French Heritage Day at the Malartre Car Bike and Motorbike Museum in Rochetaillé

Hello, and I'm back after a summer break from blogging. I'm keen to find out what those bloggers I follow have been up to but before doing so I thought I'd post some photos I took recently at the Rochetaillé Museum, which is on the banks of the River Saône about 11 kilometres from Lyon. There are lots of vintage, classical and veteran transport vehicles of all kinds to be seen there, and the museum's star attraction is Hitler's parade car, which it acquired a few years ago. As you shall see, it's a really mean machine.

We went there on Sunday, which was the second day of France's National Heritage weekend. The museum is housed in several buildings, with the vintage car, bike and motorbike sections being housed in a Chateau at the top of a hill which offers some splendid views. Here's the chateau (please note that I didn't take this photo, although the rest are mine);

 This photo was taken from the second floor of the museum;

I would imagine that many people - well, me in any case - think that foldable bicycles are a recent invention. But they're not, as this example, from the beginning of the 1900s, attests. The photo also demonstrates that punctures aren't a recent invention either;

The large majority of the exhibits are of French origin of course, although there are some notable exceptions, particularly in the motorbike section, which includes some pieces of British and Italian origin. I'm not sure where this one was made. Not that it matters, because it's a beautiful example of early motorbike engineering, and that's what's important;

Vintage cars were much in evidence, including this one, which, from memory (I didn't take notes) is a Peugeot. The yellow suspension unit looks very robust. Mind you, it needed to be robust given that car tyres were made of solid rubber with no inner tubes at the time;

This classy number (the car) has tyres with inner tubes, and the mix of shiny white paint and brass is very elegant in my humble view. The steering wheel is on the right, which is rather curious given that the car is a Renault. Perhaps it was an export model destined for the British market?

Car engines and drive assemblies in vintage cars have always fascinated me. Consisting essentially of brass, copper and forged steel, they were beautifully crafted. Here are a couple of examples;

There are hundreds of bikes, motorbikes and cars in the museum, but the star of the show is, of course, Hitler's personal parade car. It can be seen in thousands of photos and newsreel film reports from before and during the Second World War at rallies from Nuremburg to Hamburg and Berlin. It's a stunning piece, if only for its sheer size, and it's menacingly massive presence must have been frightening and intimidating to see as it drove by with Hitler standing up in it and giving his Nazi salute;

The car's technical specifications are just as impressive as the car itself. Hitler had thousands of enemies both inside and outside Germany from 1930 onwards, many of whom plotted to kill him, so the car was built with that threat in mind and it offered him as much protection as was possible at the time. Its manganese-treated 18-millimeter armour plating meant that it weighed a mighty 4780 kilograms when empty and it also had a 400 HP engine, 20-cell tyres, spare wheels which were placed on the sides of the engine to protect it in case of attack and electro-magnetic door-blocking mechanisms;

The car's designers were also aware that the windows and windshild were a source of potential risk, which is why they were made of 40 millimeter-thick bulletproof glass. Could it stop bullets? The answer is a resounding yes, as this photo shows. The weapon used to fire at it on this occasion was probably some sort of machine-gun, given the roughly linear line of the bullet impacts;

These are just a few of the many vehicles on show at the museum, and other categories include racing cars and motorbikes, trolleycars, classical 50s and 60s cars and authentic engine and other parts taken from well-known vehicles, such as the machine in which Donald Campbell broke the existing land speed record in Australia in 1964. The museum is a big favourite for car enthusiasts as well as anyone interested in seeing the results of man's creative engineering history over the years. Highly recommended, 10/10, a gold star, and have a nice day!

Lyon's Musée des Confluences - update

The future Confluences Museum here in Lyon is a colossal structure in the making. Designed by architectural design company Coop Himmelb(l)au, it is destined to house a science museum and a library among other things and it is under construction just down the road from where I live. I posted photos of an earlier construction stage back in December, and here is how things are looking today.

It looks even more like a massive mother station space ship today than it did before. And it's big and impressive, as the above photo shows.

