Post Tagged with "France"

Picture Postcards: Historical place in Paris, France

Starting this month we are looking at historical things and places around the world. To kick things off we have this photo by our contributor in France, DeeBee. She describes it as,

“France – Paris – Place de l’Alma: The Flame of Liberty turned into a Memorial to Princess Diana, just above the tunnel where she was killed in a tragic road accident on 31 August 1997.”

More:
The French and Their Bread
Summer Solstice Celebrations in France
Childhood Memories of the Holiday Season

Picture Postcards: Street scene in Monmartre, Paris, France

We are on the street in Paris this week! Here is a snap by DeeBee who tells us it is “Paris: Rue Steinkerque in Montmartre, a busy street lined with tourist shops and leading to the Sacré-Coeur Basilica.”

Read more:
The Bouquinistes
French Royal Mistresses
The French and Their Bread

Saint-Valentin – Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is the celebration of Love and French people, as millions of people around the world, will be offering chocolates and other gifts to show their love for each other.

The Church of Rome, the Anglicans and Lutherans celebrate Saint Valentin or Valentine’s Day on February 14, but the origins of this beautiful tradition go back to Pagan times.

Valentinus was an early Christian martyr from Rome who was jailed around 270AD not only for helping other Christians escape persecution but for carrying out clandestine weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry, as Emperor Claudius believed that married men could not make good soldiers!

Any Christian sacrament was anyway outlawed by the Roman Empire.

The legend has it that Valentinus started the tradition of the Heart symbol by giving away to the newly married a piece of parchment cut out in the shape of a heart and inscribed with the registration of their vows.

According to the legend he also started the tradition of sending a greeting card to the loved one.

He is said to have healed the blind daughter of his jailer, and the miracle he performed resulted in the conversion to Christianity of the jailer and his extensive family.

Before his execution on February 14, Valentinus, who had fallen in love with the young girl (who by then had recovered her sight and could read) sent her a farewell note signed “from your Valentine.”

Another symbol of Valentine’s Day (which has nothing to do with Valentinus though but is most likely related to ancient Pagan rituals) is Cupid, the little winged God of Desire, Affection and Love who is also known in Latin as Amor and in Greek as Eros.

I don’t know what Valentinus would have thought if he had known that one day he would be linked to Cupid-Eros…

Source photo Wikimedia Commons

 

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Summer solstice celebrations in France

French Mother’s Day – Fête des Mères

Canadian honeymoon

From our contributors: January 22, 2013

This is what our contributors have written on their personal blogs. Go have a look!

DeeBee, our contributor from France, published an article about the Bayeux Tapestry, in which she explains the historical background, how it was made and its fascinating history.

When talking about Normandy one immediately thinks of the WWII Landing Beaches and the Tapestry of Bayeux! Two different types of invasions 950 years or so apart! The Tapestry de Bayeux is in fact not a tapestry but a long embroidered linen cloth depicting the Conquest of England by William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy. The impressive hanging is embroidered with coloured woollen yarns depicting around fifty scenes with captions of the Conquest.

Flotte normande (source: wikimedia.org)

LeX, our contributor from Malaysia, wrote about a charity campaign called “Inspire Travel Young” that aims to provide eye-care to disadvantaged people in poor countries.

For that reason, I decided to be part of the charity campaign called “Inspire Travel Young” “Enabling Other Seeing” as to help other seeing especially for those that still fighting for it. Seeing is Believing, Non profit organization doing a great job by helping other seeing.

People that live in the poorer countries have difficulty to access eye-care and prevention program due to the financial constrain and not always given the attention it deserves. Statistically, 80% of blindness being avoidable, and 60% of children dying within a year of going blind, that’s one of the strong reason why we should support this charity campaign.

Anu, our contributor from India, wrote about a visit to Daulatabad fort, a once impregnable fort, in the state of Maharashtra.

As the passage curves yet again and the guide disappears from view, there is a sudden rush to catch up with him….. The passage still fulfills the purpose it was built for, all those centuries ago – to scare and confuse the enemy caught within its walls. We are at the Daulatabad fort, in the passage known as the Andheri – literally, the dark passage.

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First blog post roundup of the year

From our contributors: November 26

From our contributors: October 27

Picture Postcards: A Parisian doorway

This great shot was sent in by our contributor from France, DeeBee.

Read more:
French Roundabouts
Windmills in France
The Bouquinistes- Booksellers along the Seine River

French roundabouts

Circular junctions existed long before the creation of modern roundabouts, these marvelous circular junctions that make driving so much easier…or at least we like to think so!

The first French roundabout was the Place de l’Etoile in Paris that was created in 1854 and which circles the impressive Arc de Triomphe that was erected to celebrate the Napoleonic victories.

The creation of that circular junction, though, was not to ease the traffic of horse-drawn carts in Paris but just to showcase the arch, to make sure that it was visible from any direction!

Modern roundabouts are a British invention as they were developed by the United Kingdom Transport Research Laboratory in the 1960’s.

The efficiency of the design proved very successful as all “traditional” French crossroads are steadily being converted into roundabouts.

Not only are they “driver friendly”, they also become true works of art and it seems that each municipality competes of inventiveness not only to create the most attractive roundabout but also the one that will be the best promotion for the local industry, annual music festival or anything that needs to be shown and seen…

Here is a short selection of some of my favourite roundabouts.

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Louis Vuitton flat-bottom trunks

Carrousels – Merry-go-rounds

Windmills in France