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In volo sul mio piccolo paese, Cavaglio d'Agogna (NO).
Alla guida del paracarrello il mitico Felice, navigatore Fabio (ovvero io!).
Cavaglio d'Agogna: cenni storici
Dalle origini al '500
L'Agogna non è solo il termine che completa il nome del paese, ma è il torrente lungo il quale è sorto Cavaglio.
Come per tanti centri abitati, grandi e piccoli, il torrente è stato il luogo vicino al quale gli antichi si insediavano per avere un mezzo di trasferimento di uomini e cose, una difesa da possibili attacchi e una fonte di approvvigionamento idrico.
Cavaglio è nato sicuramente in età celtica preromana, proprio all'intersezione tra l'Agogna e il torrente Sizzone, ma di questa fase storica nulla è giunto. Dell'età romana restano invece varie epigrafi, trovate nei paesi lungo l'Agogna, di cui una anche nel nostro territorio, inserita in un muro dell'antica cappella di San Pietro tra Cavaglio e Fontaneto.
Letta ancora dal Momsen a metà dell'ottocento e poi perduta (come sono scomparsi due capitelli altomedievali - secolo VII - in marmo bianco, ancora presenti alcuni decenni fa alla base della cappelletta come ornamento), essa attesta la probabile presenza di possedimenti terrieri in Cavaglio di due illustri famiglie novaresei: la "Valentia" e la "Cominia".
Ma è soprattutto un'arteria stradale che attesta la presenza romana della zona: la via "Settimia", terminata ai tempi dell'imperatore Settimio Severo (193 - 211 d.C.). Essa attraversava tutto il Novarese, collegando la regione di Novara con quella di Domodossola, transitando lungo il lago d'Orta e toccando Borgomanero, Fontaneto, Cavaglio e Momo.
Il ritrovamento di urne funerarie presso la chiesa della Madonna delle Grazie e la lapite citata di San Pietro ne sono una testimonianza. Un'altra strada caratterizzò l'età medievale nel territorio della zona: la strada "Francisca", così chiamata perchè portava dall'Italia alla Francia, percorrendo più o meno lo stesso itinerario della via romana precedente e toccando gli stessi centri, da Novara a Domodossola.
Proprio all'altezza di Cavaglio essa si incrociava con un'altra importante arteria: quella che proveniva da Pombia e Suno e, salendo per il Wuartone, portava a Ghemme e in Valsesia.
Lungo queste arterie c'erano sicuramente castelli, cappelle e ospizi per i viandanti, quasi tutti ormai scomparsi.
Anche a Cavaglio si ergeva un castello, ma non nel senso di un'abitazione con un signore. Si trovava in cima a una collina a sud - ovest del paese e serviva da torre di avvistamento e segnalazione con una piccola guarnigione di soldati. Fu distrutto, secondo l'Alzario, durante la guerra tra il Marchese del Monferrato e i Visconti a metà del '300.
Restano ancora le fondamenta di sassi e mattoni tra arbusti e radici in cima a una collina, che si raggiunge percorrendo vicolo Castello.
Dal mille all'inizio dell'età moderna si susseguirono in Cavaglio vari signori, padroni assoluti del paese sia delle persone che delle cose. Dapprima i conti del Castello, poi i Conti di Biandrate, infine i Cattanei e i Barbavara di Novara collegati ai Visconti e i Casati, pure di Novara, legati agli Sforza.
L'età barocca: il '600 e il '700
Con l'inizio dell'età moderna Cavaglio sembrò diventare cosmopolita. Truppe francesi, tedesche e spagnole spadroneggiavano nel territorio, con quali conseguenze anche per gli abitanti di Cavaglio si può facilmente immaginare.
La guerra era per gli uomini di allora, del tutto indifesi, come la peste e si abbatteva sulle persone, sul bestiame e sulle cose con una violenza oggi forse incomprensibile.
Con la conquista spagnola del Milanese anche Novara fu governata dagli spagnoli. A ricordo di questa dominazione esiste ancora oggi a Cavaglio, proprio nel centro del paese, una casa, meglio una torre a quattro piani, alta 14,50 mt. e con il tetto in stile lombardo, detta "casa degli spagnoli".
