Abhishek's PostCrossing Journey: France

Showing posts with label France. Show all posts

Showing posts with label France. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Saint-Émilion, France

France-18, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

Saint-Émilion is a commune in the Gironde department in Aquitaine in south-western France.
Saint-Émilion's history goes back to prehistoric times and is a World Heritage site, with fascinating Romanesque churches and ruins stretching all along steep and narrow streets.
The Romans planted vineyards in what was to become Saint-Émilion as early as the 2nd century AD. In the 4th century, the Latin poet Ausonius lauded the fruit of the bountiful vine.
The town was named after the monk Émilion, a travelling confessor, who settled in a hermitage carved into the rock there in the 8th century. It was the monks who followed him that started up the commercial wine production in the area.

Hôtel-Dieu de Lyon, France

France-17, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

Hôtel-Dieu de Lyon is a functioning hospital of historical significance situated on the west bank of the Rhone river, on the "Presque-isle".
Lyon, often Anglicized as Lyons, is a city in east-central France in the region Rhône-Alpes, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at 470 km from Paris, 320 km from Marseille, 160 km from Geneva, 280 km from Turin, 450 km from Milan and 600 km from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais.
Lyon is a major centre of business with a reputation as the French capital of gastronomy and having a significant role in the history of cinema due to Auguste and Louis Lumière. The local professional football team, Olympique Lyonnais, has increased the profile of Lyon internationally through participation in European football championships.

Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Reims, France

France-16, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

Notre-Dame de Reims (Our Lady of Rheims) is the Roman Catholic cathedral of Reims, where the kings of France were once crowned.[1] It replaces an older church, destroyed by a fire in 1211, which was built on the site of the basilica where Clovis was baptized by Saint Remi, bishop of Reims, in AD 496. That original structure had been erected on the site of the Roman baths. As the cathedral it remains the seat of the Archdiocese of Reims.
A major site for tourism in the Champagne region, it accommodated half a million visitors in 2006

Avignon , France

France-15, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

Avignon is a commune in the Vaucluse department in southeastern France.The city is well known for its Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes), where several popes and antipopes lived from the early 14th to early 15th centuries.
Avignon is situated on the left bank of the Rhône, a few miles above its confluence with the Durance, about 580 km (360.4 mi) south-south-east of Paris. Avignon occupies a large oval-shaped area, not fully populated and covered in great part by parks and gardens.

Pont du Gard, France

France-14, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

The Pont du Gard is an aqueduct in the South of France constructed by the Roman Empire, and located in Vers-Pont-du-Gard near Remoulins, in the Gard département. Pont du Gard means literally bridge of the Gard (river). The Gard River, which has given its name to the Gard département, does not actually exist under this name. The river, formed by many tributaries, several of which are called Gardon, is itself called Gardon until its end.The Pont du Gard was added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1985.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Seine, France

France-13, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

The Seine is a slow-flowing major river and commercial waterway within the regions of Île-de-France and Haute-Normandie in France and famous as a romantic backdrop in photographs of Paris, France. It is also a tourist attraction, with excursion boats offering sightseeing tours of the Rive Droite and Rive Gauche within the city of Paris. It terminates in the Bay of the Seine region of the English Channel and is navigable by ocean-going vessels for about ten percent of its length, as far as Rouen, 120 km (75 miles) from the sea, while over sixty percent of its length, as far as Burgundy near the Swiss Alps, is negotiable by commercial riverboats and nearly its whole length is available for recreational boating.

In 1991, the banks of the Seine in Paris—the Rive Gauche and Rive Droite—were added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in Europe.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Fontainebleau, France

France-12, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

Fontainebleau is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located 55.5 kilometres (34.5 mi) south-southeast of the centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the arrondissement of Fontainebleau. The commune has the largest land area in the Île-de-France region; it is the only one to cover a larger area than Paris itself.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

The Kammerzell House and Norte-Dame Cathedra, Strasbourg, France

France-11, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in north-eastern France. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin department.
Strasbourg's historic city centre, the Grande Île ("Grand Island"), was classified a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honor was placed on an entire city centre. Strasbourg is fused into the Franco-German culture, and although violently disputed throughout history has been a bridge of unity between France and Germany for centuries, especially through the University of Strasbourg, currently the largest in France, and the co-existence of Catholic and Protestant culture.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Amiens Cathedral, France

