Provins - A Walled Town

Well after the brief interlude of all this weeks excitement, I thought I'd get back to the recent trip to France!

The evening after spending the day with the cats we went back to the camp site and had a relaxing evening on the patio. We had a pleasant meal in the outdoor air.  Well the food was pleasant, the visitors that we had were less so!  I have always had a thing against wasps, they freak me out and I constantly panic at the thought of getting stung.

The next day we visited a small town called Provins, situated about 50km's from the camp site where we were staying.  It is a small, medieval, walled town that has the distinction of not growing outside of it's original walls.  Well barely growing out of it anyway - if you take a look at Google earth you can see that it's starting to grow.

We arrived and started with a gentle stroll to the town gate (taking copious amounts of photos of course) taking in the centuries old Ramparts and towers timber framed buildings.  It is really amazing that this is a working, living town still and yet as you walk up the street from the visitors centre to the town gate it is still a castle wall surrounded by countryside.

We found the town square and picked which of the crepe houses we wanted to eat at.  I had never realised that there was so much choice!  Brittany, Normandy and other styles were available there.  I'm ashamed to say that I have forgotten what style we chose, but it was very nice! Crepe with egg and ham inside it.  It was delicious!

After lunch we took a walk around the church, and a tour of the keep later (complete with a couple of vertigo dizzy spells when at the top).

To finish off the day we decided to do the 'train' tour.  It's a small van converted to look like a train with several carriages hanging off of it.  Very cliché I know, but it meant that we could sit down and see what we had missed; and get some information on the buildings that we had seen during the day. There were some more great views to be seen from the roads outside of the town that we would never have gotten by foot - but it was probably the most uncomfortable ride of the week (including the Disney roller coasters) as the suspension of the trailers behind the engine unit seemed to be from the same period as the town!

Here are my photos taken in and around the town:

 

Le parc des félins

On with the travelogue...

On the first day it was decided to go and see some cats.  Apparently there was someone who kept a couple not far from the camp site and so we loaded the cars up and left.  Mrs Stace went with her parents and our niece whilst I went with my sister in law and kept my nephew entertained.  Rather than take three cars everywhere we thought it was best just to fill two of them to the brim.

Not long after we arrived at Le parc des félins, in fact the entrance was quite well concealed so we nearly went straight past it :)

Parked, camera on my back (and nearly falling over! My kit weighs a ton!) we went in.  Seeing as the cars sleep around midday we started with a picnic - something that seems very well catered for around that part of France, everywhere we went they provided covered areas to eat your own food.  Fresh baguette with brie and ham makes a wonderful lunch.  The problem (as with every other lunch over the vacation) was wasps - there were hundreds of the things, and I do not do well with them.  Or should I say I panic at wasps almost more than anything else.  I can't stand the things!

Still we finished lunch, and started to try and find the cats.  Apparently there are over 120 species of them, in a very large park.  The first enclosure was for Cheaters, and they did!  We scanned the area for 10 minutes, searching for the slightest movement, anything that could look like a living creature.

Hahahahahahahahahaha

Thinking that they were likely to still be sleeping we gave up and move on.  Then whilst looking at the Lions we notice these Cheaters relaxing next to the fence on the other side.  I managed to get a few shots off and then moved on to the Lions.  We walked for the rest of the day, trying to spot the cats in the various enclosures.  It was a great day, but at the end of it we were all quite pleased to get back into the cars and get off of our feet!

Here's some shots - sorry, but after a couple I lost track of the names of each of them.  I'll number them, if you can give me any names please feel free :)

1 - OK not actually a cat :)

2 - The Cheater

3 - No points for this one

4 - Or this one

5 - OK This one I have no idea

6 - Nor this, but isn't it cute?

7 - Extra points for the sub species

8 - Spot the cat

9 - Any ideas?

10 - Not the same as before

12 - But this is the same as 11

13 - I'm glad I don't have to brush this one!

14 - Just chilling

15 - Possibly the same as 2...

Well that month went fast...

I hadn't realised that it had been a month since I did a successful post...  Things have been a little busy here - getting ready to go on vacation (and going away for a week) and general life has just got in the way and my muse was present to start a couple of posts, but left before I had a chance to finish and post them...

Anyway...  For the catch up let's start with a few vacation posts (see if I manage them all!)

Last week was spent in a static caravan in 'Crecy la Chapelle', a small village / town about 10 miles away from EuroDisney.  The reason for the holiday was the 40th anniversary of Mrs Stace's parents.  So the whole family joined them on holiday for a week.

Getting there was a breeze - much easier than I was expecting, at least for the first 510km's; the last 3 were a nightmare.  We started the journey with stress - the street of the camping site was a little outside of the town itself and so couldn't be easily found in the sat nav that we have.  Still, point to the town and see where we go from there.  Mrs Stace called her parents for directions once we got there and it seemed easy enough - turn right at the only church  you come across.

