Brushing up on the French Revolution can have some eerie present day chill effects, especially with things like the September Massacres pepared, in hindsight, by a long time of wild conspiracy theories being believed, increasing hysteria in the social media of the day and the utter dehumanisation of anyone not holding one's own views in the ( Read more... )

Watched the second sason of Vikings: Valhalla, which since I enjoyed the first season I was glad to continue liking. The first two or three episodes, I was quietly grumbling there wasn't enough Emma (of Normandy), but that changed, and she and Godwin get both this season's darkest and most twisty plot line. This said, I was pleasantly surprised to ( Read more... )

Directed by Gérard Corbieau, who also directed Farinelli, so you know you're into a feast for the eyes and some gorgeous music going in, as well as intense relationships between men, with the historic fidelity being, err, questionable in parts.

( A tale of a court composer, his king and their playwright )

More ARTE: Le Souper is a movie by Edouard Molinaro (of La Cage aux Folles fame), based on a stage play by Jean-Claude Brisville, and still unabashedly stagey. It takes place in one room, if Milinaro only briefly, for fleeting moments, letting the camera wander outside now and then, and entirely relies on its two actors, for this is a two men play ( Read more... )

A Royal Exchange: based on a novel by Chantal Thomas, who also wrote the equally filmed Farewell My Queen. A Royal Exchange was directed by Marc Dugan, picks an earlier 18th century brief interlude in French (and Spanish) history, and has the problem that while there's nothing wrong with it and the visuals are suitably gorgeous, there's nothing ( Read more... )

We spent our last days in Brittany mainly hiking on vaarious parts of the coast, which continued to be truly spectacular. Now we did visit some towns in between, too, but really, the landscape is where it‘s at, so I‘ll only mention a few.


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As mentioned, I was on my feet a lot in recent days, since the Breton coast basically demands that you hike. Or just wander on a beach, which looks like a painter‘s palette in the right light. Case in point:


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I didn‘t have the chance to upload and post properly until now; the last few days have seen me on my feet most of the time. So there will be two posts in one evening. First, some prehistory and an adorable town.


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Tomorrow, we`ll move on to Brittany, so today we finished our time in the Loire valley in as breathtakingly beautiful surroundings as we started. I mean -


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Loire

This is the first time since two decades I was able to return to the Loire valley and Anjou in France, and its beauty is as overwhelming as I remember. Which means I want to share some impressions!


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