Accanto ad essa ci sono case dalla struttura edilizia molto antica, in cui a poco a poco si sono sviluppati nel corso dei secoli negozi e servizi pubblici: una locanda con stallazzo, una rivendita di sale e tabacchi, la posta e la prima farmacia. Sempre in età spagnola incominciò la sua attività il mulino, ancora visibile di fronte al municipio, che, alimentato dalla roggia Molinara, funzionò fino ad alcuni decenni fa.
Come la guerra, anche la peste fece la sua comparsa ripetutamente nei secoli scorsi a Cavaglio, come nelle terre circostanti. Tuttavia va ricordato un evento favorevole al paese. Quando divampò nell'Italia settentrionale la peste raccontata dal Manzoni, negli anni 1629 - 1631, la comunità di Cavaglio ne fu risparmiata e in testimonianza di ciò fu eretta come voto per iniziativa del Comune la chiesa di San Rocco nel centro del paese, che quindi sembra più di proprietà civica che ecclesiastica.
L'800 e il '900
Con l'ottocento e il novecento comparvero novità nella vita del paese, anche se la struttura urbanistica del nucleo più antico rimase sempre uguale con le stesse vie e vicoli interni e le diramazioni esterne verso i paesi vicini. Finalmente all'inizio del novecento venne costruito un ponte sull'Agogna, per superare la quale i cavagliesi dovevano prima guadarla o servirsi dei ponti di Fontaneto e di Cavaglietto.
Nel corso dell'800 il paese si ampliò, occupando le terre pianeggianti in direzione dell'Agogna. Sempre in questo secolo nacque la prima fabbrica tessile. Ubicata forse nell'edificio occupato oggi dal municipio, essa disponeva di una quarantina di telai che lavoravano stoffe di cotone.
Nel corso del '900 sono sorte anche attività industriali, artigianali e commerciali, di cui alcune purtroppo hanno chiuso i battenti o si sono trasferite altrove negli ultimi decenni.
Nel secondo dopoguerra erano in funzione anche due sale cinematografiche (una parrocchiale, l'altra privata), che hanno cessato l'attività con l'avvento della televisione. I terreni collinari, un tempo coltivabili a vigneto e ricchi di ciliegi, che al tempo del raccolto davano vita a mercati annuali con grande richiamo di presenze dai centri vicini, sono ora spesso lasciati incolti.
Negli ultimi anni, nella zona confinante con il Comune di Sizzano, si è prospettato lo sviluppo di attività sportive con la costruzione di campi da golf e relativi insediamenti turistici e del tempo libero, ma attualmente il progetto sembra bloccato.
Tratto da:
"Percorsi, Storia e Documenti Artistici del Novarese
Le terre bagnate dall'Agogna - Volume 27"
Provincia di Novara 2005
The origins of St David's Cathedral date back to the 6th century, when St David (ca. 512-587) founded his monastery here. The community was attacked many times by Vikings and many clerics and bishops were murdered by the raiders. In 1081, William the Conqueror visited St Davids to pray, and thus recognised it as a holy and respected place.
At Bishop Bernard's successful urging, Pope Callistus II added St David's to the calendar of saints in 1120 and issued a decree in 1123 that "two pilgrimages to St David's are equal to one to Rome and three pilgrimages to one to Jerusalem". Therefore, a larger cathedral was built by 1131. In 1171 King Henry II visited St David's.
Construction of the current cathedral began in 1181 and was completed shortly afterwards. However, in 1220 the new tower collapsed and in 1248 an earthquake destroyed much of the chancel, choir and transept, so these parts were rebuilt. Reconstruction followed the 13th-century style with pointed arches.
The next major phase of construction was started under Bishop Henry de Gower (1328–1347). He gave the cathedral's exterior a Gothic style. The cathedral was finally completed around 1520.
From the 14th century onwards, the ensemble was completely surrounded by a massive wall, which originally had four gates. Of these, only the tower gate has survived, which is connected to the 13th century bell tower and opens the way from the cathedral to the city centre of St. David's.
The Reformation and the dissolution of the monasteries under the Tudor King Henry VIII in 1536 was a shock. The English Civil War also left significant damage to the building fabric caused by Oliver Cromwell's troops. The valuable lead covering was removed from the roof of the bishop's palace, leaving the building to decay. The roof of the transept of the cathedral was also uncovered in order to access the lead.
