France

Chateau De Vitre

Chateau De Vitre


The Château de Vitré is a medieval castle in the town of Vitré, in the Ille-et-Vilaine département of France. The first castle in Vitré was built of wood on a feudal motte around the year 1000 on the Sainte-Croix hill. The castle was burned down on several occasions, and eventually was bequeathed to the Benedictine monks of Marmoutier Abbey. The first stone castle was built by the baron Robert I of Vitré at the end of the 11th century. The defensive site chosen, a rocky promontory, dominated the valley of the Vilaine. A Romanesque style doorway still survives from this building. During the first half of the 13th century, baron André III, rebuilt it in its present triangular form, following the contours of the rocks, surrounded with dry moats. In 1872, it was one of the first castles in France to be classified as a monument historique (historic monument) and restored from 1875 under the direction of the architect Darcy. Placed in the public domain, the castle was furnished with a small museum, in 1876, inspired by Arthur de la Borderie. Paradoxically, he destroyed the collégiale de la Madeleine (collegiate church of the Madeleine) in the castle courtyard while he was in charge of conservation for the town. A boys' school was built in its place. Today, the Vitré town hall stands inside the curtain wall, in a building reconstructed in 1912 following the plans of the medieval residence. The Place du Château, outside the castle, used to be the castle forecourt where stables and outbuildings were. It is now a car park that will be revamped in 2007 to properly show off one of the most imposing castles in France.
Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower


The Eiffel Tower is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Locally nicknamed 'La dame de fer' (English for 'Iron Lady'), it was constructed from 1887 to 1889 as the entrance to the 1889 World's Fair, it was initially criticised by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but it has become a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world. The Eiffel Tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world; 6.91 million people ascended it in 2015. The tower is 324 metres (1,063 ft) tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building, and the tallest structure in Paris. Its base is square, measuring 125 metres (410 ft) on each side. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to become the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years until the Chrysler Building in New York City was finished in 1930. It was the first structure to reach a height of 300 m. Due to the addition of a broadcasting aerial at the top of the tower in 1957, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building by 5.2 metres (17 ft). Excluding transmitters, the Eiffel Tower is the second tallest free-standing structure in France after the Millau Viaduct. The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second levels. The top level's upper platform is 276 m (906 ft) above the ground – the highest observation deck accessible to the public in the European Union. Tickets can be purchased to ascend by stairs or lift to the first and second levels. The climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the climb from the first level to the second. Although there is a staircase to the top level, it is usually accessible only by lift.
Lille Palace of Fine Arts

Lille Palace of Fine Arts


The Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille (Lille Palace of Fine Arts) is a municipal museum dedicated to fine arts, modern art, and antiquities. It is one of the largest art museums in France. It was one of the first museums built in France, established under the instructions of Napoleon I at the beginning of the 19th century as part of the popularisation of art. Jean-Antoine Chaptal's decree of 1801 selected fifteen French cities (among which Lille) to receive the works seized from churches and from the European territories occupied by the armies of Revolutionary France. The painters Louis Joseph Watteau and François Watteau, known as the 'Watteau of Lille', were heavily involved in the museum's beginnings - Louis Joseph Watteau made in 1795 the first inventory of the paintings confiscated during the Revolution, whilst his son François was deputy curator of the museum from 1808 to 1823. The museum opened in 1809 and was initially housed in a church confiscated from the Récollets before being transferred to the city's town hall. In 1866, the 'musée Wicar', formed from the collection of Jean-Baptiste Wicar, was merged into the Palais des Beaux-Arts. Construction of the Palais's current Belle Époque-style building began in 1885 under the direction of Géry Legrand, mayor of Lille, and it was completed in 1892. The architects chosen to design the new building were Edouard Bérard (1843–1912) and Fernand Etienne-Charles Delmas (1852–1933) from Paris. The building is located on the place de la République, in the center of the city, facing the préfecture of Lille. It was renovated during the 1990s and reopened in 1997. At the start of the 1990s, the building's poor state and the moving of Vauban's relief models of fortified towns to Lille forced the town to renovate the building. Work began in 1991, under the architects Jean-Marc Ibos and Myrto Vitart, and was completed in 1997. This allowed the creation of a new 700 m2 basement room for temporary exhibitions, as well as departments for the relief models and for 19th-century sculpture. Overall the museum covers 22000 m2 and held 72430 pieces as of 2015, one of the largest provincial collections of fine art. The collection includes works by Raphael, Donatello, Van Dyck, Tissot, Jordaens, Rembrandt, Goya, El Greco, David, Corot, Courbet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Delacroix, Rubens, Rodin, Claudel and Jean-Baptiste Chardin.
Montmartre