France-10, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

The Cathedral of Our Lady of Amiens, or simply Amiens Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic cathedral and seat of the Bishop of Amiens, Jean-Luc Marie Maurice Louis Bouilleret. The cathedral is the tallest complete cathedral in France, with the greatest interior volume (estimated at 200,000 m³). The vaults of the nave are 42.30 m high, the tallest nave vaults in any completed French cathedral, and surpassed only by the incomplete Beauvais Cathedral. This monumental cathedral is located in Amiens, the chief city of Picardy, in the Somme River valley a little over 100 kilometers north of Paris.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans, France

France-9, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

The Saline Royale (Royal Saltworks) is located at Arc-et-Senans in the department of Doubs. It is next to the Forest of Chaux and about 35 kilometers from Besançon, France. The architect was Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736-1806), a prominent Parisian architect of the time. The work is an important example of an early Enlightenment project in which the architect based his design on a philosophy that favored arranging buildings according to a rational geometry and a hierarchical relation between the parts of the project.

Today, the Institut Claude-Nicolas Ledoux has taken on the task of conservator and is managing the site as a monument. UNESCO added the "Salines Royales" to its List of World Heritage Sites in 1982.

Parish of Saint Emilion, France

France-8, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

Saint-Émilion is a commune in the Gironde department in Aquitaine in south-western France.Saint-Émilion's history goes back to prehistoric times and is a World Heritage site, with fascinating Romanesque churches and ruins stretching all along steep and narrow streets.
The Romans planted vineyards in what was to become Saint-Émilion as early as the 2nd century AD. In the 4th century, the Latin poet Ausonius lauded the fruit of the bountiful vine.

The town was named after the monk Émilion, a travelling confessor, who settled in a hermitage carved into the rock there in the 8th century. It was the monks who followed him that started up the commercial wine production in the area.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Strasbourg, France

France-7, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in northeastern France.Strasbourg's historic city centre, the Grande Île ("Grand Island"), was classified a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honor was placed on an entire city centre.Grande Île, the historic centre of Strasbourg, France, is an island in the Ill River.Aside from the Strasbourg Cathedral—the world's fourth-tallest church and an ornate example of 15-century gothic architecture—Grand Île is home to four other centuries-old churches: St. Thomas, St. Pierre-le-Vieux, St. Pierre-le-Jeune, and St. Étienne. You can see Strasbourg Cathedral in the picture.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Chateau De Chambord, Loire Valley, France

France-6, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

Loire Valley is known as the Garden of France and the Cradle of the French Language. It is also noteworthy for the quality of its architectural heritage, in its historic towns such as Amboise, Angers, Blois, Chinon, Nantes, Orléans, Saumur, and Tours, but in particular for its world-famous castles, such as the Châteaux d'Amboise, Château de Chambord, Château de Villandry and Chenonceau and more particularly its many cultural monuments, which illustrate to an exceptional degree the ideals of the Renaissance and the Age of the Enlightenment on western European thought and design.

The royal Château de Chambord at Chambord, Loir-et-Cher, France is one of the most recognizable châteaux in the world because of its very distinct French Renaissance architecture that blends traditional French medieval forms with classical Italian structures.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Grand Place of Arras, France

France-5, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

Arras is the capital of the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. The historic centre of the Artois region, its local speech is characterized as a Picard dialect. Unlike many French words, the final "s" in the name should be pronounced.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Mont Saint-Michel, France

France-2, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

Le Mont-Saint-Michel or St Michael's Mount is a rocky tidal island and a commune in Normandy, France. It is located approximately one kilometre off the country's north coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches.

Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, France

France-4, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue is a commune in the Manche department in Normandy in northwestern France.
It is a part of Fortifications of Vauban UNESCO WHS site. Fortifications of Vauban consists of 12 groups of fortified buildings and sites along the western, northern and eastern borders of France. They were designed by Vauban (1633–1707), and were added in 2008 to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Caen , France

France-3, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

Caen is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the Calvados department and the capital of the Basse-Normandie region. It is located 15 km (6 mi) inland from the English Channel.
Caen is known for its historical buildings built during the reign of William the Conqueror, who was buried here, and for the Battle for Caen—heavy fighting that took place in and around Caen during the Battle of Normandy in 1944, destroying much of the town.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Canal du Midi, France

France-2, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

The Canal du Midi is a 240 km (150 mi) long canal in Southern France (French: le Midi). The canal connects the Garonne River to the Étang de Thau on the Mediterranean and along with the Canal de Garonne forms the Canal des Deux Mers joining the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. The canal runs from the city of Toulouse down to the Mediterranean port of Sète—which was founded to serve as the eastern terminus of the canal.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Louvre Museum and its gardens

The Louvre Museum (French: Musée du Louvre), located in Paris, is the world's most visited art museum, a historic monument, and a national museum of France.

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