1.
Subprefectures in France
–
In France, a subprefecture is the administrative center of a departmental arrondissement that does not contain the prefecture for its department. The term also applies to the building houses the administrative headquarters for an arrondissement. The civil servant in charge of a subprefecture is the subprefect, between May 1982 and February 1988, subprefects were known instead by the title commissaire adjoint de la République. Where the administration of an arrondissement is carried out from a prefecture, the municipal arrondissements of Paris, Lyon, and Marseille) are divisions of the city rather than the prefecture, and so are not arrondissements in the same sense
Subprefectures in France
–
A subprefecture in
Verdun,
Meuse
Subprefectures in France
–
A subprefecture in
Langon,
Gironde
2.
Communes of France
–
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
Communes of France
–
Road sign marking the end of the village of
Y in the
Somme department of
Picardy
Communes of France
–
Map of the 36,569 communes of metropolitan France
Communes of France
–
Mittelhausbergen in
Alsace
Communes of France
–
Vacqueyras in
Provence, showing double French/
Provençal name
3.
Geographic coordinate system
–
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
Geographic coordinate system
–
Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
4.
France
–
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
France
–
One of the
Lascaux paintings: a horse –
Dordogne, approximately 18,000 BC
France
–
Flag
France
–
The
Maison Carrée was a temple of the
Gallo-Roman city of Nemausus (present-day
Nîmes) and is one of the best preserved vestiges of the
Roman Empire.
France
–
With
Clovis ' conversion to Catholicism in 498, the
Frankish monarchy,
elective and
secular until then, became
hereditary and of
divine right.
5.
Regions of France
–
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
Regions of France
6.
Occitanie
–
Occitanie is an administrative region of France that was created on 1 January 2016 from former French regions Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées. Frances Conseil dÉtat approved Occitanie as the new name of the region on 28 September 2016, the new Région Occitanie should not be confused with the wider cultural entity of Occitania, of which the new administrative region is part. The new region covers an area of more than 72,724 km2 with a population of 5,626,858. As the provisional name of the new region, the text of the law specified the hyphenated names of the predecessors, Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées. As for most of the regions, a permanent name was proposed by the new regional council. Enacted in 2014, the reform of the regions has been subject to debate for many years. The provisional name of the region was withdrawn on 30 September 2016, toulouse Montpellier Nîmes Perpignan Béziers Montauban Languedoc-Roussillon Midi-Pyrénées Regions of France Occitania Merger of the regions - France 3
Occitanie
–
Main Occitan cities, in Occitan
Occitanie
–
Linguistic map of Occitania
Occitanie
–
Gordes, a typical
Provençal village, named by
CNN the most beautiful village of the world.
Occitanie
–
View from a part of the old town of
Toulouse, former capital of
Languedoc.
7.
Departments of France
–
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
Departments of France
–
Geometrical proposition rejected
Departments of France
–
The 101 departments of France
Departments of France
–
The three Algerian departments in 1848
8.
Lot (department)
–
Lot is a department in the southwest of France named after the Lot River. Lot is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4,1790 and it was created from part of the province of Quercy. In 1808 some of the original southeastern cantons were separated from it to form the department of Tarn-et-Garonne and it originally extended much farther to the south and included the city of Montauban. Lot is part of the region of Occitanie and is surrounded by the departments of Corrèze, Cantal, Aveyron, Tarn-et-Garonne, Lot-et-Garonne, for a full list, see Communes of the Lot department. Settlements in the Lot include, Cahors - The prefecture of the department and it lies in a wide loop of the Lot River and is famous for its medieval bridge, the Pont Valentre. Figeac - a medieval town where Champollion, the first translator of Egyptian hieroglyphics, was born, figeac is a sub-prefecture of the department. Gourdon - a medieval town with a well preserved centre. There are many painted caves nearby, notably the Grottes de Cougnac. Gourdon is also a sub-prefecture of te department, cantons of the Lot department Communes of the Lot department French singer-songwriter Léo Ferré lived in the Lot for a while
Lot (department)
–
Prefecture building of the Lot department, in Cahors
Lot (department)
–
Cahors
Lot (department)
–
Pont Valentré
Lot (department)
–
Saint-Cirq-Lapopie
9.
Daylight saving time
–
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
Daylight saving time
–
Ancient
water clock that lets hour lengths vary with season.
Daylight saving time
–
G. V. Hudson invented modern DST, proposing it first in 1895.
Daylight saving time
–
Retailers generally favor DST.
United Cigar Stores hailed a 1918 DST bill.
Daylight saving time
–
William Willett independently proposed DST in 1907 and advocated it tirelessly.
10.
Central European Summer Time
–
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
Central European Summer Time
–
light blue
11.