As you get closer it begins to tower above you;

Here are two views of the front of the other side, which show the mother ship's cockpit area;

This is a close-up of the building's cladding, which reminds me of the heat-resistant tiles on the NASA shuttle;

Here's the left-side power plant and tail stabiliser;

The rear landing gear;

Hope you enjoyed the pix, have a good weekend, and be good. Well, at least try to.

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(You can visit the museum's site here, and you can see more of Coop Himmelb(l)au's work here.)

Pretty shop windows in Lyon's St Jean district

'Beurk' as the French say (I love that word, it reads and sounds just like what it means), the weather here in Lyon today is as drab as it gets - gloomy and overcast skies, cold, and damp. But I had cabin fever after lunch so I thought I'd go out for a longish walk anyway despite the weather and take a few pix of some of the boutique windows in Lyon's St Jean district. They looked quite pretty with their lights turned on in the dim light.

Here's a gorgeous shop window with lovely warm colours. It's a shame the owner didn't hoist the shutters up to the top though.

As I said it's been a rather damp day, and that seemed to suit these plants just fine. (Note the marijuana plan..... pretty plant that looks like a marijuana plant in the left background).

I quite like the grungy-bar-like look of this place - a candle shop. In fact it reminds me of an old Yates Wine Lodge in England of the kind that was to be seen back in the 70's before they became fashionable theme bars. At that time they were austere drinking joints where you could buy either cheap rum, cheap rum, or cheap rum. You'd see some rare old drunken sights in them there bars let me tell you. They were a favourite haunt of male students, junkies, alcoholics, and office workers who liked to hang out in bars where women were banned (but the sexual discrimination act in the 80s thankfully changed all that of course.) Oops, I digress....

Yup, a bookshop, one of what is sadly a dwindling number of bookshops in St Jean, where they used to be as common as white on rice. That was before the advent of the Internet however.....

Time for a pause and a grand (well, it wasn't exactly 'grand', but oh well never mind) crème along with a chausson aux pommes. This photo was taken on my mobile because I wanted to send it to my girlfriend.

Here's a boutique which sells 'guignols', the famous hand puppets of Lyon, which first saw the light of day back in the early 1800s. Guignol shows are still very popular here and kids love them.

This place sells, euhh... umm... kind of couloured ball thingies. Or something. Whatever, it's an attractive shop.

Lastly, here are 'The Toys of Angels'. Even the shop itself looks like a toy, or a small-scale model. Whoever designed this shop front knew exactly what he or she was doing.

Hope you enjoyed the photos, and upon that note may I bid an excellent day/evening/night to one and all.

A visit to Lyon's Museum of Contemporary Art

Sunday afternoon and it's cold and windy. Hmm. Okay then, 'let's go to the contemporary art museum' we said. So we did.

I mean, I'm no expert on contemporary art but I do enjoy going to exhibitions. My reactions range from 'what a load of rubbish! And he/she gets PAID for this??!!' to 'wow! That's really weird' to 'oh yes, I really like this exhibit (for some reason or another which I don't feel the need to delve into)'. I just like what I like and don't like what I don't like. Simple.

Lyon's Museum of Contemporary Art features three artists right now, two of which I quite liked, so here are some photos of their work, starting with the Moroccon origin artist Latifa Echakhch. Her work consists of reconstituting both a personal and collective memory of the history of Spain and Morocco, and her works are laid out like 'micro-territories', or, in her own words, "As soon as I start thinking about an exhibition I wonder what landscape I'm going to display".

No commentary from me needed, so I hope you enjoy them.

Here is the work of Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping, who explores the principles of permanence and change, the old and the new. He was a highly controversial artist in China in the 1980s, during which he founded the Xiamen Dada Group (in 1986) and burnt many of his works in front of the Xiamen museum as a protest against the prevailing and repressive cultural climate in China.

I enjoyed these two exhibitions very much, but I must say that the most beautiful sight of all to be seen in Lyon's Museum of Contemporary Art today was.....................

............my girlfriend.

Have a good Sunday night folks, full of good things.

Today's anti-gay marriage demo in Lyon shows that the movement is beginning to lose the battle

The anti-gay marriage lobby took to the streets of Lyon today for the second time in three months to demonstrate against government plans to legalise same-sex marriage, so I walked downtown to take a few photos.

