1.
Prefectures of France
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There are 101 prefectures in France, one for each department. The official in charge is the prefect, the prefect represents the national government at the local level and as such exercises the powers that are constitutionally attributed to the national government. The prefect issues ordinances written for the application of law, to close a building that does not conform to safety codes. In the past, the prefect was head of the department, but since 1982, there is an exception in Paris and its three surrounding departments. These departments are administered by a prefecture for law enforcement and security purposes, called the Prefecture of Police. The power of law enforcement is usually invested in the mayor in other French communes, the departments are divided into arrondissements, themselves divided into cantons. The chef-lieu darrondissement is the subprefecture, the official in charge is the subprefect (French, sous-préfet. Cantons have relatively few competences, the most important one being the local organisation of elections, administrative divisions of France French National Police
2.
Communes of France
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The commune is a level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to civil townships incorporated municipalities in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany, the United Kingdom has no exact equivalent, as communes resemble districts in urban areas, but are closer to parishes in rural areas where districts are much larger. Communes are based on historical geographic communities or villages and have received significant powers of governance to manage the populations, the communes are the fourth-level administrative divisions of France. A French commune may be a city of 2.2 million inhabitants like Paris, communes typically are based on pre-existing villages and facilitate local governance. All communes have names, but not all named geographic areas or groups of people residing together are communes, a commune is a town, city, or municipality. Use of commune in English is a habit, and one that might be corrected. There is nothing in commune in French that is different from town in English. The French word commune appeared in the 12th century, from Medieval Latin communia, as of January 2015, there were 36,681 communes in France,36,552 of them in metropolitan France and 129 of them overseas. This is a higher total than that of any other European country. The whole territory of the French Republic is divided into communes and this is unlike some other countries, such as the United States, where unincorporated areas directly governed by a county or a higher authority can be found. There are only a few exceptions, COM of Saint-Martin and it was previously a commune inside the Guadeloupe région. The commune structure was abolished when Saint-Martin became an overseas collectivity on 22 February 2007, COM of Wallis and Futuna, which still is divided according to the three traditional chiefdoms. It was previously a commune inside the Guadeloupe region, the commune structure was abolished when Saint-Barthélemy became an overseas collectivity on 22 February 2007.88 square kilometres. The median area of metropolitan Frances communes at the 1999 census was even smaller, the median area is a better measure of the area of a typical French commune. This median area is smaller than that of most European countries. In Italy, the area of communes is 22 km2, in Belgium it is 40 km2, in Spain it is 35 km2, and in Germany. Switzerland and the Länder of Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein, and Thuringia in Germany were the places in Europe where the communes had a smaller median area than in France. The communes of Frances overseas départements such as Réunion and French Guiana are large by French standards and they usually group into the same commune several villages or towns, often with sizeable distances among them
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
5.
Regions of France
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France is divided into 18 administrative regions, including 13 metropolitan regions and 5 overseas regions. The current legal concept of region was adopted in 1982, the term région was officially created by the Law of Decentralisation, which also gave regions their legal status. The first direct elections for representatives took place on 16 March 1986. In 2016, the number of regions was reduced from 27 to 18 through amalgamation, in 2014, the French parliament passed a law reducing the number of metropolitan regions from 22 to 13 with effect from 1 January 2016. However, the region of Upper and Lower Normandy is simply called Normandy. Permanent names were to be proposed by the new regional councils by 1 July 2016, the legislation defining the new regions also allowed the Centre region to officially change its name to Centre-Val de Loire with effect from January 2015. Two regions, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, opted to retain their interim names, between 1982 and 2015, there were 22 regions in Metropolitan France. Before 2011, there were four regions, in 2011 Mayotte became the fifth. Regions lack separate legislative authority and therefore cannot write their own statutory law and they levy their own taxes and, in return, receive a decreasing part of their budget from the central government, which gives them a portion of the taxes it levies. They also have considerable budgets managed by a council made up of representatives voted into office in regional elections. A regions primary responsibility is to build and furnish high schools, in March 2004, the French central government unveiled a controversial plan to transfer regulation of certain categories of non-teaching school staff to the regional authorities. Critics of this plan contended that tax revenue was insufficient to pay for the costs. In addition, regions have considerable power over infrastructural spending, e. g. education, public transit, universities and research. This has meant that the heads of regions such as Île-de-France or Rhône-Alpes can be high-profile positions. Number of regions controlled by each coalition since 1986, Overseas region is a recent designation, given to the overseas departments that have similar powers to those of the regions of metropolitan France. Radio France Internationale in English Overseas regions Ministère de lOutre-Mer some explanations about the past and current developments of DOMs and TOMs
6.
Departments of France
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In the administrative divisions of France, the department is one of the three levels of government below the national level, between the administrative regions and the commune. There are 96 departments in metropolitan France and 5 overseas departments, each department is administered by an elected body called a departmental council. From 1800 to April 2015, they were called general councils, the departments were created in 1791 as a rational replacement of Ancien Régime provinces with a view to strengthen national unity, the title department is used to mean a part of a larger whole. Almost all of them were named after geographical features rather than after historical or cultural territories which could have their own loyalties. The earliest known suggestion of it is from 1764 in the writings of dArgenson and they have inspired similar divisions in many countries, some of them former French colonies. Most French departments are assigned a number, the Official Geographical Code. Some overseas departments have a three-digit number, the number is used, for example, in the postal code, and was until recently used for all vehicle registration plates. For example, inhabitants of Loiret might refer to their department as the 45 and this reform project has since been abandoned. The first French territorial departments were proposed in 1665 by Marc-René dArgenson to serve as administrative areas purely for the Ponts et Chaussées infrastructure administration, before the French Revolution, France gained territory gradually through the annexation of a mosaic of independent entities. By the close of the Ancien Régime, it was organised into provinces, during the period of the Revolution, these were dissolved, partly in order to weaken old loyalties. Their boundaries served two purposes, Boundaries were chosen to break up Frances historical regions in an attempt to erase cultural differences, Boundaries were set so that every settlement in the country was within a days ride of the capital of the department. This was a security measure, intended to keep the national territory under close control. This measure was directly inspired by the Great Terror, during which the government had lost control of rural areas far from any centre of government. The old nomenclature was carefully avoided in naming the new departments, most were named after an areas principal river or other physical features. Even Paris was in the department of Seine, the number of departments, initially 83, was increased to 130 by 1809 with the territorial gains of the Republic and of the First French Empire. Following Napoleons defeats in 1814-1815, the Congress of Vienna returned France to its pre-war size, in 1860, France acquired the County of Nice and Savoy, which led to the creation of three new departments. Two were added from the new Savoyard territory, while the department of Alpes-Maritimes was created from Nice, the 89 departments were given numbers based on their alphabetical order. The department of Bas-Rhin and parts of Meurthe, Moselle, Vosges and Haut-Rhin were ceded to the German Empire in 1871, following Frances defeat in the Franco-Prussian War
7.