Occitan language
–
Occitan, also known as lenga dòc by its native speakers, is a Romance language. It is spoken in southern France, Italys Occitan Valleys, Monaco, and Spains Val dAran, collectively, Occitan is also spoken in the linguistic enclave of Guardia Piemontese. However, there is controversy about the unity of the language, others include Catalan in this family, as the distance between this language and some Occitan dialects is similar to the distance among different Occitan dialects. In fact, Catalan was considered an Occitan dialect until the end of the 19th century, today, Occitan is an official language in Catalonia, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken in the Val dAran. Since September 2010, the Parliament of Catalonia has considered Aranese Occitan to be the preferred language for use in the Val dAran. Unlike other Romance languages such as French or Spanish, there is no written standard language called Occitan. Instead, there are competing norms for writing Occitan, some of which attempt to be pan-dialectal, There are also significant lexical differences, where some dialects have words cognate with French, and others have Catalan and Spanish cognates. Nonetheless, there is a significant amount of mutual intelligibility, the long-term survival of Occitan is in grave doubt. According to the UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages, four of the six dialects of Occitan are considered severely endangered. The name Occitan comes from lenga dòc, òc being the Occitan word for yes and this was not, of course, the only defining characteristic of each group. The word òc came from Vulgar Latin hoc, while oïl originated from Latin hoc illud, Old Catalan, and now the Catalan of Northern Catalonia also have hoc. Other Romance languages derive their word for yes from the Latin sic, thus, etc. such as Spanish sí, Eastern Lombard sé, Sicilian and Italian sì, or Portuguese sim. French uses si to answer yes in response to questions that are asked in the negative sense, the name Occitan is sometimes considered a neologism, however, it was attested around 1300 as occitanus, a crossing of oc and aquitanus. For many centuries, the Occitan dialects were referred to as Limousin or Provençal, after Frédéric Mistrals Félibrige movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition and so became the most popular term for Occitan. The term first came into fashion in Italy, currently, linguists use the terms Provençal and Limousin strictly to refer to specific varieties within Occitania, keeping the name Occitan for the language as a whole. Many non-specialists, however, continue to refer to the language as Provençal, NO·L LI TOLRÀ NO·L LI DEVEDARÀ NI NO LEN DECEBRÀ. Nec societatem non AURÀ, si per castellum recuperare NON O FA, et si recuperare potuerit in potestate Froterio et Raimundo LO TORNARÀ, carolingian litanies, both written and sung in Latin, were answered to in Old Occitan by the audience. Occitan was the vehicle for the poetry of the medieval troubadours and trobairises, At that time
Occitan language
–
Main cities of Occitania, written in the Occitan language
Occitan language
–
Occitan
Occitan language
–
"Speak French, Be Clean" written across the wall of a Southern French school
Occitan language
–
This bilingual street sign in
Toulouse, like many such signs found in historical parts of the city, is maintained primarily for its antique charm; it is typical of what little remains of the lenga d'òc in southern French cities.
12.
Via Podiensis
–
The Via Podiensis or the Le Puy Route is one of the four routes through France on the pilgrimage to the tomb of St. James the Great in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwest Spain. It leaves from Le-Puy-en-Velay and crosses the countryside in stages to the village of Ostabat. Near there it merges with two of the routes, the via Turonensis and the via Lemovicensis which merge a little earlier. Together they serve as the pilgrimage route across Spain, known as the Camino frances. The fourth French route, the via Tolosane, crosses the Pyrenees at a different point, becomes the Aragonese Way when it enters Spain, before le Puy, the via Gebennensis leaves from Geneva, gathering Swiss and German pilgrims and feeding into the via Podiensis. Though it bears a Latin name, the via Gebennensis is a route laid out in 1980-90. In Haute-Loire The route leaves Le Puy-en-Velay and passes Vals-près-le-Puy, Saint-Christophe-sur-Dolaison, Bains, Saint-Privat-dAllier, Monistrol-dAllier, Saugues, in Lozère The route passes Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole, Aumont-Aubrac, Malbouzon, Rieutort-dAubrac, Marchastel, and Nasbinals. In Aveyron The route passes Aubrac, Saint-Chély-dAubrac, Saint-Côme-dOlt, Espalion, Bessuéjouls, Estaing, Golinhac, Espeyrac, Sénergues, Conques, Noailhac, Decazeville, in Lot The route passes through Montredon, Saint-Félix, Figeac, and Béduer. A variant route follows the valley of the river Lot, passing Gréalou, Cajarc, a second variation passes through the valley of the Célé, Espagnac-Sainte-Eulalie, Marcilhac-sur-Célé, Sauliac-sur-Célé, Cabrerets, Saint-Cirq-Lapopie. The two variants converge and pass through Cahors, Labastide-Marnhac, Lhospitalet, Lascabanes, Montcuq, a third variant running north of the route passes through Rocamadour. In Tarn-et-Garonne The route passes Lauzerte, Moissac, and Auvillar, in Landes The route passes Aire-sur-lAdour, after which hikers and pilgrims can pass by either Pécorade and Geaune or by Miramont-Sensacq. Those two routes converge once more at Pimbo, the final stage passes via the Roncevaux Pass to reach the village of Roncesvalles. Hiking map and Gps track 4UMaps
Via Podiensis
–
The beginning of the Via Podiensis in Le Puy
Via Podiensis
–
The Routes of St. James in France
Via Podiensis
–
Typical waymarking: It means "this is the path."