We drove across Holland, Belgium and into France without any traffic issues at all - we were warned about several by the sat nav, but by the time we reached that point it was cleared.  Even Antwerp was clear - that is normally a nightmare when we go the the UK!

Through France at a constant 130kmph on the AutoRoute - it may be expensive (15 euros toll from the border to Paris on the A1, and 2 euros to pass EuroDisney) but the roads were nice to drive on.

Getting to Crecy and oh dear...  Firstly, everyone knows how traffic lights work, right?  Red, red and amber (in the UK at least, not on the continent), green, amber and then back to red.  Well in France they have a different system in some places.  Red, Red and amber (but not the normal amber of the light, a new fourth amber at the bottom of the light!!!) that flashes whilst the light is on red to say go if it's safe.  If it wasn't for the two French cars in front of us I would not have known and would have had some angry people behind me at the lights :)  As it was I thought 'Whoa, someone doesn't doesn't like to wait for the lights' as the first car went.  When the second followed I thought more 'hmm, one person jumping the lights I can see, but not two' and then I started to scan the lights to see anything that could explain it.  I spotted the (very dim) flashing amber and assumed that mean I could go if it was clear.  In the week there I never saw that light on green...

In the village itself we found two churches - but neither of them on the side of the road and so went round and round in circles trying to find out where we should be...  At some point Mrs Stace saw the sign for a camp site and we just assumed there could only be one.  At a few junctions we had to take an educated guesses where they decided that people didn't need to know which way to go and lo and behold we left the town onto the ring road we were originally driving on and there was Church.  On the right was the camp site...  If we had not seen the sign for the village and left the main road we would have got there about 1/2 earlier than we did - and less stressed!

The camp site was a revelation for me.  I though that the Brits had a problem integrating on holiday - it seems that the Dutch can take it a step further!  The camp site was 95% Dutch and was ran for the Dutch - all the signs were first Dutch, then French, Germand and English.  Funnily enough the staff were not - so whilst the signs were Dutch you couldn't ask for what was written - you needed to translate it into French :)

Well I guess that's long enough for now - here's some sample shots of the week :)

Our caravan on the first night

A Cheater from the Cat Park we visited on the first day

The keep from one of the small towns we visited - I'll remember the name at some point I am sure

The last day in Paris - Arc de Triumph

You don't really need to know what this on is do you?

MotoGP

OK, after a number of serious posts here's something more fun (for me anyway...)

A few more of my choice shots from the MotoGP in Assen.  Not always perfectly sharp, and I have played with the saturation and brightness in some cases (maybe for the worse...  I was playing and experimenting!).  Without fail they have been clipped though to make (what I think) is the best of the framing.

I hope they bring the excitement of the day across as much as they bring it back to me!

Dovi after the race (unprocessed)

Close up of the above shot to see his eyes

Jorge during the race, with damage from the crash with Simo, very slightly processed

Rossi going past Hayden, rotated but otherwise untouched

Rossi going past Hayden a second or so later, a little processed - but not much

Rossi going past Edwards (IIRC) I don't think I have to say if this one has been processed!

And end with Simo, complete with flapping bits at the back from his accident.  Again, a little processed but not much

As promised...

Todays shot is not a new one.  Going through my shots from a couple of years ago I found a few that I really liked.

This one is a night shot, a 10 second exposure @ ISO 100.  It's almost perfect as far as I am concerned (stupid street furniture!).  It is taken on a country road not far from where I live, on a dark, windy and very cold evening.  My fingers froze!

There are also a couple of stories: one of the bridge and one of the night.

The Bridges (this is one of three) are quite new, and were supposed to make an impact for the local council.  They were opened by the Queen of The Netherlands with much ado.

Unfortunately they were in urgent need of maintenance quite soon afterwards!  Not the impact they wanted!  You see they contracted an architect from a sunny country.  Who specified materials which would have been brilliant in a warm climate.  Less so in North Europe where we have lots of rain.  They started to rust immediately (before they were finished they had streaks of brown) and the lights had to be changed for safety reasons - as I understand it they are not suitable for outdoor, wet use :)  There was a court battle about who should pay:  The council as they are the owners and signed off on the design; the builders as they should have said the materials were not suitable or the architect who designed completely unsuitable bridges for the area where they are constructed.  I don't know what happened with that, but I do know the renovation has since finished and they now look as good in daylight as at night.

The other story is of the guy I took photo's with.  When someone came speeding down the road he took a photo of the back of the car with a big grin on his face.  Yes, he used his flash to do it :)

Anyway, here it is:

Night Bridge

Stace

Starting a hobby again

All my life I've really enjoyed photography.  A few years ago I got myself a nice camera, and a couple of nice lenses.  About 2 years ago I treated myself to a nice macro lens and started to enjoy taking interesting shots. Mrs Stace hates the fact that when I take photo's I take an age looking for what I want to shoot, rather than pointing and clicking.

I have a Flickr account with my favorites on (but I'm not quite ready to link to it from here, sorry!) but it hasn't been updated in a long time, I've just not been 'there' to go out and take the shots, and the to spend the time uploading them.  I have a couple of nice ones blown up in the living room but I can't help feel that it's a little wasted at the moment...