Savoie
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Savoie is a French department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of the French Alps. For history before 1860, details of the annexation, and modern regionalism and it is widely accepted that Savoie takes its name from the Latin Sapaudia or Sabaudia, meaning land covered in fir trees. Savoie was long part of the states of Savoy, though beginning in the 16th century and it was integrated into the Mont-Blanc department from 1792 to 1815. The province was annexed by France in 1860, the former Duchy of Savoy became the two departments of Savoie and Haute-Savoie. Moûtiers, capital of the province of Tarentaise Valley ceased to be the prefecture after a law passed on September 10,1926. Savoie, along with Albertville, hosted the 1992 Winter Olympics, with ski events at Tarentaise and Beaufortain. The other main alpine valley is the Maurienne, connected to the Tarentaise valley by two passes, the col de la Madeleine and the highest pass in Europe, the col de lIseran. The Maurienne valley was through the col du Mont Cenis, the commercial route between France and Italy. It is one of the longest intra-alpine valleys in the Alps, Savoie is part of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes région. It borders the departments of Haute-Savoie, Ain, Isère and Hautes-Alpes in addition to Italy and its two main lakes are Lac du Bourget and Lac dAiguebelette, one of the least polluted in France due to a 1976 law forbidding any use of motorboats on the lake. According to the Chambéry chamber of commerce, close to 50% of the departments wealth comes from tourism, each year, Savoie hosts over 30 million visitor-nights of tourists. Savoie also profits from its resources with particular strengths in ore processing. Savoie had an exceptionally high export/import ratio of 214% in 2005 and its exports rose to €1.768 billion and €825 million in imports. Its leading exports were steel, aluminum, and electric and electronic components, Savoie is famous for its cows, which produce numerous cheeses, some of them are, Beaufort Savoie Gruyère Reblochon Tamié Tome des Bauges Tomme de Savoie Numerous wine grapes are also grown in Savoie. The most famous wines are made of Gamay, Pinot noir, fruit production is the third largest component of agriculture in Savoie. Apples and pears are also produced in the region and are known for their qualities. Residents of Savoie are known as Savoyards, though they can also be called Savoisiens or Savoyens,8,507 The average population density is not a good indicator, the valleys tend to be much more densely populated, whereas the mountains tend to be near-completely uninhabited. The Catholic Church in Savoie is divided into three dioceses, Chambéry, Maurienne, and Tarentaise, together, they form an archdiocese, in which the bishop of Chambéry is the archbishop
8.
The Republicans (France)
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The Republicans is a centre-right political party in France. The party was formed on 30 May 2015 by renaming the Union for a Popular Movement party, the party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in France along with the centre-left Socialist Party. The Republicans are a member of the European Peoples Party, Centrist Democrat International, with the name already chosen, vice-president of the UMP Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet presented Sarkozy and the partys political bureau the proposed new statutes. The new name was adopted by the party bureau on 5 May 2015, the new party statutes were adopted by 96. 3% of voters and the composition of the new political bureau by 94. 8%. The change to the name The Republicans was confirmed at the founding congress on 30 May 2015 at the Paris Event Centre in Paris. Angela Merkel, chairwoman of the conservative CDU, sent a message to the congress. The Republicans thus became the successor of the UMP and the leading centre-right party in France. The organisation has been declared in the préfecture de Saône-et-Loire on 9 April 2015 and this party foundation was published in the Journal officiel de la République française on 25 April 2015. On 3 July 2016, Sarkozy announced that he would resign as leader that year in order to compete to be the candidate in the 2017 presidential election. On 27 November 2016, Francois Fillon, the former Prime Minister of France, politics of France List of political parties in France Official web site of Les Républicains
9.
Daylight saving time
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Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
10.
Central European Summer Time
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It corresponds to UTC + two hours. Other names which have been applied to Central European Summer Time are Middle European Summer Time, Central European Daylight Saving Time, and Bravo Time. Since 1996 European Summer Time has been observed between 1,00 UTC on the last Sunday of March and 1,00 on the last Sunday of October, the following countries and territories use Central European Summer Time. In addition, Libya used CEST during the years 1951–1959, 1982–1989, 1996–1997, European Summer Time Other countries and territories in UTC+2 time zone Other names of UTC+2 time zone
11.