Via Podiensis
–
Typical waymarking: "this is not the path".
13.
Way of St. James
–
Many follow its routes as a form of spiritual path or retreat for their spiritual growth. It is also popular hiking and cycling enthusiasts as well as organized tours. The Way of St. Legend holds that St. Jamess remains were carried by boat from Jerusalem to northern Spain, the Way can take one of dozens of pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela. Traditionally, as with most pilgrimages, the Way of Saint James began at ones home, however, a few of the routes are considered main ones. During the Middle Ages, the route was highly travelled, however, the Black Death, the Protestant Reformation, and political unrest in 16th century Europe led to its decline. By the 1980s, only a few pilgrims per year arrived in Santiago, later, the route attracted a growing number of modern-day pilgrims from around the globe. In October 1987, the route was declared the first European Cultural Route by the Council of Europe, whenever St. Jamess Day falls on a Sunday, the cathedral declares a Holy or Jubilee Year. Depending on leap years, Holy Years occur in 5,6, the most recent were 1982,1993,1999,2004, and 2010. The next will be 2021,2027, and 2032, the pilgrimage to Santiago has never ceased from the time of the discovery of St. Jamess remains, though there have been years of fewer pilgrims, particularly during European wars. The main pilgrimage route to Santiago follows an earlier Roman trade route, at night, the Milky Way overhead seems to point the way, so the route acquired the nickname Voie lactée – the Milky Way in French. The scallop shell, often found on the shores in Galicia, has long been the symbol of the Camino de Santiago. Over the centuries the scallop shell has taken on mythical, metaphorical and practical meanings, two versions of the most common myth about the origin of the symbol concern the death of Saint James, who was martyred by beheading in Jerusalem in 44 AD. According to Spanish legends, he had spent time preaching the gospel in Spain, version 1, After Jamess death, his disciples shipped his body to the Iberian Peninsula to be buried in what is now Santiago. Off the coast of Spain, a storm hit the ship. After some time, however, it washed ashore undamaged, covered in scallops, version 2, After Jamess death his body was transported by a ship piloted by an angel, back to the Iberian Peninsula to be buried in what is now Santiago. As the ship approached land, a wedding was taking place on shore, the young groom was on horseback, and on seeing the ship approaching, his horse got spooked, and horse and rider plunged into the sea. Through miraculous intervention, the horse and rider emerged from the water alive, the scallop shell also acts as a metaphor. The grooves in the shell, which meet at a point, represent the various routes pilgrims traveled, eventually arriving at a single destination
Way of St. James
–
The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela
Way of St. James
–
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Way of St. James
–
Monument of the pilgrims,
Burgos
Way of St. James
–
St. James pilgrim accessories
14.
Egyptian hieroglyphs
–
Egyptian hieroglyphs were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt. It combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with a total of some 1,000 distinct characters, cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious literature on papyrus and wood. The later hieratic and demotic Egyptian scripts are derived from hieroglyphic writing, the writing system continued to be used throughout the Late Period, as well as the Persian and Ptolemaic periods. Late survivals of hieroglyphic use are found well into the Roman period, with the closing of pagan temples in the 5th century, knowledge of hieroglyphic writing was lost, and the script remained undeciphered throughout the medieval and early modern period. The decipherment of hieroglyphs would only be solved in the 1820s by Jean-François Champollion, the word hieroglyph comes from the Greek adjective ἱερογλυφικός, a compound of ἱερός and γλύφω, supposedly a calque of an Egyptian phrase mdw·w-nṯr gods words. The glyphs themselves were called τὰ ἱερογλυφικὰ γράμματα the sacred engraved letters, the word hieroglyph has become a noun in English, standing for an individual hieroglyphic character. As used in the sentence, the word hieroglyphic is an adjective. Hieroglyphs emerged from the artistic traditions of Egypt. For example, symbols on Gerzean pottery from c.4000 BC have been argued to resemble hieroglyphic writing, proto-hieroglyphic symbol systems develop in the second half of the 4th millennium BC, such as the clay labels of a Predynastic ruler called Scorpion I recovered at Abydos in 1998. The first full sentence written in hieroglyphs so far discovered was found on a seal found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen at Umm el-Qaab. There are around 800 hieroglyphs dating back to the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, by the Greco-Roman period, there are more than 5,000. However, given the lack of evidence, no definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt. Since the 1990s, and discoveries such as the Abydos glyphs, as writing developed and became more widespread among the Egyptian people, simplified glyph forms developed, resulting in the hieratic and demotic scripts. These variants were more suited than hieroglyphs for use on papyrus. Hieroglyphic writing was not, however, eclipsed, but existed alongside the other forms, especially in monumental, the Rosetta Stone contains three parallel scripts – hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. Hieroglyphs continued to be used under Persian rule, and after Alexander the Greats conquest of Egypt, during the ensuing Ptolemaic and Roman periods. It appears that the quality of comments from Greek and Roman writers about hieroglyphs came about, at least in part. Some believed that hieroglyphs may have functioned as a way to distinguish true Egyptians from some of the foreign conquerors, another reason may be the refusal to tackle a foreign culture on its own terms, which characterized Greco-Roman approaches to Egyptian culture generally
Egyptian hieroglyphs
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A section of the
Papyrus of Ani showing cursive hieroglyphs.
