the US, the rivers aren’t like this.  In general, the river banks are private and one can’t have access.”

Everyday Stuart Byrom posts a new image of the town on his blog “Amboise Daily Photo”.  Meeting with an American who has been charmed by the Loire.

The Virginia Creeper that climbs the facade of the Inn of the Priory at Clos Lucé has suddenly taken the colors of the season.  They were blazing with color and turned completely red to the great delight of Stuart Byrom who photographed them and posted them on his blog “Amboise Daily Photo”.  The commentary that he has typed under the image highlights his nostalgia for the North American maples and the incandescent autumns!

When you walk around town, you perhaps may encounter this smiling stroller, always equipped with his camera.  We met briefly on the pedestrian mall where Stuart was witnessing the return of bronze sculptures to the fountain designed by Max Ernst.  Mixing among the crowd, he rapidly photographed the restored works of art. I took him for an art critic who had descended from Paris, but he corrected: “I am an American; I have lived in Amboise 5 years [sic: actually it has been 3 years]; and I have a photo blog.”

The blog is on the City Daily Photo platform where Amboise stands alongside hundreds of cities on all continents (see the sidebar).  Stuart Byrom launched the blog in February 2013.  Starting this hobby in retirement, he is committed to publishing every day of the year a new photo, accompanied by a brief text.  A series of sunsets on the Loire, a series on bridges, Amboise in the snow… This amateur photographer is interested in everything, even little flowers!  That is to say whatever that delights his taste for nature if not to say for contemplation.  This comes after the strain of working many long hours and being too often stressed out when he was an engineer for IBM.

That lasted 33 years, but retirement did arrive and he decided to change his life and to leave North Carolina to head to France.  “I followed my wife who is a lifelong Francophile.”  Elizabeth, who studied at the Sorbonne [in Paris] and was a teacher of French, was the inspiration for this new adventure [a loose translation from the original].  The little apartment that the couple bought in the beginning soon became too confining, so Stuart and Elizabeth went in search of “the region in France best for us”.

Amboise was love at first sight

Amboise emerged to them as a no-brainer.  “It was love at first sight!  It is a tourist destination and a small, comfortable town where I can run and cycle.  And then there is the Loire river.”  It is “lounique” [sic: spelled as understood in French for the English word “unique” as it was horribly mispronounced] he declared with his delicious accent [an ironic way of saying it’s like fingernails on a blackboard].

[the sidebar :]

Milestones

AmboiseDailyPhoto.blogspot.fr   This blog is a little cousin of Paris Daily Photo, launched by a friend of Stuart’s, Eric Tenin, in 2005.  The success of this formula is due to the publishing of a photo every day from the city where you live.  All of these many blogs necessitated the creation of a consolidated web site City Daily Photo.

Here, Amboise stands alongside Stavenger (Norway), Cape Town (South Africa), Chennai (India), and Blois, the only other city represented on City Daily Photo in this region of France.

Magalie Basset

cormorant in flight

These birds are so graceful... and big !  I was lucky to capture this one flying directly overhead.

l'Armistice

It's Armistice Day which recognizes the end of fighting of World War I on the Western Front on this date in 1918.  This memorial is dedicated to the soldiers from Amboise who lost their lives in the conflict.

one last squash

I could not help but post one last squash photo... again from Chenonceau.

a last look

Here's a last look at some of the wonderful autumn flowers in the gardens at Chenonceau in October.

autumn on the levee

Bon weekend !

heavy fog

We had a really dense fog arrive yesterday morning.  It took awhile for the sun to burn its way through and give us several hours of glorious full sunshine... before the clouds rolled in.

champignons d'Amboise

It's that time again.  With the recent rains, the mushrooms are back in the forest of Amboise.  And thankfully our neighbor who knows it well has brought us several loads of these wonderful treats.  We're going to be eating well.

All about the reds

Since one doesn't find too much red in the trees here in the fall, I really appreciate the reds in the many vines around town.  Here's a wonderful example climbing on the Auberge du Prieuré on the grounds of Clos Lucé.  It's now hosts a restaurant and meeting rooms.

the caryatids

The caryatids were added to château Chenonceau by Catherine de Medici, but some 300 years later (around the 1860s) they were removed by Madame Pelouze. Today, they are on the grounds next to the maze.  The carytids portray Hercules, Athena Pallas, Apollo, and Cybele (not necessarily in that order).  The weather here today should be a lot like it was on the day I took this shot, with lots of overcast skies.

pair-o-dux

Despite the handsomeness of this guy, his date doesn't seem too proud of him.  Is Monday a bad day for puns?


(According to my Peterson Guide, these look like canards mandarin but I'm open to advice.)

Sunday stroll

While mostly cloudy, today's forecast still call for temperatures well about average.  Another good day to be out enjoying the beauties of Nature.

City Daily Photo theme day for November: "landmark"

Whether one arrived by flat bottom boat on the Loire in the middle ages, or one arrives today by car or tourist bus over the bridge, the château is a landmark that instantly identifies Amboise.   Here it is shrouded in a bit of fog one morning in October.

The first of every month is theme day for the bloggers of City Daily Photo and today's theme is "landmark".  To see how the others interpreted the theme click here.