Arpitan language
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Franco-Provençal, Arpitan or Romand is a Gallo-Romance language spoken in east-central France, western Switzerland, northwestern Italy, and in enclaves in the Province of Foggia in Apulia, Italy. Franco-Provençal has several dialects and is separate from but closely related to neighboring Romance languages, Oïl languages, Occitan, Gallo-Italian. The name Franco-Provençal was given to the language by G. I, Ascoli in the 19th century because it shared features with French and Provençal without belonging to either. Arpitan, a neologism, is becoming a name for the language. This name was popularized due to the lands where the Arpitan language is spoken or used to be the prevalent idiom, the name for the region comes from the term Arpes, meaning Alps in Arpitan. Today, the largest number of Franco-Provençal speakers reside in the Aosta Valley, the language is also spoken in alpine valleys in the province of Turin, two isolated towns in Foggia, and rural areas of the Romandie region of Switzerland. It is one of the three Gallo-Romance language families of France and is recognized as a regional language of France. Organizations are attempting to preserve it through cultural events, education, scholarly research, aside from regional French dialects, it is the most closely related language to French. The number of speakers of Franco-Provençal has been declining significantly, according to UNESCO, Franco-Provençal is a potentially endangered language in Italy and an endangered language in Switzerland and France. Franco-Provençal emerged as a Gallo-Romance variety of Latin, the linguistic region comprises east-central France, western portions of Switzerland, and the Aosta Valley of Italy with the adjacent alpine valleys of the Piedmont. This area covers territories once occupied by pre-Roman Celts, including the Allobroges, Sequani, Helvetii, Ceutrones, by the 5th century, the region was controlled by the Burgundians. Franco-Provençal is first attested in manuscripts from the 12th century, possibly diverging from the langues doïl as early as the 8th–9th centuries, one writer has detected the influence of Basque by analyzing fossil words from toponymy and the dialect in the Aosta Valley Valdôtain patois. However, Franco-Provençal is consistently typified by a strict, myopic comparison to French, and so is characterized as conservative. Thus, commentators, like Désormaux, consider medieval the terms for many nouns and verbs, including pâta rag, bayâ to give, moussâ to lie down, all of which are conservative only relative to French. As an example, Désormaux, writing on this point in the foreword of his Savoyard dialect dictionary, states, one can note it not only in phonetics and morphology, but also in the vocabulary, where one finds numerous words and directions that clearly disappeared from French. Franco-Provençal failed to garner the prestige of its three more widely spoken neighbors, French, Occitan, and Italian. Communities where speakers lived were generally mountainous and isolated from one another, the internal boundaries of the entire speech area were divided by wars and religious conflicts. France, Switzerland, the Franche-Comté, and the duchy, later kingdom, the edict explicitly replaced Latin with French as the language of law and the courts
12.
Italian language
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By most measures, Italian, together with Sardinian, is the closest to Latin of the Romance languages. Italian is a language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City. Italian is spoken by minorities in places such as France, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Crimea and Tunisia and by large expatriate communities in the Americas. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardized Italian and other regional languages, Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world. Italian is a major European language, being one of the languages of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is the third most widely spoken first language in the European Union with 65 million native speakers, including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries and on other continents, the total number of speakers is around 85 million. Italian is the working language of the Holy See, serving as the lingua franca in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Italian is known as the language of music because of its use in musical terminology and its influence is also widespread in the arts and in the luxury goods market. Italian has been reported as the fourth or fifth most frequently taught foreign language in the world, Italian was adopted by the state after the Unification of Italy, having previously been a literary language based on Tuscan as spoken mostly by the upper class of Florentine society. Its development was influenced by other Italian languages and to some minor extent. Its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian, unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latins contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive, however, Italian as a language used in Italy and some surrounding regions has a longer history. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri, written in his native Florentine. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language, and thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the language of Italy. Italian was also one of the recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy has always had a dialect for each city, because the cities. Those dialects now have considerable variety, as Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. Even in the case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages
13.
Helvetii
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The Helvetii were a Gallic tribe or tribal confederation occupying most of the Swiss plateau at the time of their contact with the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. According to Julius Caesar, the Helvetians were divided into four subgroups or pagi, of these Caesar only names the Verbigeni and the Tigurini, while Posidonius mentions the Tigurini and the Tougeni. They feature prominently in the Commentaries on the Gallic War, with their failed attempt to southwestern Gaul serving as a catalyst for Caesars conquest of Gaul. The endonym Helvetii is mostly derived from a Gaulish elu-, meaning gain, prosperity or mulititude, cognate with Welsh elw and Old Irish prefix il-, meaning many or multiple. The second part of the name has sometimes been interpreted as *etu-, terrain, grassland, the earliest attestation of the name is found in a graffito on a vessel from Mantua, dated to c.300 BC. The inscription in Etruscan letters reads eluveitie, which has interpreted as the Etruscan form of the Celtic elu̯eti̯os. The name of the personification of Switzerland, Helvetia. The star 51 Pegasi was named Helvetios after them and this was the first main-sequence star found to have an exoplanet orbiting it. Of the four Helvetian pagi or sub-tribes, Caesar names only the Verbigeni and the Tigurini, Posidonius the Tigurini, there has been substantial debate in Swiss historiography on whether the Tougeni may or may not be identified with the Teutones mentioned by Titus Livius. According to Caesar, the territory abandoned by the Helvetii had comprised 400 villages and 12 oppida and his tally of the total population taken from captured Helvetian records written in Greek is 263,000 people, including fighting men, old men, women and children. However, the figures are generally dismissed as too high by modern scholars, like many other tribes, the Helvetii did not have kings at the time of their clash with Rome but instead seem to have been governed by a class of noblemen. When Orgetorix, one of their most prominent and ambitious noblemen, was making plans to himself as their king. Caesar does not explicitly name the tribal authorities prosecuting the case and gathering men to apprehend Orgetorix, in his Natural History, Pliny provides a foundation myth for the Celtic settlement of Cisalpine Gaul in which a Helvetian named Helico plays the role of culture hero. The Greek historian Posidonius, whose work is preserved only in fragments by other writers, offers the earliest historical record of the Helvetii. Posidonius described the Helvetians of the late 2nd century BC as rich in gold but peaceful and that the Helvetians originally lived in southern Germany is confirmed by the Alexandrian geographer Claudius Ptolemaios, who tells us of an Ἐλουητίων ἔρημος north of the Rhine. Tacitus knows that the Helvetians once settled in the swath between Rhine, Main, and the Hercynian forest, at the later Vicus Turicum, probably in the first 1st century BC or even much earlier, the Celts settled at the Lindenhof Oppidium. In 1890, so-called Potin lumps were found, whose largest weights 59.2 kilograms at the Prehistoric pile dwelling settlement Alpenquai in Zürich, the pieces consist of a large number of fused Celtic coins, which are mixed with charcoal remnants. Some of the 18,000 coins originate from the Eastern Gaul, others are of the Zürich type, that were assigned to the local Helvetii, which date to around 100 BC
14.