Egyptian hieroglyphs
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Hieroglyphs on a funerary stela in
Manchester Museum
Egyptian hieroglyphs
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The
Rosetta Stone in the
British Museum
Egyptian hieroglyphs
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Hieroglyphs typical of the Graeco-Roman period
15.
Champollion Museum
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The Champollion Museum is located in Figeac, Lot. It houses a collection devoted to Figeacs most famous son, Jean-François Champollion and it was inaugurated 19 December 1986 in the presence of President François Mitterrand and Jean Leclant, secrétaire perpétuel of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. After two years of building work and extension, the museum re-opened in 2007, besides Champollions life and discoveries, the museum also recounts the history of writing. The whole façade is covered in pictograms, from the original ideograms of the whole world, contemporary Museums - Architecture, History, Collections, Braun Publishing,2010, ISBN 978-3-03768-067-4, pages 190-193
Champollion Museum
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Facade of the museum.
16.
Rosetta stone
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The Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stele, found in 1799, inscribed with three versions of a decree issued at Memphis, Egypt in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The top and middle texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic script and Demotic script, respectively, as the decree is the same in all three versions, the Rosetta Stone proved to be the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. The stone, carved in black granodiorite during the Hellenistic period, is believed to have originally been displayed within a temple, possibly at nearby Sais. It was probably moved during the early Christian or medieval period and it was rediscovered there in July 1799 by a French soldier named Pierre-François Bouchard during the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt. Lithographic copies and plaster casts began circulating among European museums and scholars, meanwhile, British troops defeated the French in Egypt in 1801, and the original stone came into British possession under the Capitulation of Alexandria and was transported to London. It has been on display at the British Museum almost continuously since 1802. It is the object in the British Museum. Study of the decree was already under way when the first full translation of the Greek text appeared in 1803, the Rosetta Stone is, therefore, no longer unique, but it was the essential key to modern understanding of Ancient Egyptian literature and civilisation. The term Rosetta Stone is now used in contexts as the name for the essential clue to a new field of knowledge. The Rosetta Stone is listed as a stone of black granite, found at Rosetta in a contemporary catalogue of the artefacts discovered by the French expedition and surrendered to British troops in 1801. This gave a dark colour to the stone that led to its identification as black basalt. The Rosetta Stone is 1,123 millimetres high at its highest point,757 mm wide and it bears three inscriptions, the top register in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the second in the Egyptian Demotic script, and the third in Ancient Greek. The Rosetta Stone is a fragment of a larger stele, no additional fragments were found in later searches of the Rosetta site. Owing to its state, none of the three texts is absolutely complete. The top register, composed of Egyptian hieroglyphs, suffered the most damage, only the last 14 lines of the hieroglyphic text can be seen, all of them are broken on the right side, and 12 of them on the left. The following register of demotic text has survived best, it has 32 lines, the final register of Greek text contains 54 lines, of which the first 27 survive in full, the rest are increasingly fragmentary due to a diagonal break at the bottom right of the stone. The stele was erected after the coronation of King Ptolemy V and was inscribed with a decree established the divine cult of the new ruler. The decree was issued by a congress of priests who gathered at Memphis, the date is given as 4 Xandicus in the Macedonian calendar and 18 Meshir in the Egyptian calendar, which corresponds to March 27,196 BC
Rosetta stone
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The Rosetta Stone
Rosetta stone
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Report of the arrival of the Rosetta Stone in England in
The Gentleman's Magazine, 1802
Rosetta stone
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Left and right sides of the Rosetta Stone, with inscriptions in English relating to its capture by English forces from the French
Rosetta stone
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Experts inspecting the Rosetta Stone during the Second International Congress of Orientalists, 1874
17.
