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Friday 24 February 2012

French Friday - windows and facades

I could go to Rennes today and take hundreds of photos of beautiful windows and buildings but they do look better in summer with a casually placed geranium or two! Sadly, but such is life, most of my travelling around France was pre digital cameras so those inferior photos will probably remain forever in their albums rather than on my computer. Here are just a selection that either I or my OH have taken during the last couple of years.

Honey coloured limestone and colombage in the Dordogne department:

Monpazier, a hilltop bastide town

Monpazier

La Roque Gageac, on the banks of the Dordogne river

Carcassone, in the department of Aude:

Inside the medieval cite at Carcassone

The Basque country in the department of Pyrenees Atlantiques..... from the north of the department:

La Bastide Clairence

La Bastide Clairence

To the south and the foothills of the Pyrenees, on the pilgrim trail to Santiago de Compostela:

St Jean Pied de Port

St Jean Pied de Port: the old and the new

To the coast on the Bay of Biscay:

St Jean de Luz

To the town famous for its mild chillies, which decorate the facades of the buildings:

Espelette

Not forgetting the region where I live! Back in Bretagne....... from the glorious colombage and slate in Dinan:



To granite. The granite in Brittany comes in so many different colours; from warm brown tones to distinctly purple in Rennes, to very grey and austere looking, and to the pink tones of the Cote de Granit Rose.

Chateau de la Ballue, Ille et Vilaine

Harbour wall, Concarneau, Finistere

Intra Muros, St Malo, Ille et Vilaine

7 comments:

  1. Loving these Mandy. i usually end up with crick in my neck when we visit beautiful places like these.

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  2. Gorgeous pics... if I hadn't just moved to my dream shack, these would make me want to throw it all in and move across the channel. All that aged beauty and more sunshine...

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  3. Beautiful photos MMM - it was especially good to see the photo of Carcasonne having read a book called Labryinth by Kate Mosse which is all about what happened there in 13something.

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  4. Lovely pics...puts England's Barret homes to shame!

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  5. Magnifiques photos. Elles donnent envie de voyager à travers la France :)
    Maryline

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  6. Great photos, Mandy. I take loads of doors and windows - find them fascinating.
    Sandra
    http://livingin22.blogspot.com

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  7. Thanks everyone. I think one of my favourite things about France is the vastly different architectural styles, not just changing from region to region but also from dept to dept and sometimes even within the same department! I love English style too especially chocolate box cottages and appreciate this all the more now I don't live there - BUT - France has the edge with those rustic shutters!!!

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