More Pics of Paris

Paris, another few sets of photos I have taken. As low a commentary as possible, since most people know about Paris anyway. So, enjoy the pictures.

Norman

Well, hope you liked some of these unretouched photos.....appreciate the Arc D' Triumph please, I think I waited for a long time to get the twilight shots, compared to the earlier ones which I uploaded, these taken in 2001 with a small Olumpus semi pro with a tripod are actually quite good.

CHAMBORG - Loire Valley France

Chambourg, this hunting castle built by Loius XIV is a love hate affair. It was used largely only 8 days a year for hunting where the King will arrive with his entourage of up to 200 men and 300 dogs of the beagle and bloodhound varieties, to empty the whole forest of almost 23 square kilometers of deers. While this is going on, others chopped down fire wood to fire up its 14 fire places to warm the cold castle up and others cook. This is while the whole country was living in poverty and in exile after the ancestorial kings of England forgotten their ties in the 12th Century where Richard the Lionheart was born of a French queen.

This is one castle designed during the Renaissance Period and with nice touches from the famed Italian multi talented man, Leonardo Da Vinci.

This is my favourite and I have longed for years to go there. Finally, with one of my trips to Paris, I have an opportunity, with 2 days free time to skip the Friday flight and to save a thousand dollars in ticket difference....yes...SIA charges up to 1100 dollars difference on the same flight if you fly a different day! So I joined a tour to the Liore Valley to visit 3 great castles out of the 66 there. Chamborg was the one that I really had read up about and was really looking forward to it. So I signed up for the tour for about 250 Euros and the bus was there to pick me up at Galleries Lafayette at 7 in the morning. It was a long ride, 2 hours out of the crazy traffic of Paris, then another hour later, we reached Tours, then hit to Chamborg just about lunch time.

The van had 8 tourists, was parked quite a distance a way, and the suspense builds as I was walking pass the shops and finally, the majestic piece of architecture looms in the distance! Being a photo bug, I got my spanking new EOS then and snapped away. Got 2 batts fully charged just to make sure. However, the fog was a great dampener of my spirits. No matter, shoot away!

Once out of the woods and hedge grows, the view opens up. I was aggaged, being a Chateau and Schloss freak......I snapped this shot with the two mounties who weren't happy that some ching chong took a shot of them, waved me over and warned me with a stern tone of whatever it was....don't give a hoot....Been to France 16 times, still don't give a hoot about their forsaken lingua.

Then I gave the innocent shrug, which works most of the time, gestured for them to take a picture back for revenge.....this was how this photo was taken, by the mountie! Not a bad composition, I must say. The photo was grossly under exposed as the chap did not understand compensation exposures, so, I have to do a lot of touching up. Plus, with all the excitement, I left my tunic folded and my white shirt below was showing.....so, after some touching up....wallah....here it looked the final pic.

The whole tour went into the castle by the right hand side, while the photo bug went left 200m outfield to have this shot taken. I then ran back to try to catch up with the tour and ticket into the chateau. Then the whole lot of explanation by the guide, who was himself quite a chateau and schloss lover himself, was most informative. He pours out volumes of history of the castle and the few designers, the years, the activities, what happened in WW1 and 2 where it was used as a storage and look out, where the Nazis preserved it for the love of its sheer beauty.

While running to try to catch up with the tour group, which you can see from the right corner of this picture, I stopped for 5 seconds for this shot, then ran like a mad goose again, panting as I go in the cold!

Then, I cannot resist, I took another shot a I got closer to the castle. This one showed that the windows and the whole structure was designed mainly for elegance and can never hold up to any attacks at all givens its large and easily assessible windows and wooden doors. Despite its non performance as a protection hole, its still easily one of the most loved. At least by me.

At the western gate, I took the shot of this corner tower. The main building has 4 large corner towers, about 15m diameter rooms inside. The two sides are long and large rows of administrative buildings.

This view shows the little protection provided by a deep Fjord surrounding the whole structure. However, bearing in mind, when this was built, firearms were already the order of the day, won't make a difference anyway compared with Medieval designs.

Once inside the side walls which contained the administration rooms, there we can find the rear of the main block with a large courtyard. There are two spiral staircases designed by Leonardo Da Vinci here. I was told that the guy going up the stair well and the chap coming down will never meet so as to facilitate fast movement of troops during insurgency periods. I tried it out, marked it with a plastic bag tied to one of the railings....its true, on my way down, I do not see it! Uncannily clever!

This is the rear view of the front facade block. It has the round about gravel layout for carriages to move and alight their party attending passengers.

Climbing up to the top of this block, there was an alleyway on the top floor before the steeples started, here was the balcony, I can imagine, where the king plus his yes men would have stood to behold the actions below.

Here is how it looked like close up on whose coming to the party from the alley way on top.

The rear of the front facade block also had an alleyway balcony where the king can see who is alighting in the courtyard round about below.

The front Balcony of the front facade block where there are 4 semi circular blocks of rooms holding up huge dinning and dance halls.

One of the corner room blocks that did not blend it nor seemed connected to the rest of the castle. Looked more like a chapel or something. It was off limits, so the tour did not visit it. I can imagine, this incest committing royal family of genetically degenerated people, having the last thing on their mind was the fear of God.

This was one of the two stair wells that Da Vinci designed, which I tried. The view in between the spiral is this skylight that light up part of the whole stairwell so that soldiers have a clear view of where they are heading. Seen here on the ground floor, in this photo below which I took a shot of it upwards.