Joseph Kosuth
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Joseph Kosuth is an American conceptual artist. He lives in New York and London, after residing in cities in Europe, including Ghent. Born in Toledo, Ohio, Kosuth had an American mother, Joseph Kosuth attended the Toledo Museum School of Design from 1955 to 1962 and studied privately under the Belgian painter Line Bloom Draper. In 1963 Kosuth enrolled at the Cleveland Institute of Art on a scholarship and he spent the following year in Paris and traveled throughout Europe and North Africa. He moved to New York in 1965 and attended the School of Visual Arts there until 1967, from 1971 he studied anthropology and philosophy at the New School for Social Research, New York. Along with Lawrence Weiner, On Kawara, Hanne Darboven and others and his art generally strives to explore the nature of art rather than producing what is traditionally called art. He remarked in 1969, The value of artists after Duchamp can be weighed according to how much they questioned the nature of art. Kosuths works frequently reference Sigmund Freuds psycho-analysis and Ludwig Wittgensteins philosophy of language and his first conceptual work Leaning Glass, consisted of an object, a photograph of it and dictionary definitions of the words denoting it. In 1966 Kosuth also embarked upon a series of works entitled Art as Idea as Idea, involving texts, the works in this series took the form of photostat reproductions of dictionary definitions of words such as water, meaning, and idea. Accompanying these photographic images are certificates of documentation and ownership indicating that the works can be made and remade for exhibition purposes, One of his most famous works is One and Three Chairs. The piece features a chair, a photograph of that chair. The photograph is a representation of the actual chair situated on the floor, the definition, posted on the same wall as the photograph, delineates in words the concept of what a chair is, in its various incarnations. In this and other, similar works, Five Words in Blue Neon and Glass One and Three, Kosuth forwards tautological statements, a collaboration with independent filmmaker Marion Cajori, Sept.11,1972 was a Minimalist portrait of sunlight in Cajoris studio. In the early 1970s, concerned with his ethnocentricity as a white, male artist and he visited the Trobriand Islands in the South Pacific, and the Huallaga Indians in the Peruvian Amazon. Hung on walls painted his signature dark gray, Kosuths later, large photomontages trace a kind of artistic, in 1992, Kosuth designed the album cover for Fragments of a Rainy Season by John Cale. For the installation of his 2007 exhibition at La Casa Encendida in Madrid, since 1990 Kosuth has also begun working on various permanent public commissions. In 1994, for the city of Tachikawa, Kosuth designed Words of a Spell, for Noëma, in 2011, celebrating the work of Charles Darwin, Kosuth created a commission in the library where Darwin was inspired to pursue his evolutionary theory. His students have included, among others, Michel Majerus, Kosuth became the American editor of the Art & Language journal in 1969
Joseph Kosuth
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Joseph Kosuth,
One and Three Chairs (1965)
Joseph Kosuth
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A giant copy of the Rosetta stone, by Joseph Kosuth in
Figeac, France, the birthplace of
Jean-François Champollion
Joseph Kosuth
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Kosuth's "The Boundaries of the Limitless" in Queen's Square YOKOHAMA, Japan, 1997
18.
Actor
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Anyone who meets the eligibility requirements may apply for aid, which could vary from medical assistance, paying rent, or finding employment. Heros benefits are not meant to be a permanent crutch for needy creators, any granted aid is kept confidential. The Hero Initiative has two boards of directors, the Executive Board and the Fund Disbursement Board, former board members include founders Pat McCallum, editor-in-chief of Wizard Magazine, and Mike Richardson, publisher and founder of Dark Horse Comics. They are George Pérez, Roy Thomas, Charlie Novinskie, Dennis ONeil, John Romita Sr. the charity is currently supported by Dark Horse Comics, Dynamic Forces, Image Comics, Marvel Entertainment, Top Cow Productions, and Wizard Entertainment. The Hero Initiative utilizes many methods of fundraising, foremost is their annual art auction, auctioning donated original comics art-work at fan conventions. Year-long, they sell donated art and special edition comics at conventions, artists, writers, and publishers are invited to donate work, and fans are invited to donate money directly to the fund. ACTOR also sells a green Excelsior, wrist-band similar in design to the Livestrong wristband. The Hero Initiative was formerly known as A Commitment to Our Roots, or ACTOR, while the original name of the organization reflected the charitys goal, the acronym that resulted, ACTOR, more often confused people unfamiliar with the organization. 2006, George Pérez, John Romita, Sr.2007, Joe Kubert 2008, Nick Cardy 2009, Neal Adams 2010, Walt Simonson 2011, Stan Lee 2012, John Romita, Jr. The award recognizes one person in each year who demonstrates particular generosity and integrity in support of the overall comic book community. It debuted at the 2010 Harvey Awards ceremony held at the Baltimore Comic-Con
Actor
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The Hero Initiative
Actor
19.
