Nantes, the city turned upside down by art. Street Art, Les Machines de l’île & Scopitone Festival
Archivi categoria: France
Le Nid – Nantes
Le Nid is home to an enormous white bird – half-stork, half-heron – who sleepily watches over the city, and its reassuring presence invites spectators to come contemplate the view. Its broad body also doubles as a bar. As if leaping out of a Jean Jullien drawing, gigantic eggshells transform into seats and tables and, on the walls, the artist’s hand has immortalized the city’s emblematic spots on bright posters.
France: Nantes
Nantes is a city in West France, located on the Loire River, 50 km from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 6th with nearly 900,000 inhabitants. Nantes, labeled art and history city, is the capital city of the Pays de la Loire region and the Loire-Atlantique département and also the largest city in the Grand-Ouest, North western France in English. Together with Vannes, Rennes and Carhaix, it was one of the major cities of the historic province of Brittany, and the ancient Duchy of Brittany. Though officially separated from Brittany in 1789, Nantes is culturally Breton and still widely regarded as its capital city.
Sainte Mère Église
Sainte-Mère-Église is a commune in the Manche department in Normandy in north-western France.
Founded in the eleventh Century, the earliest records (1080–1082) include the name Sancte Marie Ecclesia, Latin for “Church of St. Mary”, while a later document written in Norman-French (1317) mentions Saincte Mariglise. The current French form of the name is ambiguous, with the additional meaning, “Holy Mother Church”. The town was significantly involved in the Hundred Years’ War as well as the Wars of Religion.
The town’s main claim to fame is that it played a significant part in the World War II Normandy landings because this village stood right in the middle of route N13, which the Germans would have most likely used on any significant counterattack on the troops landing on Utah and Omaha Beaches. In the early morning of 6 June 1944 mixed units of the U.S. 82nd Airborne and U.S. 101st Airborne Divisions occupied the town in Operation Boston, giving it the claim to be one of the first towns liberated in the invasion.
Invasion of Normandy. June 6, 1944 On the Beach
The Invasion of Normandy was the invasion and establishment of Allied forces in Normandy, France, during Operation Overlord in 1944 during World War II. It was the largest amphibious operation ever to take place.
Allied land forces that saw combat in Normandy on 6 June came from Canada, the Free French Forces, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In the weeks following the invasion, Polish forces also participated, as well as contingents from Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, and the Netherlands. Most of the above countries also provided air and naval support, as did the Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal New Zealand Air Force, and the Royal Norwegian Navy.
The Normandy invasion began with overnight parachute and glider landings, massive air attacks and naval bombardments. In the early morning, amphibious landings on five beaches codenamed Juno, Gold, Omaha, Utah, and Sword began and during the evening the remaining elements of the parachute divisions landed. The “D-Day” forces deployed from bases along the south coast of England, the most important of these being Portsmouth
Normandy Beach
Étretat: The Falaise, the cliff
Étretat is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France. It is a tourist and farming town situated about 32 km northeast of Le Havre. Once standing on the beach, the cliff formations are visible on each side: the Falaise d’Aval to the left and the Falaise d’Amont to the right. As it is surrounded by cliffs, the little beach is relatively protected from the winds
Claude Monet Giverny garden
Claude Monet noticed the village of Giverny while looking out of a train window. He made up his mind to move there and rented a house and the area surrounding it. In 1890 he had enough money to buy the house and land outright and set out to create the magnificent gardens he wanted to paint. Some of his most famous paintings were of his garden in Giverny, famous for its rectangular Clos normand, with archways of climbing plants entwined around colored shrubs, and the water garden, formed by a tributary to the Epte, with the Japanese bridge, the pond with the water lily, the wisterias and the azaleas. Monet lived in the house with its famous pink crushed brick façade from 1883 until his death in 1926. He and many members of his family are interred in the village cemetery.
Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial
The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial is a World War II cemetery and memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France, that honors American soldiers who died in Europe during World War II.
On June 8, 1944, the U.S. First Army established the temporary cemetery, the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II.[1] After the war, the present-day cemetery was established a short distance to the east of the original site.
Like all other overseas American cemeteries in France for World War I and II, France has granted the United States a special, perpetual concession to the land occupied by the cemetery, free of any charge or any tax. This cemetery is managed by the American government, under Congressional acts that provide yearly financial support for maintaining them, with most military and civil personnel employed abroad. The U.S. flag flies over these granted soils.
France: Rouen
Rouen in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie (Upper Normandy) region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe, it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages. It was one of the capitals of the Anglo-Norman dynasties, which ruled both England and large parts of modern France from the 11th to the 15th centuries. It was here that Joan of Arc was executed in 1431. People from Rouen are called Rouennais.
Un gatto di nome Giando 