Savoy
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Savoy is a cultural region in Western Europe. It comprises roughly the territory of the Western Alps between Lake Geneva in the north and Dauphiné in the south, the historical land of Savoy emerged as the feudal territory of the House of Savoy during the 11th to 14th centuries. The historical territory is shared between the countries of France, Italy, and Switzerland. Installed by Rudolph III, King of Burgundy, officially in 1003 and it ruled the County of Savoy to 1416 and then the Duchy of Savoy from 1416 to 1860. The territory of Savoy was annexed to France in 1792 under the French First Republic, victor Emmanuels dynasty, the House of Savoy, retained its Italian lands of Piedmont and Liguria and became the ruling dynasty of Italy. In modern France, Savoy is part of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, following its annexation to France in 1860, the territory of Savoy was divided administratively into two separate departments, Savoie and Haute-Savoie. The traditional capital remains Chambéry, on the rivers Leysse and Albane, hosting the castle of the House of Savoy, the capital of the Duchy remained at the traditional Savoyard capital of Chambéry until 1563, when it was moved to Turin. The region was occupied by the Allobroges, a Celtic people that in 121 BC were subdued by the Roman Empire, the name Savoy stems from the Late Latin Sapaudia, referring to a fir forest. It is first recorded in Ammianus Marcellinus, to describe the part of Maxima Sequanorum. According to the Gallic Chronicle of 452, it was separated from the rest of Burgundian territories in 443 and this latter territory comprised what would become known as Savoy and Provence. From the 10th to 14th century, parts of what would ultimately become Savoy remained within the Kingdom of Arles. Beginning in the 11th century, the rise to power of the House of Savoy is reflected in the increasing territory of their County of Savoy between 1003 and 1416. The County of Savoy was detached de jure from the Kingdom of Arles by Emperor Charles IV in 1361, on February 19,1416, Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor, made the County of Savoy an independent duchy, with Amadeus VIII as the first duke. Straddling the Alps, Savoy lay within two competing spheres of influence, a French sphere and a North Italian one, at the time of the Renaissance, Savoy showed only modest development. Its towns were few and small, Savoy derived its subsistence from agriculture. The geographic location of Savoy was also of military importance, during the interminable wars between France and Spain over the control of northern Italy, Savoy was important to France because it provided access to Italy. Savoy was important to Spain because it served as a buffer between France and the Spanish held lands in Italy, in 1563 Emmanuel Philibert moved the capital from Chambéry to Turin, which was less vulnerable to French interference. Vaud was annexed by Bern in 1536, and Savoy officially ceded Vaud to Bern in the Treaty of Lausanne of 30 October 1564
15.
Amadeus V, Count of Savoy
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Amadeus V, surnamed the Great for his wisdom and success as a ruler, was the Count of Savoy from 1285 to 1323. He established Chambéry as his seat and he was the son of Thomas II of Savoy and Beatrice Fieschi. Amadeus succeeded his childless paternal uncle Philip I as Count of Savoy in 1285, Amadeus was a younger brother of Thomas III of Piedmont, who had died in 1282. Thomas had been succeeded by his eldest son Philip I of Piedmont who had a claim to the County than Amadeus. However Philip was about seven years old and at the time unable to press a claim, Amadeus managed to secure the support of his nephew by offering Philip control of Turin and Pinerolo. Amadeus also secured the loyalty of his younger brother Louis by offering him Vaud as an hereditary barony, through his marriage to Sybilla, Countess of Bugey and Bresse, he was able to incorporate these Burgundian districts into his states. Later expansion saw his dominions further increased, on 1 October 1285, Amadeus was declared protector of Geneva after negotiations with the Bishop of Geneva. The hereditary title belonged to Amadeus II, Count of Geneva who was in conflict with the Bishop, in 1287 Amadeus besieged the castle of Ile in the Rhône near Geneva, and captured it after fourteen weeks. In 1295, Amadeus acquired the fortress at Chambéry from its previous owner Hugh of La Rochette and he brought Georges de Aquila, a student of Giotto from Florence, to his court. Georges decorated the castle with paintings, carved wood, and frescoes and he worked there for the Savoyards until he died in 1348. Among his successes was the Treaty of Annemasse which the Count of Geneva, the treaty was the result of military victories over the both of them. In 1301, Amadeus also settled his dispute over control of Valais with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sion and his reign, however, also saw friction between the County of Savoy and the Duchy of Austria. He pursued an alliance with the Kingdom of France and received Maulévrier in Normandy as a result of good relations. The eventual recovery of Lyon by the Kings of France alerted Amadeus to their tendencies towards the regions by the Alps. He sought an ally against potential hostility in Henry VII. Henry was married to Margaret of Brabant, sister-in-law of Amadeus, the relation through marriage probably helped the alliance. Henry awarded Amadeus with the title of vicar of Lombardy. Henry also elevated Aosta and Chablais to duchies, though remained a part of the realm of Savoy
16.
Burgundy (region)
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Burgundy is a historical territory and a former administrative region of east-central France, entities that trace their name from the Burgundians, a Germanic people. Historically, Burgundy has referred to political entities, including kingdoms. The first known inhabitants of the area that became Burgundy were Celts, during the 4th century, the Burgundians, a Germanic people, who may have originated in Bornholm, settled in the western Alps. They founded the Kingdom of the Burgundians, which was conquered in the 6th century by another Germanic tribe, under Frankish dominion, the Kingdom of Burgundy continued for several centuries. Later, the region was divided between the Duchy of Burgundy and the Free County of Burgundy, burgundys modern existence is rooted in the dissolution of the Frankish Empire. In the 880s, there were four Burgundies, which were the Kingdom of Upper and Lower Burgundy, the duchy, during the Middle Ages, Burgundy was the seat of some of the most important Western churches and monasteries, among them Cluny, Cîteaux, and Vézelay. During the Hundred Years War, King John II of France gave the duchy to his youngest son, the duchy soon became a major rival to the crown. The court in Dijon outshone the French court both economically and culturally, in 1477, at the battle of Nancy during the Burgundian Wars, the last duke Charles the Bold was killed in battle, and the Duchy itself was annexed by France and became a province. However the northern part of the empire was taken by the Austrian Habsburgs, with the French Revolution in the end of the 18th century, the administrative units of the provinces disappeared, but were reconstituted as regions during the Fifth Republic in the 1970s. The modern-day administrative region comprises most of the former duchy, as of he region of Burgundy is both larger than the old Duchy of Burgundy and smaller than the area ruled by the Dukes of Burgundy, from the modern Netherlands to the border of Auvergne. Today, Burgundy is made up of the old provinces, Burgundy, Côte-dOr, Saône-et-Loire and this corresponds to the old duchy of Burgundy. However, the old county of Burgundy is not included inside the Burgundy region, also, a small part of the duchy of Burgundy is now inside the Champagne-Ardenne region. Nivernais, now the department of Nièvre, the climate of this region is essentially oceanic, with a continental influence. The regional council of Burgundy is the legislative assembly, the council has been chaired by the Socialist François Patriat since 2004. The councils seat is in the capital city Dijon, at 17 boulevard de la Trémouille, Burgundy is one of Frances main wine producing areas. The region is divided into the Côte-dOr, where the most expensive and prized Burgundies are found, and Beaujolais, Chablis, with regard to cuisine, the region is famous for the Burgundian dishes coq au vin, beef bourguignon, and époisses de Bourgogne cheese. Earlier, the part of Burgundy was heavily industrial, with coal mines near Montceau-les-Mines and iron foundries. These industries declined in the half of the twentieth century
17.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
18.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
19.