It was a static demonstration, in front of City Hall, and the area directly in front of the building was full of the movement's characteristic blue, pink and white flags.

The atmosphere was rather 'bon enfant', and there were many families present. Here's one baby demonstrator, at the outer edge of the crowd. There were a number of other baby buggys too, most of which had babies in them, although a few others contained teddy bears or baby dolls.

Also on the sidelines were older people who obviously preferred the view from nearby steps to being caught in the crush below.

But these enterprising young ladies managed to get a good view as well as being close to the centre of the crowd. They are clinging to the railings of City Hall. Their first 'Bastille Moment'?

These people are signing an anti-gay marriage petition. As soon as I had taken this picture I was shouted at by a couple of very angry women who claimed that I was breaking anti-privacy laws. They demanded that I delete the photo, which I politely declined to do. After all, if people don't want other people to to take photos of people's bums people signing a petition in a public place then they should close off the table to public view, *harrumph snort*

Here's a photo of people using their constitutional right to stand in front of City Hall and make a lot of noise. The building's walls remained mute and unbending however, that which quite aptly and symbolically illustrates the government's refusal to bow to pressure from the street.

This view is dominated by the proudly imposing façade of Lyon's Opera House. Note the arches.

Behind the arches, and in the Opera's outer foyer, the teenagers who use this space daily as a place to work their Hip-Hop moves to the music of their ghetto blasters chose to totally ignore what was happening on the other side of the arches and carry on with business as usual. Top marks to them! These kids are a part of Opera life and the Opera's staff appreciate their respect for passers by as well as the efforts they make to keep the volume at a reasonable level. They are a credit to this city.

This demonstration was attended by 1800 people according to police figures in local press reports this evening, and the participants were certainly enthusiastic, but their efforts could not hide the fact that the event had a rather forlorn 'last ditch effort' feel about it. After all, the last anti-gay marriage demonstration here, on November 17 last year, attracted well over 20,000 marchers. (this is my photo-illustrated record of it for anyone interested.)

But the fire and high emotions of that day will not be seen again, because the gay-mariage law proposal is now being formally debated in parliament, and the general consensus is that the law is almost certain to be voted as it stands, without any major amendments. And that possibility took yet another step towards becoming reality this morning when parliament approved the law's first - and by far the most important, as it enshrines the right to gay marriage - article by a crushing majority of 249 votes to 97.

The anti-gay marriage lobby's cause is now all but lost, and I doubt I'll need to go to any more of their demonstrations. Their will is still strong despite the rapidly dwindling numbers of demonstators, but the facts are even stronger.

Still, not to worry, this being France there's bound to be another demonstration in Lyon soon, on another issue, and I'll be there to cover it and post the results here.

Have an excellent weekend everyone.

Snow and Silence

Hi, I took a drive out to the country today to see how work is progressing on the two small houses on the same largish property in the country that a friend and I are having renovated (more here). Things are moving along relatively smoothly so all's well there.

Having checked the work there wasn't much else to do elsewhere and outside because it has snowed recently and the ground is frozen. So I took a few pictures because the snow looked pretty out there in the fields. Here are three of them.

 This was taken from the terrace of one of the houses. Garden in front of it, veggie garden next, behind the first fence, and there will probably be a couple of donkeys in the field beyond that. It all looked so peaceful and there wasn't a sound to be heard anywhere in the cold thin air....

Here's a view over to the left. The rather ramshackle outhouses (want of a better word?) were chicken coops in the past and there's a lot of clearing up to do both in and around them. One of them shall be welcoming new chickens and fresh eggs when the big move from Lyon comes, towards next summer. There's a field on the far side of the coops, its future use as yet undecided.

As I said earlier, it was quite cold although at -5C it was bearable but still, it was cold enough to freeze the water dripping down off a disused rain gutter. I took this photo because I liked the various shades and qualities of the blacks and whites and greys. The gutter, the bushes, the sky, the snow, the translucent icicle...

I know there are many more colours to be seen during spring, summer and autumn, much more life and energy too, but I appreciate the sort of solitary peace and calm that winter imposes and that nature must wait through patiently while winter does its cold, hard and lonely work of quietly preparing the land to receive each new year's plants and crops.....