So...  In order to try and get my creative juices flowing I thought I'd post some here, every few days or so.  I am not going to do it on a daily basis - that would seem a chore too quickly - but when I feel like it.

I'm also going to try and concentrate on macros and low light photography - I love the way the world changes when you get small, and the way that objects change their look when you remove most of the light.

I'll start today with one I took last night:

Pixels

This is a 1:1 shot taken with my Sigma EX DG 180mm fixed focus lens on my Canon 5D, an then seriously cropped - 763*458 from 4368 * 2912 :).

I know that it would be better if it was lined up right (I don't have the software to rotate the image the little that it needs, and I have lost my tripod so this was taken free hand - floating the camera as close as it will focus on the TV was not the easiest thing to do late at night...)

Stace

Where is the year going?

Another week gone, another looking back and thinking where on earth did the time go...

For the first time this year I actually managed to get my head into gear and take the camera out.  Considering what I have spent on it over the years it's a woefully underused peice of kit - but I have just not had the 'umph' to get out there and take shots.  That changed on Wednesday evening.  I was going stir crazy, Mrs Stace was ill sleeping on the sofa and the sun was shining.  I took the camera to the lake near the house and spent an hour doing the 3km cirlce around it playing with verious shots.

Some worked, some failed miserably, some will make it onto my flickr page when I can be bothered to update it (just such a shame that I don't feel ready to link the male me of my Flickr page to the blog just yet...).  But here are three of my favorites.

The last is supposed to have lens flare BTW - I was playing :)

A first for me was actually aproaching a complete stranger and asking if I could take some shots - a father and son were playing with radio controlled beach buggies and i managed to get a few action shots before they broke (a screw came of the steering servo).  Here's the best of the action shots, taken at a very uncomfortable angle.

(For those interested the camera is an EOS 5D, with a Sigma EX DG 70-200mm f2.8 lens - for those not it's a neck breaking camera :p )

Actually getting the energy to go out there and do this has really meant something to me - I love photography, and I love playing with the camera.  Not having the drive to do that this year has got to me somewhat - but I just could not get the energy to just take the camera out.  Hopefully I can start doing more and more now I've started.

Other than that it's been a bit of a 'meh' week with not that much happenning.

Politics
I have been watching the election with interest...  And found that my views on politics have changed so much over the last 11 years since I left.

When I moved to Holland I thought the proportional representation was a little odd.  Roll on 11 years and I think the first past the post is just plain wrong.  Labour and Lib dem being so close in % of the vote, but so far away in terms of seats just shows how wrong it is.

But I am not sure how you could improve it in the UK.  The idea of the Lib Dems just seems overly complex - I just don't see the electorate getting the idea behind it, and I think ranking politicians on a ballot paper is just plain odd.

I like the Dutch system, you have a list of MP's that you can vote for - but you are actually just voting for the party itself and not an MP.  You get the amount of seats in parliment that you vote garners.  10% of the votes 10% of the seats.  Yes this does mean that there is a much higher chance of a hung parliment - but coalitions here are second nature - yes the breakdown of coalitions have brought the goverment down 4 times in my time here (the best not lasting 100 days...) But it does seem to work *well enough*.

I don't see it working in the UK though.  There is no local MP where I live.  You vote for a nationwide MP, and I am not sure that would wash in the UK (not that local MP's reall do that much for their local constituancy from what I can tell...)

Travel
Holly crap!  How much do train tickets cost in the UK!!!  Just watching breakfast and they have shown a special on ticket prices, and companies chaning more trains to unregulated 'Peak' services.

Manchester to London retrun (from what I can tell +/- 400 miles round trip).

For comparison, my car is not fiel efficient - I picked it for comfort and power not fugality.  On the motorway I get +/- 33MPG (if my conversion from 8.6l/100km is correct) which gives me +/- 11 gallons at a cost of +/- 60 GBP.

Previously the peak fair was 66 (already more than petrol, not sure what the parking charges are), it has more than quadrupled to over 260.  260!!!  I can fly from Schiphol to almost any airport in the UK for that with 2 people!  That means for me to take my petrol guzzelling car to London from Manchester I would have to pay more than 200GBP on parking just to break even with the train.  If I traded in my T5 for something a little more frugal (like a 2.0d version of the V50) it would be even worse.  Why do people still use the train in the UK?

To put that into perspective...  Leeuwarden (in the north of the Netherlands) to Maastrict (in the south) about 200 miles and a return is 45 euros.  No matter what time of day you travel, not matter howlong in advance you know you are going to be travelling.  I can't drive the distance for that amoutn of money hence the train suddenly becomes attrative.  They do have discount tickets over here - and yes they can only be used off peak (after 9am) - at which point it's 27 euros.

Sorry a bit of a rant there - but I just don't get trains in the UK!

Have a good weekend all - I'm going for a run now :)