Chartreuse Mountains
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The Chartreuse Mountains is a mountain range in southeastern France, stretching from the city of Grenoble south to the Lac du Bourget north. It is the southernmost range in the Jura Mountains and belongs to the French Prealps, one of the larger cities in the Chartreuse Mountains is Voiron. The monastic Carthusian Order takes its name from these mountains, where its first hermitage was founded in 1084. Also derived from the ranges name is that of the alcoholic cordial Chartreuse produced by the monks since the 1740s. The Réserve Naturelle des Hauts de Chartreuse was founded in 1997 and it includes seven Isère townships and four Savoie townships. The Chartreuse Mountains gave their name to, The monastery of the Grande Chartreuse, head of the Carthusian order The Chartreuse liquor, the color chartreuse, with the greenish hue of the Chartreuse liqueur. Chartreuse, A Walking Guide A Wiki-Walks guide to some well known hiking routes in the Chartreuse
20.
Lac du Bourget
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Lac du Bourget, also locally known as Lac Gris or Lac dAix, is a lake at the southernmost end of the Jura Mountains in the department of Savoie, France. It is the deepest lake located entirely within France, and either the largest or second largest after Lac de Grand-Lieu depending on season, the largest town on its shore is Aix-les-Bains. Chambéry, the capital of Savoie, lies about 10 km south of the lake and it is mainly fed by the river Leysse, and drains towards the river Rhône through the Canal de Savières, an artificial channel. The extinct bezoule was found only in this lake, the lake was formed during the last period of global glaciation in the Alps during the Pleistocene epoch. It has an area of 44.5 square kilometres. The long and narrow north-south axis of the lake extends 18 km in length, the lakes average depth is 85 m, and its maximum depth in 145 m. The lake is bordered by the summits of the Mont du Chat and the Chaîne de lÉpine on the west, and Bauges Mountains on the east. Lac du Bourget was made famous by several poems of Alphonse de Lamartine, including Le Lac, as well as by descriptions by Xavier de Maistre, Honoré de Balzac. Lake of Bourget photos Tip2trip. com Lac du Bourget, the lake and mountains, tourist portal CALB, Lac du Bourget tourist maps Conservatoire du littoral, Lac du Bourget, conservation area
21.
Marseille
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Marseille, also known as Marseilles in English, is a city in France. Known to the ancient Greeks and Romans as Massalia, Marseille was the most important trading centre in the region, Marseille is now Frances largest city on the Mediterranean coast and the largest port for commerce, freight and cruise ships. The city was European Capital of Culture, together with Košice, Slovakia and it hosted the European Football Championship in 2016, and will be the European Capital of Sport in 2017. The city is home to campuses of Aix-Marseille University and part of one of the largest metropolitan conurbations in France. Marseille is the second largest city in France after Paris and the centre of the third largest metropolitan area in France after Paris, further east still are the Sainte-Baume, the city of Toulon and the French Riviera. To the north of Marseille, beyond the low Garlaban and Etoile mountain ranges, is the 1,011 m Mont Sainte Victoire. To the west of Marseille is the artists colony of lEstaque, further west are the Côte Bleue, the Gulf of Lion. The airport lies to the north west of the city at Marignane on the Étang de Berre, the citys main thoroughfare stretches eastward from the Old Port to the Réformés quarter. Two large forts flank the entrance to the Old Port—Fort Saint-Nicolas on the south side and Fort Saint-Jean on the north. Further out in the Bay of Marseille is the Frioul archipelago which comprises four islands, one of which, If, is the location of Château dIf, the main commercial centre of the city intersects with the Canebière at rue St Ferréol and the Centre Bourse. To the south east of central Marseille in the 6th arrondissement are the Prefecture and the fountain of Place Castellane. To the south west are the hills of the 7th arrondissement, the railway station—Gare de Marseille Saint-Charles—is north of the Centre Bourse in the 1st arrondissement, it is linked by the Boulevard dAthènes to the Canebière. Marseille has a Mediterranean climate with mild, humid winters and warm to hot, december, January, and February are the coldest months, averaging temperatures of around 12 °C during the day and 4 °C at night. Marseille is officially the sunniest major city in France with over 2,900 hours of sunshine while the average sunshine in France is around 1,950 hours, less frequent is the Sirocco, a hot, sand-bearing wind, coming from the Sahara Desert. Snowfalls are infrequent, over 50% of years do not experience a single snowfall, Massalia, whose name was probably adapted from an existing language related to Ligurian, was the first Greek settlement in France. It was established within modern Marseille around 600 BC by colonists coming from Phocaea on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor. The connection between Massalia and the Phoceans is mentioned in Thucydidess Peloponnesian War, he notes that the Phocaean project was opposed by the Carthaginians, the founding of Massalia has also been recorded as a legend. Protis was invited inland to a banquet held by the chief of the local Ligurian tribe for suitors seeking the hand of his daughter Gyptis in marriage, at the end of the banquet, Gyptis presented the ceremonial cup of wine to Protis, indicating her unequivocal choice
22.