Charles Boyer
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Charles Boyer was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage and his memorable performances were among the eras most highly praised, in romantic dramas such as The Garden of Allah, Algiers, and Love Affair, as well as the mystery-thriller Gaslight. He received four Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, Boyer was born in Figeac, Lot, France, the son of Augustine Louise Durand and Maurice Boyer, a merchant. Boyer was a shy, small-town boy who discovered the movies, Boyer performed comic sketches for soldiers while working as a hospital orderly during World War I. He began studies briefly at the Sorbonne, and was waiting for a chance to study acting at the Paris Conservatory and he went to the capital city to finish his education, but spent most of his time pursuing a theatrical career. In 1920, his quick memory won him a chance to replace the man in a stage production. In the 1920s, he not only played a suave and sophisticated ladies man on the stage, MGM signed Boyer to a contract, and he loved life in the United States, but nothing much came of his first American stay from 1929 to 1931. At first, he performed film roles only for the money, however, with the coming of sound, his deep voice made him a romantic star. His first Hollywood break came with a small role in Jean Harlows Red-Headed Woman. Subsequently, he co-starred with Claudette Colbert in the psychiatric drama Private Worlds, until the early 1930s, Boyer mainly continued making French films, and Mayerling co-starring Danielle Darrieux in 1936 made him an international star. This was followed by Orage, opposite Michèle Morgan, the offscreen Boyer was bookish and private, far removed from the Hollywood high life. In 1938, he landed his famous role as Pepe le Moko, the thief on the run in Algiers, although in the movie Boyer never said to costar Hedy Lamarr Come with me to the Casbah, this line was in the movie trailer. The line would stick with him, thanks to generations of impressionists, Boyers vocal style was also parodied on the Tom and Jerry cartoons, most notably when Tom was trying to woo a female cat. In contrast to his glamorous image, Boyer began losing his hair early, had a pronounced paunch, when Bette Davis first saw him on the set of All This, and Heaven Too, she did not recognize him and tried to have him removed. In 1943, he was awarded an Honorary Oscar Certificate for progressive cultural achievement in establishing the French Research Foundation in Los Angeles as a source of reference. He is particularly known for Gaslight in which he played a thief/murderer who tries to convince his newlywed wife that she is going insane. In 1947, he was the voice of Capt. Daniel Gregg in the Lux Radio Theaters presentation of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, in 1948, he was made a chevalier of the French Légion dhonneur. When another film with Bergman, Arch of Triumph, failed at the box office, in 1956, Boyer was a guest star on I Love Lucy
Charles Boyer
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Charles Boyer in 1955
Charles Boyer
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With
Sigrid Gurie and Hedy Lamarr in Algiers (1938)
Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer
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Star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6300 Hollywood Blvd.
20.
Louis Malle
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Louis Marie Malle was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was later nominated multiple times for Academy Awards later in his career, Malle is also one of the few directors to have won the Golden Lion multiple times. Malle worked in both French cinema and Hollywood, and he produced both French and English language films, Malle was born into a wealthy industrialist family in Thumeries, Nord, France, the son of Francoise and Pierre Malle. He initially studied political science at Sciences Po before turning to studies at IDHEC instead. He assisted Robert Bresson on A Man Escaped before making his first feature, a taut thriller featuring an original score by Miles Davis, Ascenseur pour léchafaud made an international film star of Jeanne Moreau, at the time a leading stage actress of the Comédie-Française. Malles The Lovers, which also starred Moreau, caused controversy due to its sexual content. In Jacobellis v. Ohio, an owner was fined $2,500 for obscenity. The decision was reversed by the higher court, which found that the film was not obscene. Malle is sometimes associated with the nouvelle vague movement, the second film earned Malle his first Academy Award nominations for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced. In 1968 Malle visited India and made a documentary series LInde fantôme, Reflexions sur un voyage and a documentary film Calcutta. Malle later claimed his documentary on India was his favorite film, Malle later moved to the United States and continued to direct there. His later films include Pretty Baby, Atlantic City, My Dinner with Andre, Crackers, Alamo Bay, Damage and Vanya on 42nd Street in English, Au revoir les enfants and Milou en Mai in French. Just as his films such as The Lovers helped popularize French films in the United States. Towards the end of his life, Malle was interviewed extensively for The Times by cultural correspondent Melinda Camber Porter, in 1993, the interviews were included in Camber Porters book Through Parisian Eyes, Reflections On Contemporary French Arts And Culture. Malle was married to Anne-Marie Deschodt from 1965 to 1967 and he had a son, Manuel Cuotemoc Malle with German actress Gila von Weitershausen and a daughter, filmmaker Justine Malle, with Canadian actress Alexandra Stewart. He married actress Candice Bergen in 1980 and they had one child, a daughter, Chloe Francoise Malle, on 8 November 1985. He died from lymphoma at their home in Beverly Hills, California, at 63 on Thanksgiving Day 23 November 1995
Louis Malle
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Louis Malle
21.