This Chateau also has a high number of fireplaces, which I think if I did not remember wrongly, something like 14 places for the King and some others for the rest of the crew. The castle is normally bear and used 8 days of the year only for hunting. The entourage will bring along everything, including furniture! The rest of the time, the castle is empty! Here is one of those fireplaces used by the king.

Another fireplace and room used by the king.

This is the Armoury Room where armour and weapons are brought here and stored during the week long hunting trip and emptied out when the King returns to Amboise.

This is the King's chambers, during the hunt, which is normally near winter, they people will heat up hot pans in the fireplace and put such plates below the bed to heat it up so that the deformed kid can sleep. However, can you imagine that when the hunt ends, all this carpet, upholstery the bed and frames are packed and shipped back to the palace at Amboise about 100km west of this place. No wonder the farmers wanted to chop of his head!

The Queen gets a piece of the action too. They bring the mirror the consoles, the beds etc, but she does not get to have a nice carpet from Persia though.

Guest room where the deers are served after the hunt as venison, the anters are hung in the trophy room and the meat are salted in barrels as jerkies to be brought back to Amboise.

Disneyland 50th Anniversary

Going to Anaheim California is anything to go by without dropping by Disneyland. I have been here in LA and Anaheim in a few occassions in times past, but this is 2005, Disneyland's 50th anniversary, should never miss it for anything!Here we see the golden Mickey sovenir statues...everything here is about golden Mickey. Even at 50 years, Mickey is anything but old. The people arrive here by the tens of thousands everyday for this event!

Going through the gate is one big security affair. There were numerous tents built with armed security guards ramaging through your bags even though the signs and music were endearing, the overweight profiling guards aren't. They seemed to hate everything asian though....no matter...we are conquering the world by sheer size anyway.

Something I like about California, it is made up of overweight people who are largely too heavy for their own knees to carry them! I feel really slim here! Even though back home, my girl calls me a fat ass. The amount of people disabled here by their own gluttony is really appalling. This is next to Australia, whom I have been to on several occassions, a land of conmen and fat asses....well, I have been conned twice and all the people that I know that lived there had been conned before. It seemed that it may be in their genes or something, I am not sure if that has got to do with their limited economic prowess and the ability to connect to the real world economy. Sometimes I find it strange that a country with a population of Bangkok and Phuket put together talks like they want to lead the whole earth with an outdated airforce and small navy of largely antiquated vessels and with an army with no ability to project its power due to proximity. Sometimes, it is amazing how a land can be filled with people living in denial! Well, this is my own opinion.

Arriving here in fun wonderland makes a 40 year old feels 4 again. Small touches like this Pinochio sign goes a long way to stir imaginations even if it was the door of a toilet! It still looked great!

Disneyland cannot sustain its high overheads without other sources of income other than sovenirs and tickets. They created Downtown Disney and rented out the premises to many vendors and F&B outlets. See here is the Build A Bear Factory. There are others. Lego etc, which I will upload in a separate time. They also have a second theme park, two here in Anaheim, 3 in Tokyo, to keep people coming back. For those who think that they are overgrown ups, they can head sideways to the park next door called Disney Californian Adventure.

Arriving here is an affair of choice, there are many that took to drive and walk for miles to get there, there are others from Korea and Japan that took to arriving in style from limousine services to luxury coaches to stay in the nice hotel that they have been checked into to spend a night or two to savour the adventure, the fun and the shopping/dining experience.

The hotel is tip top. This is one view to take home to for to remember for a lifetime, the check in counter looks medievel!

Lighting is by a skylight and lots of overhanging candelabra and chanderliers. Reminscent of times past where butlers light the candles with 20 foot poles.
There are ample sitting areas while we wait to check in at a huge reading and resting area and a giant fireplace. Here you can see me, David and Paul. Enroute to Safariland of Armor Holdings to demonstrate some technology.

There are also some interesting dioramas on display like this one, which sits on about 10 square meters of table top space!

For the 50th Anniversay, there were many performances in the streets, even through Downtown Disney. Here, outside of the Savanna, animal handlers show the prowess of birds and small mammals and photo opportunity is aplenty.

Here we see theme shops with their nice sculptures to promote the various themes that marked the main merchandise of the outlet. Here we see the Simba and Tarzan theme shop.

Donald and the general 50s to 70s themes.

Kerbie, the revival of an old flame, a new movie then in 2005. Here I am with Kirby, carrying expensive 50th anniversay T shirts of the kids back home. Well, I was 10kg lighter then!

Here we see another theme, the fantasyland of Arabian Nights and Cinderella, Snow White, Peter Pan and Pinochio.

They even have Captain hook sticking out his infamous body part replacement with a trapped Tinkerbell in a candle holder, or this wicked and crooked hand of the Queen Mother with the famed toxin loaded apple for Snow White.

Then, there are also plenty of Golden Mickeys everywhere, this rendition is a 7 footer with Minnie in metallic finish.

This is the Disney's walk of fame. People pay and donate money to keep the park alive. There were some tiles that dated back to the 50s from here. I took some pictures of them and here is one of them.

Disneyland never cease to fascinate me. I first went to EuroDisney with Eunice, my wife back in 1993, then 3 times to Tokyo Disney, two more times to Paris Disney Park, once with my son Dominique to HongKong Disneyland, the smallest, and here, my second trip to the original Disneyland Anaheim. Still I am gonna come back for more!