Turin
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Turin is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region and was the first capital city of Italy. The city is located mainly on the bank of the Po River, in front of Susa Valley and surrounded by the western Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 892,649 while the population of the area is estimated by Eurostat to be 1.7 million inhabitants. The Turin metropolitan area is estimated by the OECD to have a population of 2.2 million, in 1997 a part of the historical center of Torino was inscribed in the World Heritage List under the name Residences of the Royal House of Savoy. Turin is well known for its Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neo-classical, many of Turins public squares, castles, gardens and elegant palazzi such as Palazzo Madama, were built between the 16th and 18th centuries. This was after the capital of the Duchy of Savoy was moved to Turin from Chambery as part of the urban expansion, the city used to be a major European political center. Turin was Italys first capital city in 1861 and home to the House of Savoy, from 1563, it was the capital of the Duchy of Savoy, then of the Kingdom of Sardinia ruled by the Royal House of Savoy and finally the first capital of the unified Italy. Turin is sometimes called the cradle of Italian liberty for having been the birthplace and home of notable politicians and people who contributed to the Risorgimento, such as Cavour. The city currently hosts some of Italys best universities, colleges, academies, lycea and gymnasia, such as the University of Turin, founded in the 15th century, in addition, the city is home to museums such as the Museo Egizio and the Mole Antonelliana. Turins attractions make it one of the worlds top 250 tourist destinations, Turin is ranked third in Italy, after Milan and Rome, for economic strength. With a GDP of $58 billion, Turin is the worlds 78th richest city by purchasing power, as of 2010, the city has been ranked by GaWC as a Gamma World city. Turin is also home to much of the Italian automotive industry, the Taurini were an ancient Celto-Ligurian Alpine people, who occupied the upper valley of the Po River, in the center of modern Piedmont. In 218 BC, they were attacked by Hannibal as he was allied with their long-standing enemies, the Taurini chief town was captured by Hannibals forces after a three-day siege. As a people they are mentioned in history. It is believed that a Roman colony was established in 27 BC under the name of Castra Taurinorum, both Livy and Strabo mention the Taurinis country as including one of the passes of the Alps, which points to a wider use of the name in earlier times. In the 1st century BC, the Romans created a military camp, the typical Roman street grid can still be seen in the modern city, especially in the neighborhood known as the Quadrilatero Romano. Via Garibaldi traces the path of the Roman citys decumanus which began at the Porta Decumani. The Porta Palatina, on the side of the current city centre, is still preserved in a park near the Cathedral
23.
Lyon
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Lyon or Lyons is a city in east-central France, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, about 470 km from Paris and 320 km from Marseille. Inhabitants of the city are called Lyonnais, Lyon had a population of 506,615 in 2014 and is Frances third-largest city after Paris and Marseille. Lyon is the capital of the Metropolis of Lyon and the region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the metropolitan area of Lyon had a population of 2,237,676 in 2013, the second-largest in France after Paris. The city is known for its cuisine and gastronomy and historical and architectural landmarks and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Lyon was historically an important area for the production and weaving of silk. It played a significant role in the history of cinema, Auguste, the city is also known for its famous light festival, Fête des Lumières, which occurs every 8 December and lasts for four days, earning Lyon the title of Capital of Lights. Economically, Lyon is a centre for banking, as well as for the chemical, pharmaceutical. The city contains a significant software industry with a focus on video games. Lyon hosts the headquarters of Interpol, Euronews, and International Agency for Research on Cancer. Lyon was ranked 19th globally and second in France for innovation in 2014 and it ranked second in France and 39th globally in Mercers 2015 liveability rankings. These refugees had been expelled from Vienne by the Allobroges and were now encamped at the confluence of the Saône and Rhône rivers, dio Cassius says this task was to keep the two men from joining Mark Antony and bringing their armies into the developing conflict. The Roman foundation was at Fourvière hill and was officially called Colonia Copia Felix Munatia, a name invoking prosperity, the city became increasingly referred to as Lugdunum. The earliest translation of this Gaulish place-name as Desired Mountain is offered by the 9th-century Endlicher Glossary, in contrast, some modern scholars have proposed a Gaulish hill-fort named Lugdunon, after the Celtic god Lugus, and dúnon. It then became the capital of Gaul, partly due to its convenient location at the convergence of two rivers, and quickly became the main city of Gaul. Two emperors were born in city, Claudius, whose speech is preserved in the Lyon Tablet in which he justifies the nomination of Gallic senators. Today, the archbishop of Lyon is still referred to as Primat des Gaules, the Christians in Lyon were martyred for their beliefs under the reigns of various Roman emperors, most notably Marcus Aurelius and Septimus Severus. Local saints from this period include Blandina, Pothinus, and Epipodius, in the second century AD, the great Christian bishop of Lyon was the Easterner, Irenaeus. Burgundian refugees fleeing the destruction of Worms by the Huns in 437 were re-settled by the commander of the west, Aëtius. This became the capital of the new Burgundian kingdom in 461, in 843, by the Treaty of Verdun, Lyon, with the country beyond the Saône, went to Lothair I
24.
Geneva
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Geneva is the second most populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situated where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the capital of the Republic, the municipality has a population of 198,072, and the canton has 484,736 residents. In 2014, the compact agglomération du Grand Genève had 946,000 inhabitants in 212 communities in both Switzerland and France, within Swiss territory, the commuter area named Métropole lémanique contains a population of 1.25 million. This area is essentially spread east from Geneva towards the Riviera area and north-east towards Yverdon-les-Bains, Geneva is the city that hosts the highest number of international organizations in the world. It is also the place where the Geneva Conventions were signed, Geneva was ranked as the worlds ninth most important financial centre for competitiveness by the Global Financial Centres Index, ahead of Frankfurt, and third in Europe behind London and Zürich. A2009 survey by Mercer found that Geneva has the third-highest quality of life of any city in the world, the city has been referred to as the worlds most compact metropolis and the Peace Capital. In 2009 and 2011, Geneva was ranked as, respectively, the city was mentioned in Latin texts, by Caesar, with the spelling Genava, probably from a Celtic toponym *genawa- from the stem *genu-, in the sense of a bending river or estuary. The medieval county of Geneva in Middle Latin was known as pagus major Genevensis or Comitatus Genevensis, the name takes various forms in modern languages, Geneva /dʒᵻˈniːvə/ in English, French, Genève, German, Genf, Italian, Ginevra, and Romansh, Genevra. The city in origin shares its name, *genawa estuary, with the Italian port city of Genoa, Geneva was an Allobrogian border town, fortified against the Helvetii tribe, when the Romans took it in 121 BC. It became Christian under the Late Roman Empire, and acquired its first bishop in the 5th century, having been connected to the bishopric of Vienne in the 4th. In the Middle Ages, Geneva was ruled by a count under the Holy Roman Empire until the late 14th century, around this time the House of Savoy came to dominate the city. In the 15th century, a republican government emerged with the creation of the Grand Council. In 1541, with Protestantism in the ascendancy, John Calvin, by the 18th century, however, Geneva had come under the influence of Catholic France, which cultivated the city as its own. France also tended to be at odds with the ordinary townsfolk, in 1798, revolutionary France under the Directory annexed Geneva. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, on 1 June 1814, in 1907, the separation of Church and State was adopted. Geneva flourished in the 19th and 20th centuries, becoming the seat of international organizations. Geneva is located at 46°12 North, 6°09 East, at the end of Lake Geneva. It is surrounded by two chains, the Alps and the Jura
25.