Lacombe Lucien
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Lacombe Lucien is a 1974 French war drama film about a French teenage boy during the German occupation of France in World War II. In June 1944, as the Allies are fighting the Germans in Normandy, Lucien Lacombe, the local Resistance leader, the village schoolteacher, turns him down on grounds of age. Arrested by chance, Lucien is taken to the headquarters of the Carlingue. There he unwittingly denounces the teacher, who is brought in, seeing that Lucien could be useful, the Carlingue recruit him into their lawless regime of extortion and terror. He enjoys his new power and position, but falls in love with France Horn and she is a French-born Jewish girl living in seclusion with her father Albert, a tailor, and her paternal grandmother Bella, who are living in fear of deportation. Forcing himself upon the girl, Lucien becomes protective of the people targeted by his superiors. Albert, giving up hope, surrenders himself to the Carlingue, when a German soldier comes to arrest them, Lucien kills him and takes the women to an abandoned farm. But he knows that he has chosen the side and that his crimes will be found out. The film ends at point and a final message on screen says that Lucien was caught. Laborit, le propriétaire Malle worked with novelist Patrick Modiano to write the screenplay, originally, they entitled the script Le faucon and intended to set it in present-day Mexico. However, Malle was not allowed to shoot in Mexico, so he rewrote the script, the script was retitled Le milicien. Vincent Canby, film critic for The New York Times, gave it a positive review and he wrote, Lacombe, Lucien is easily Mr. Film critic Dan Schneider liked the film, especially Louis Malles casting of new actor Pierre Blaise. Schneider wrote, Every so often a director makes an inspiring casting choice to not hire an actor for a role, but go with an unknown. Wins National Board of Review, NBR Award, Best Supporting Actor, british Academy of Film and Television Arts, BAFTA Film Award, Best Film, UN Award,1975. French Syndicate of Cinema Critics, Critics Award, Best Film, National Society of Film Critics Awards, USA, NSFC Award, Best Supporting Actor, Holger Löwenadler,1975. Nominations Academy Awards, Oscar, Best Foreign Language Film, France,1975, british Academy of Film and Television Arts, BAFTA Film Award, Best Direction, Louis Malle, Best Screenplay, Louis Malle and Patrick Modiano,1975. Golden Globes, Golden Globe, Best Foreign Film, France,1975
Lacombe Lucien
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Publicity poster
22.
Assier
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Assier is a French commune in the Lot department in the Occitanie region of south-western France. The inhabitants of the commune are known as Assiérois or Assiéroises, Assier is located some 12 km north-west of Figeac and some 18 km south-east of Gramat. The Brive-la-Gaillarde to Rodez railway passes through the commune from north-west to south-east with a station just west of the village, the highest parts of the commune are to the north-east. The Limargue landscape provides grazing for cattle, a small stream flows with a slight slope parallel to the D653 in a wide valley flooded during heavy rain. After two ponds and an old mill, its water is lost near the centre of the village, in the south the rocky terrain forms a slightly undulating limestone plateau pierced by a few sinkholes around ten metres deep. This plateau is covered with grass which supports flocks of sheep. There are also forests of contorted downy oaks that are used for firewood, Assier is located at the end of an Early Jurassic formation called Limargue at the edge of the Causses limestone. In the south-east the Causse de Gramat is composed of Karstified limestone from the Middle, the valley floor consists of alluvium brought down by modern streams. Assier is on the edge of the Causse de Gramat, the waters from the Limargue to the north-east come across impermeable marl from the Early Jurassic the descend below the permeable limestone from the Middle and Late Jurassic. The limit of the Drainage basin is located to the north of Assier, water flows towards the south towards the Célé, to the north-west, north of Vialans, there are the emergences of Routabous and Tour de Maroc of calcareous sandstone from the Pliensbachian period. The small streams or Biales sink into the limestone through karstic openings, from north-west to south-east, these are. The Ruisseau de lHomme has its source near the Chapel of Saint-Médard, the second sinkhole is 20 metres east of the pond. These waters flow in the stream passes near the ponds along the D653 road towards Lacapelle-Marival. The re-emergences are at Saint-Sulpice in the Célé valley 13.5 km away, the time of passage of the water is 12 days. The Perte de lAbois, a temporary sinkhole consisting of an entrance three metres high located in a valley that crosses the D11 between Assier and Reyrevignes. The transit time for the water is 40 hours, previously, other cavities at a higher altitude would have been of old sinkholes or were connected to the existing water systems, the Grotte du Cirque and the Grotte du Fennet. In addition to the sinkholes in the Limargue-Causse contact zone, many caves, the best known are, The Grotte du Cirque. This hole is adorned with beautiful concretions and this has been a classified site since 29 April 1997 and monitoring arrangements for visits have been defined since 27 January 2009, The Grotte du Fennet
Assier
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Assier Town Hall
Assier
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The dam and its retaining wall next to the Chateau of Assier.
