morning has broken

 

4 of a kind

... or maybe an outside straight.  In any case, the early morning light was on these plane trees was a winner.

we take off at dawn

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On my way back from the boulangerie this morning.

market day sunrise surprise

Last Sunday, the just rising sun bathed the plane trees in this wonderful pinkish-red glow.  The tops of the market's stalls can be seen behind the levee.

Sunday sunrise

This morning I woke up to find a nearly full moon setting in the west, so out I dashed with camera in hand.  But ultimately the shot I liked most was in the opposite direction.

dawn / l'aube

Silhouette at dawn of the château, the hôtel de ville, chapelle Saint-Hubert, l'église Saint-Florentin, and the bell tower over rue Nationale.  First time I ever got them all in one shot.

dawn on the levee

The good thing about the shorter days now is that I can easily get photos at dawn.  Today sunrise was at 8:03 am (Central European Time).

Autumnal equinox 2016

I actually got up a bit early to dash down to the bridge to grab this snap of the sunrise behind the château.  On this day of the equinox, that was pretty easy as the sun came up here a 7:41 am.

the winter solstice

The solstice arrived in France early this morning.  I wanted to capture the location of the sun at sunrise (8:42 am) so I stuck my camera out of a skylight on our top level.  Much to my great surprise, the clouds cooperated perfectly on this occasion to provide a wonderful start to the shortest daylight hours of the year.  (Here, that is of course.  My Australian friends will have their longest day.)

sailors take warning

This sunrise view from our our home's top level reminds me of the old saying "Red sky at morning, sailors take warning...".  It's appropriate today because I want to issue a little warning to all my friends of a certain age.  Last week I had a routine stress test (running on a treadmill while connected to an EKG machine) in order to be certified for a foot race.  A "little anomaly" was detected and I went immediately to my cardiologist.  To make a very long story short, after a echo-cardiogram, a CT scan, two angioplasties, and two stents, I'm as good as new in just a week.  I was lucky that the two 50% blocked arteries were found so early before real damage was done.  So even if you have no symptoms, as I didn't, I say have a conversation with your doctor or cardiologist about any symptoms, your family's heart history, and your cholesterol.  Clear sailing everyone!

sunrise over the château

The beginning of a beautiful Sunday in Amboise.

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.

sunrise over the château d'Amboise

Here's a break from all the sunset photos... this is a sunrise over the château at Amboise.

We are now back from a road trip to Paris and then to the Pays Basque so I will now try to start catching up on responding to comments from the last two weeks.  I had little access to the internet during this time so I am glad that blogger.com allowed me to queue up posts in advance.

July sunrise

Here's another sunrise as seen from the top floor of our house in Amboise.  The château is just to the left of center.

Calendar Series Introduction - April Sunrise

I actually managed to take this photo from the skylight of our house early one morning.  The center silhouette is the château.  The thin spire to the right is a chapel where Leonardo da Vinci is entombed (Chapelle Saint-Hubert).  It's an interesting quirk of history that he spent his last years in Amboise at the invitation of François I.  His home, Clos Lucé, has been beautifully restored including a museum with models of many of his inventions.  And there are full scale models on the grounds that are designed to educate as well as amuse the kids.