Mont Granier
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Mont Granier is a limestone mountain located between the départements of Savoie and Isère in France. It lies in the Chartreuse Mountains range of the French Prealps between the towns of Chapareillan and Entremont-le-Vieux and its east face overlooks the valley of Grésivaudan and Combe de Savoie, and the north face overlooks Chambéry. At 900 meters tall, Mont Granier has one of the highest cliffs in France and this event created the sheer 700 m north face of the mountain. In the night of between January 8-9,2016, a part of the northwest pillar crumbled towards Entremont-le-Vieux, where residents woke up at 5 in the morning, the collapse was of about 170,000 cubic meters of rock. The last debris were stopped by trees within 300 m of the closest houses and it is a popular spot for hiking, caving, rock climbing, and BASE jumping. The mountain contains the cave system le Systeme du Granier, which is over 55 kilometres long, around the base of Mont Granier are many vineyards that produce the Apremont and Abymes appellations. These wines are made from the white Jacquère grape, seldom used outside Savoie, the Col du Granier crosses the ridge to the north-west of the mountain. Walks on Mont Granier BASE jumping from Mont Granier - YouTube video Jacquère - Vin de Savoie, Abymes, France A Wine Tour in the French Alps Wines from the Combe de Savoie, Mont Granier & Jongieux
26.
House of Savoy
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The House of Savoy is one of the oldest royal families in the world, being founded in 1003 in the historical Savoy region. Through gradual expansion, it grew from ruling a small county in that region to the attainment of the rank of king in 1713, the Savoyard kings of Italy were Victor Emmanuel II, Umberto I, Victor Emmanuel III, and Umberto II. The last monarch ruled for a few weeks before being deposed following the Constitutional Referendum of 1946, the name derives from the historical region of Savoy in the Alpine region between what is now France and Italy. Over time, the House of Savoy expanded its territory and influence through judicious marriages, from rule of a small region on the French/Italian border, the dynastys realm included nearly all of the Italian Peninsula by the time of its deposition. The house descended from Humbert I, Count of Sabaudia, Humberts family are thought to have originated from near Magdeburg in Saxony, with the earliest recording of the family being two 10th century brothers, Amadeus and Humbert. Though Sabaudia was originally a county, later counts were diplomatically skilled. Two of Humberts sons were bishops at the Abbey of Saint Maurice on the River Rhone east of Lake Geneva and this diplomatic skill caused the great powers such as France, England, and Spain to take the counts opinions into account. Piedmont was later joined with Sabaudia, and the name evolved into Savoy, the people of Savoy were descended from the Celts and Romans. In 1494, Charles VIII of France passed through Savoy on his way to Italy and Naples, during the outbreak of the Italian war of 1521-1526, Emperor Charles V stationed imperial troops in Savoy. In 1536, Francis I of France invaded Savoy and Piedmont taking Turin by April of that year, Charles III, Duke of Savoy, fled to Vercelli. He served Philip II as Governor of the Netherlands from 1555 to 1559, in this capacity he led the Spanish invasion of northern France and won a victory at St. Quentin in 1557. He took advantage of various squabbles in Europe to slowly regain territory from both the French and the Spanish, including the city of Turin and he moved the capital of the duchy from Chambéry to Turin. The 17th century brought economic development to the Turin area. Charles Emmanuel II developed the port of Nice and built a road through the Alps towards France, and through skillful political manoeuvres territorial expansion continued. Savoy rule over Sicily lasted only seven years, the crown of Sicily, the prestige of being kings at last, and the wealth of Palermo helped strengthen the House of Savoy further. In 1720 they were forced to exchange Sicily for Sardinia as a result of the War of the Quadruple Alliance, on the mainland, the dynasty continued its expansionist policies as well. In 1798, Joubert occupied Turin and forced Charles Emmanuel IV to abdicate, eventually, in 1814 the kingdom was restored and enlarged with the addition of the former Republic of Genoa by the Congress of Vienna. In the meantime, nationalist figures such as Giuseppe Mazzini were influencing popular opinion, the Kingdom of Italy was the first Italian state to include the Italian Peninsula since the fall of the Roman Empire
27.
