Hello friends,
Today involved a lot of driving.
A lot.
We left Angers at 09:00 this morning and headed toward Paris. We had been planning to take tours at both Chenonceau and Chambord, But we ran into some difficulties along the way.
On the way to Chenonceau, the GPS decided to fail miserably and put us on a much longer route. When we tried to fix it, we got an even longer route on only back roads instead of the highways. We did eventually make it to Chenonceau, but we had lost a lot of time and we were all pretty frustrated.
So we had some food. We had brought along a baguette (and a half) and some cheese, so we snacked a bit and made some friends.
ISO 100, 50 mm, f/1.8, 1/1600
Let me just say, this was an incredibly difficult shot to get, let alone to get the almost exact focus. I'm proud of this one.
ISO 100, 50 mm, f/1.8, 1/1250
After the picnic, we got some tickets and headed onto the grounds.
ISO 100, 50 mm, f/1.8, 1/200
If you don't know, Chenonceau looks like this. It's built over and across the river Cher, and it was interestingly used as a bridge between the occupied and free sides of the line of demarcation during WWII (the line ran along the Cher). The main gallery of the Chateau was used to get people from one side to the other. Meanwhile, a German artillery unit was permanently stationed to destroy Chenonceau if needed. Glad they didn't.
I just wanted to share that cool information I learned while we were there.
ISO 100, 50 mm, f/1.8, 1/2500
We went in for a bit and I found some interesting things inside.
ISO 100, 50 mm, f/1.8, 1/800
ISO 100, 50 mm, f/5, 1/125
The 'H' is for King Henri II and, if you can see it past the incredibly elaborate stone decorations, the entwined Cs are for Catherine de Medici. Chenonceau was originally given to King Henri's mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Once Henri died, however, Catherine kicked Diane out and claimed Chenonceau for herself (she did give Diane Chateau de Chaumont, though, so everything is okay).
ISO 2000, 50 mm, f/4.5, 1/80
The aforementioned main gallery. I had some fun with the chandeliers.
ISO 100, 50 mm, f/1.8, 1/160
Another thing that I learned is that the hallway on the first floor has a rib vault ceiling, and it's interesting because the keys don't line up, forming a jagged line all the way along.....I think I used the terminology right. In any case, it makes for an interesting picture.
ISO 500, 50 mm, f/1.8, 1/80
This is my photography, so there has to be at least one picture of flowers. Chenonceau has a team of two florists who make new arrangements for each room in the chateau every day. There's a massive garden on the grounds where they grow pretty much every flower imaginable.
ISO 1250, 50 mm, f/2.8, 1/80
ISO 100, 50 mm, f/1.8, 1/640
ISO 100, 50 mm, f/4, 1/250
Hey look, more flowers!
ISO 100, 50 mm, f/1.8, 1/2500
After that, we realized we were pretty short on time so we left Chenonceau.
ISO 100, 50 mm, f/1.8, 1/250
We did have to see one more thing on the grounds, though.
ISO 500, 50 mm, f/1.8, 1/80
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Then, we hit the road again.
Almost at the end, we realized that the GPS hated us. We had spent an extra hour or so going by back roads through the French countryside instead of taking the motorway. Mom was asleep, Nico was reading, and Dad and I were too busy speaking French and enjoying the beautiful countryside to notice that we were taking an unnecessarily long route.
We eventually reached Chambord, though it was incredibly crowded. We didn't have much time and there were too many people around, so we didn't want to go inside. I did get some interesting shots of the outside, though.
ISO 100, 50 mm, f/1.8, 1/2500
ISO 100, 50 mm, f/1.8, 1/2500
ISO 100, 50 mm, f/1.8, 1/1600
ISO 100, 50 mm, f/1.8, 1/320
ISO 100, 50 mm, f/1.8, 1/320
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After Chambord we drove to Paris, where we discovered the insanity of Paris traffic on Friday, at rush hour, on a holiday weekend. The driving style seemed to be whoever is the bravest (or the rudest) wins. I mean no offense to any Parisians who might read this. Once we dropped off the car at Gare du Nord, we waited in the extremely long line for a taxi, where we saw something interesting.
At the taxi stops, there were a bunch of guys waiting on the sidewalk. Whenever a family would start walking toward a taxi, the guys would run over, open the back of the car, and start loading the family's bags into the taxi. We later found out that they were in no way affiliated with the taxi service—they were simply doing it in the hopes of getting tips.
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I didn't get the obligatory picture of the building and/or the street, but I'll try to remember that for tomorrow.
So yeah, we're now in one of the most famous cities in the world. And I have a camera.
This should be interesting,
Alec
Alec