Assier
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The Grotte du Cirque.
Assier
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The Dolmen in the Bois des bœufs.
23.
Cabrerets
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Cabrerets is a commune in the Lot department in south-western France. The village of Cabrerets derives its name from cabre, meaning goat in the Occitan language, the village lies at the confluence of the rivers Sagne and Célé, at the foot of the Rochecourbe cliffs. The village also forms part of the route for those travelling to Santiago de Compostella and is the final stop before Cahors. The overhanging cliffs that dominate the town are home to a castle, built by the English. The castle was first mentioned in a document dating from 1259, in 1380, during the Hundred Years War, it fell into the hands of a force from Aquitaine controlled by the English. It was liberated ten years later by Jean dHébrard, lord of Saint-Sulpice, the Pech Merle cave is home to prehistoric cave paintings, being one of the few sites in France which remain open to the general public. The Château de Cabrerets has been listed since 1996 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture, construction began in the early years of the 16th century
Cabrerets
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Road to Cabrerets
24.
Cahors
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Cahors is the capital of the Lot department in south-western France. Its site is dramatic, being contained on three sides within a U-shaped bend in the River Lot known as the presquîle. Cahors is known as the centre of AOC black wine, which has made since the Middle Ages and exported via Bordeaux. Cahors has had a history since Celtic times. The Cadurci were among the last Celtic tribes to resist the Roman invasion, however, romanization was rapid and profound, Cahors became a large Roman city, with many monuments whose remnants can be seen today. It has declined economically since the Middle Ages, and lost its university in the 18th century, today it is a popular tourist centre with people coming to enjoy its mediaeval quarter and the 14th-century fortified Valentré bridge. It is the seat of the Diocese of Cahors and it was also infamous at that time for having bankers that charged interest on their loans. The church in these times said that money as an end in itself was a sin. Because of this Cahors became synonymous with this sin, and was mentioned in Dantes Inferno alongside Sodom as wicked, pope John XXII, born Jacques Duèze or dEuse, was born in Cahors in 1249, the son of a shoemaker. In the 2007 Tour de France, Cahors was the start of stage 18, the town is situated 115 km north of Toulouse, on the RN20 / A20, connecting the city, via Limoges to Paris and Orleans. The towns height above sea level is between 105 metres and 332 metres, the area of the town is 64.72 square kilometres, with population density relatively high for France at 309 inhabitants per square kilometre. The Valentré Bridge, the symbol of the town, building began in 1308 and was completed in 1378. The legend associated with this bridge is one of the most fully realized of all Devils Bridge legends, with a developed plot, complex characters. When the bridge was restored in 1879, the architect Paul Gout made reference to this by placing a small sculpture of the devil at the summit of one of the towers, Maison Henri IV or Hôtel de Roaldès. Daurade quarter with, Maison Hérétié Maison Dolive Maison du Bourreau The barbican that once defended the Barre Gate, cloister Arc de Diane, a relic of ancient Roman baths. The stone walls can be seen in the car park first level, below the statue of Leon Gambetta, the area around Cahors produces wine, primarily robust and tannic red wine. Wine from the Cahors appellation must be made from at least 70% Malbec grape, the Cahors Blues Festival takes place every year in July since 1982. Pope John XXII Jules Combarieu, musicologist Communes of the Lot department INSEE commune file Official website Cahors Cathedral at Structurae
Cahors
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Valentré bridge
Cahors
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Hôtel de Roaldès
Cahors
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A Cahors chateau and vineyard
25.
Caillac
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Caillac is a commune in the Lot department in south-western France. It was classified as a monument historique in 1982, since 2006, an artificial lake has been built in the town centre to develop fishing as a leisure activity. General Joachim Ambert, born in Château Lagrézette on 8 February 1804, alain-Dominique Perrin, businessman, owner of Château Lagrézette since 1980. Tony Blair, while minister of the UK, stayed in Château Lagrézette in 2002. André Bergeron, secretary of Force Ouvrière
Caillac
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The church in Caillac
Caillac
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View of the Château Lagrezette.
Caillac
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Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul church.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Figeac". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