Bourg-en-Bresse
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Bourg-en-Bresse is a commune in eastern France, capital of the Ain department, and was capital of the ancient province of Bresse. It is located 70 km north-northeast of Lyon, the inhabitants of Bourg-en-Bresse are known as Burgiens. Bourg-en-Bresse is located at the base of the Jura mountains, on the left bank of the Reyssouze. It lies 70 kilometers northeast of Lyon and 50 kilometers south-southwest of Lons-le-Saunier, roman remains have been discovered at Bourg, but little is known of its early history. Raised to the rank of a town in 1250, it was at the beginning of the 15th century the capital of the dukes of Savoy in the province of Bresse. In February 1535 it was conquered by France during an invasion of Savoy, but was restored to Duke Philibert Emmanuel in 1559. The duke later built a citadel, which afterwards withstood a six-months siege by the soldiers of Henry IV during the Franco-Savoyard War of 1600–1601. The town was ceded to France in 1601. In 1814, the inhabitants, in spite of the condition of their town, offered resistance to the Austrians. The church of Notre-Dame has a built in the Renaissance. In the interior there are stalls of the 16th century, the other public buildings, including a handsome prefecture, are modern. The town hall contains a library and the Lorin Museum with a collection of pictures, while another museum has a collection of old costumes, among the statues in the town there is one of historian Edgar Quinet, a native of Bourg. The church of Brou, a suburb of Bourg-en-Bresse, is of artistic interest. Margaret of Bourbon, wife of Philip II of Savoy, had intended to found a monastery on the spot, the church was actually built early in the 16th century by her daughter-in-law Margaret of Austria, wife of Philibert le Beau of Savoy, in memory of her husband. The exterior, especially the façade, is ornamented, but the chief interest lies in the works of art in the interior. The most important are the three mausoleums with the effigies of Marguerite of Bourbon, Philibert le Beau, and Margaret of Austria. All three are remarkable for perfection of sculpture and richness of ornamentation, the rood loft, the oak stalls, and the reredos in the chapel of the Virgin are masterpieces in a similar style. The Gare de Bourg-en-Bresse railway station offers connections to Paris, Strasbourg, Lyon and Geneva by high-speed rail, the A39 motorway connects Bourg with Dole and Dijon, the A40 with Mâcon and Geneva
28.
Nice, France
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Nice is the fifth most populous city in France and the capital of the Alpes-Maritimes département. The urban area of Nice extends beyond the city limits. Nice is about 13 kilometres from the principality of Monaco, the city is nicknamed Nice la Belle, which means Nice the Beautiful, which is also the title of the unofficial anthem of Nice, written by Menica Rondelly in 1912. The area of todays Nice contains Terra Amata, a site which displays evidence of a very early use of fire. Around 350 BC, Greeks of Marseille founded a permanent settlement and called it Nikaia, after Nike, through the ages, the town has changed hands many times. Its strategic location and port significantly contributed to its maritime strength, for centuries it was a dominion of Savoy, and was then part of France between 1792 and 1815, when it was returned to Piedmont-Sardinia until its re-annexation by France in 1860. The citys main seaside promenade, the Promenade des Anglais owes its name to visitors to the resort, for decades now, the picturesque Nicean surroundings have attracted not only those in search of relaxation, but also those seeking inspiration. The clear air and soft light have particularly appealed to some of Western cultures most outstanding painters, such as Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Niki de Saint Phalle and Arman. Their work is commemorated in many of the museums, including Musée Marc Chagall, Musée Matisse. Nice has the second largest hotel capacity in the country and it is one of its most visited cities and it also has the third busiest airport in France, after the two main Parisian ones. It is the capital city of the County of Nice. Nice was probably founded around 350 BC by the Greeks of Massalia, the ruins of Cemenelum are in Cimiez, now a district of Nice. In the 7th century, Nice joined the Genoese League formed by the towns of Liguria. In 729 the city repulsed the Saracens, but in 859 and again in 880 the Saracens pillaged and burned it, during the Middle Ages, Nice participated in the wars and history of Italy. As an ally of Pisa it was the enemy of Genoa, during the 13th and 14th centuries the city fell more than once into the hands of the Counts of Provence, but it regained its independence even though related to Genoa. The medieval city walls surrounded the Old Town, the landward side was protected by the River Paillon, which was later covered over and is now the tram route towards the Acropolis. The east side of the town was protected by fortifications on Castle Hill, another river flowed into the port on the east side of Castle Hill. Engravings suggest that the area was also defended by walls
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Napoleon III
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Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the only President of the French Second Republic and, as Napoleon III, the Emperor of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I and he was the first President of France to be elected by a direct popular vote. He remains the longest-serving French head of state since the French Revolution, during the first years of the Empire, Napoleons government imposed censorship and harsh repressive measures against his opponents. Some six thousand were imprisoned or sent to penal colonies until 1859, thousands more went into voluntary exile abroad, including Victor Hugo. From 1862 onwards, he relaxed government censorship, and his came to be known as the Liberal Empire. Many of his opponents returned to France and became members of the National Assembly, Napoleon III is best known today for his grand reconstruction of Paris, carried out by his prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann. He launched similar public works projects in Marseille, Lyon, Napoleon III modernized the French banking system, greatly expanded and consolidated the French railway system, and made the French merchant marine the second largest in the world. He promoted the building of the Suez Canal and established modern agriculture, Napoleon III negotiated the 1860 Cobden–Chevalier free trade agreement with Britain and similar agreements with Frances other European trading partners. Social reforms included giving French workers the right to strike and the right to organize, womens education greatly expanded, as did the list of required subjects in public schools. In foreign policy, Napoleon III aimed to reassert French influence in Europe and he was a supporter of popular sovereignty and of nationalism. In Europe, he allied with Britain and defeated Russia in the Crimean War and his regime assisted Italian unification and, in doing so, annexed Savoy and the County of Nice to France, at the same time, his forces defended the Papal States against annexation by Italy. Napoleon doubled the area of the French overseas empire in Asia, the Pacific, on the other hand, his armys intervention in Mexico which aimed to create a Second Mexican Empire under French protection ended in failure. Beginning in 1866, Napoleon had to face the power of Prussia. In July 1870, Napoleon entered the Franco-Prussian War without allies, the French army was rapidly defeated and Napoleon III was captured at the Battle of Sedan. The French Third Republic was proclaimed in Paris, and Napoleon went into exile in England, charles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, later known as Louis Napoleon and then Napoleon III, was born in Paris on the night of 20–21 April 1808. His presumed father was Louis Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. His mother was Hortense de Beauharnais, the daughter by the first marriage of Napoleons wife Joséphine de Beauharnais, as empress, Joséphine proposed the marriage as a way to produce an heir for the Emperor, who agreed, as Joséphine was by then infertile. Louis married Hortense when he was twenty-four and she was nineteen and they had a difficult relationship, and only lived together for brief periods
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Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
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Turin, Italy[4]
Albstadt, Germany
Ouahigouya, Burkina Faso
Itu, Brazil
Chambéry travel guide from Wikivoyage