Montmartre


Montmartre is a large hill in Paris's 18th arrondissement. It is 130 m (430 ft) high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Right Bank in the northern section of the city. The historic district established by the City of Paris in 1995 is bordered by rue Caulaincourt and rue Custine on the north, rue de Clignancourt on the east, and boulevard de Clichy and boulevard de Rochechouart to the south, containing 60 ha (150 acres). Montmartre is primarily known for its artistic history, the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur on its summit, and as a nightclub district. The other church on the hill, Saint Pierre de Montmartre, built in 1147, was the church of the prestigious Montmartre Abbey. On August 15, 1534, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Francis Xavier and five other companions bound themselves by vows in the Martyrium of Saint Denis, 11 rue Yvonne Le Tac, the first step in the creation of the Jesuits. Near the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the twentieth, during the Belle Époque, many artists lived in, had studios, or worked in or around Montmartre, including Amedeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Suzanne Valadon, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso, Camille Pissarro, and Vincent van Gogh. Montmartre is also the setting for several hit films. This site is served by metro, with line 2 stations at Anvers, Pigalle, and Blanche, and line 12 stations at Pigalle, Abbesses, Lamarck – Caulaincourt, and Jules Joffrin.
Toulouse Cathedral

Toulouse Cathedral


Toulouse Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church located in the city of Toulouse, France. The cathedral is a national monument, and is the seat of the Archbishop of Toulouse. The exact date of the original building is unknown; the first mention of a church edifice on that site is found in a charter of 844. In 1073 the bishop of Toulouse commenced work on a more elaborate structure, followed by additional construction in the 13th century. It has been listed since 1862 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture. The irregular west front exists because the cathedral consists of two incomplete churches. The first dating from the early 13th century (1210 to 1220), which includes the rose window from 1230, is the very first manifestation of Southern French Gothic architecture introduced to fight Cathar heresy through preaching, it probably was the widest nave in Western Europe at its completion (19 metres wide). The other begun in about 1272, on a new plan and a different axis, which was later abandoned, although by 1445 a triforium had been added to the choir and a Flamboyant west portal had been inserted, is in a Gothic style from the north of France to give pledges to the royal power that had taken possession of the city after the Albigensian Crusade and the extinction of the lineage of the Counts of Toulouse. It is off-center because the architect took care to save the baptismal chapel north of the entrance. An oblong tower, composed of a Gothic portion on Romanesque foundations, and capped by a 16th-century gable belfry, completed the west façade. Also in the 15th century the nave and choir vaults were unsymmetrically connected, while in 1609, after a fire, the choir vault was rebuilt. It was not until the 1920s that its north wall was cleared of abutting buildings and a doorway added, similar in style to the west entrance. The interior is as disconcerting as the exterior because the two sections are not on the same axis and juxtapose two styles of Gothic architecture. A massive round pillar, built at the beginning of the 16th century in an attempt to begin the transept, now stands incongruously between the two parts, lining up with the center of the nave in the west, and with the south pillars of the choir in the east. The vast proportions of the five-bay choir, with ambulatory and radiating chapels, dwarf the older nave. Of the 15 chapels, the oldest date from 1279–86, but the majority were completed during the 14th century. Most of the stained glass is 19th-century, but there is glass from almost every century beginning with the end of the 13th in the Saint Vincent de Paul chapel. This is the oldest stained glass in Toulouse. The interesting choir stalls whose decoration includes pagan and mythological subjects were carved in walnut in 1610-13 by Pierre Monge of Narbonne. The walnut case of the organ was carved at the same time, rising some 17 meters above the floor. Restored in 1868 by Cavaillé-Coll and in 1976, the organ is often used for concerts. The beautiful, but worn, tapestries by Jean du Mazet, and the Baroque retable of the high altar are also of particular note.


Baguette

Baguette

Bicorne

Bicorne

Bouillabaisse

Bouillabaisse

Calvados

Calvados

Croissant

Croissant

Cyclist

Cyclist

Di Jon

Di Jon

Dijon Mustard

Dijon Mustard

Foie Gras

Foie Gras

French Cheese

French Cheese

French Chef

French Chef

French Wine

French Wine

Frog Legs

Frog Legs

Girl riding vespa

Girl riding vespa

Lavender

Lavender

Le Grand Elephant

Le Grand Elephant

Le Mont Saint Miche

Le Mont Saint Miche

Map of France

Map of France

Notre Dame de La Garde

Notre Dame de La Garde

Notre Dame de Paris

Notre Dame de Paris