It was not until the late 18th century that efforts were made to preserve at least parts of the cathedral complex. After the first attempt to restore the west front failed the whole building was restored between 1862 and 1870.
The crossing
The Wheel of Fortune, or Rota Fortunae, is a concept in medieval and ancient philosophy referring to the capricious nature of Fate. The wheel belongs to the goddess Fortuna, who spins it at random, changing the positions of those on the wheel - some suffer great misfortune, others gain windfalls. Fortune appears on all paintings as a woman, sometimes blindfolded, "puppeteering" a wheel.Origins[edit]
The origin of the word is from the "wheel of fortune" - the zodiac, referring to the Celestial spheres of which the 8th holds the stars, and the 9th is where the signs of the zodiac are placed. The concept was first invented in Babylon and later developed by the ancient Greeks. The concept somewhat resembles the Bhavacakra, or Wheel of Becoming, depicted throughout Ancient Indian art and literature, except that the earliest conceptions in the Roman and Greek world involve not a two-dimensional wheel but a three-dimensional sphere, a metaphor for the world. It was widely used in the Ptolemaic perception of the universe as the zodiac being a wheel with its "signs" constantly turning throughout the year and having effect on the world's fate (or fortune). Ptolemaic model of the spheres for Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn with epicycle, eccentric deferent and equant point. Georg von Peuerbach, Theoricae novae planetarum, 1474.
Vettius Valens, a second century BC astronomer and astrologer, wrote. There are many wheels, most moving from west to east, but some move from east to west.
Seven wheels, each hold one heavenly object, the first holds the moon... Then the eighth wheel holds all the stars that we see... And the ninth wheel, the wheel of fortunes, moves from east to west, and includes each of the twelve signs of fortune, the twelve signs of the zodiac. Each wheel is inside the other, like an onion's peel sits inside another peel, and there is no empty space between them.[this quote needs a citation] In the same century, the Roman tragedian Pacuvius wrote: Fortunam insanam esse et caecam et brutam perhibent philosophical, Saxoque instare in globoso praedicant volubili: Id quo saxum inpulerit fors, eo cadere Fortunam autumant. Caecam ob eam rem esse iterant, quia nihil cernat, quo sese adplicet; Insanam autem esse aiunt, quia atrox, incerta instabilisque sit; Brutam, quia dignum atque indignum nequeat internoscere. Philosophers say that Fortune is insane and blind and stupid, and they teach that she stands on a rolling, spherical rock: they affirm that, wherever chance pushes that rock, Fortuna falls in that direction. They repeat that she is blind for this reason: that she does not see where she's heading; they say she's insane, because she is cruel, flaky and unstable; stupid, because she can't distinguish between the worthy and the unworthy.
—Pacuvius, Scaenicae Romanorum Poesis Fragmenta. Vol. 1, ed. O. Ribbeck, 1897
The idea of the rolling ball of fortune became a literary topos and was used frequently in declamation. In fact, the Rota Fortunae became a prime example of a trite topos or meme for Tacitus, who mentions its rhetorical overuse in the Dialogus de oratoribus. Fortuna eventually became Christianized: the Roman philosopher Boethius (d. 524) was a major source for the medieval view of the Wheel, writing about it in his Consolatio Philosophiae - "I know how Fortune is ever most friendly and alluring to those whom she strives to deceive, until she overwhelms them with grief beyond bearing, by deserting them when least expected. … Are you trying to stay the force of her turning wheel? Ah! dull-witted mortal, if Fortune begin to stay still, she is no longer Fortune."
The Wheel was widely used as an allegory in medieval literature and art to aid religious instruction. Though classically Fortune's Wheel could be favourable and disadvantageous, medieval writers preferred to concentrate on the tragic aspect, dwelling on downfall of the mighty - serving to remind people of the temporality of earthly things. In the morality play Everyman (c. 1495), for instance, Death comes unexpectedly to claim the protagonist. Fortune's Wheel has spun Everyman low, and Good Deeds, which he previously neglected, are needed to secure his passage to heaven. Geoffrey Chaucer used the concept of the tragic Wheel of Fortune a great deal. It forms the basis for the Monk's Tale, which recounts stories of the great brought low throughout history, including Lucifer, Adam, Samson, Hercules, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Nero, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and, in the following passage, Peter I of Cyprus. O noble Peter, Cyprus' lord and king,
Which Alexander won by mastery, To many a heathen ruin did'st thou bring; For this thy lords had so much jealousy,
That, for no crime save thy high chivalry, All in thy bed they slew thee on a morrow. And thus does Fortune's wheel turn treacherously And out of happiness bring men to sorrow.
~ Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Monk's Fortune's Wheel often turns up in medieval art, from manuscripts to the great Rose windows in many medieval cathedrals, which are based on the Wheel. Characteristically, it has four shelves, or stages of life, with four human figures, usually labeled on the left regnabo (I shall reign), on the top regno (I reign) and is usually crowned, descending on the right regnavi (I have reigned) and the lowly figure on the bottom is marked sum sine regno (I am without a kingdom). Dante employed the Wheel in the Inferno and a "Wheel of Fortune" trump-card appeared in the Tarot deck (circa 1440, Italy). The wheel of fortune from the Burana Codex; The figures are labelled "Regno, Regnavi, Sum sine regno, Regnabo": I reign, I reigned, My reign is finished, I shall reign
In the medieval and renaissance period, a popular genre of writing was "Mirrors for Princes", which set out advice for the ruling classes on how to wield power (the most famous being The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli). Such political treatises could use the concept of the Wheel of Fortune as an instructive guide to their readers. John Lydgate's Fall of Princes, written for his patron Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester is a noteworthy example. Many Arthurian romances of the era also use the concept of the Wheel in this manner, often placing the Nine Worthies on it at various points....fortune is so variant, and the wheel so moveable, there nis none constant abiding, and that may be proved by many old chronicles, of noble Hector, and Troilus, and Alisander, the mighty conqueror, and many mo other; when they were most in their royalty, they alighted lowest. ~ Lancelot in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Chapter XVII.[3] Like the Mirrors for Princes, this could be used to convey advice to readers. For instance, in most romances, Arthur's greatest military achievement - the conquest of the Roman Empire - is placed late on in the overall story. However in Malory's work the Roman conquest and high point of King Arthur's reign is established very early on. Thus, everything that follows is something of a decline. Arthur, Lancelot and the other Knights of the Round Table are meant to be the paragons of chivalry, yet in Malory's telling of the story they are doomed to failure. In medieval thinking, only God was perfect, and even a great figure like King Arthur had to be brought low. For the noble reader of the tale in the Middle Ages, this moral could serve as a warning, but also as something to aspire to. Malory could be using the concept of Fortune's Wheel to imply that if even the greatest of chivalric knights made mistakes, then a normal fifteenth-century noble didn't have to be a paragon of virtue in order to be a good knight. The Wheel of Fortune motif appears significantly in the Carmina Burana (or Burana Codex), albeit with a postclassical phonetic spelling of the genitive form Fortunae. Excerpts from two of the collection's better known poems, "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi (Fortune, Empress of the World)" and "Fortune Plango Vulnera (I Bemoan the Wounds of Fortune)," read: Sors immanis et inanis, rota tu volubilis, status malus,
vana salus semper dissolubilis, obumbrata et velata michi quoque niteris; nunc per ludum dorsum nudum fero tui sceleris. Fortune rota volvitur; descendo minoratus; alter in altum tollitur; nimis exaltatus rex sedet in vertice caveat ruinam! nam sub axe legimus Hecubam reginam.Fate - monstrous and empty, you whirling wheel, status is bad,
well-being is vain always may melt away, shadowy
and veiled you plague me too; now through the game
bare backed I bear your villainy. The wheel of Fortune turns;
I go down, demeaned; another is carried to the height;
far too high up sits the king at the summit - let him beware ruin! for under the axis we read: Queen Hecuba. Later usage:
Fortune and her Wheel have remained an enduring image throughout history. Fortune's wheel can also be found in Thomas More's Utopia. Wheel of fortune in Sebastian Brant`s Narrenschiff, woodcut by A. Dürer William Shakespeare in Hamlet wrote of the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and, of fortune personified, to "break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel." And in Henry V, Act 3 Scene VI[4] are the lines: Bardolph, a soldier who is loyal and stout-hearted and full of valour, has, by a cruel trick of fate and a turn of silly Fortune's wildly spinning wheel, that blind goddess who stands upon an ever-rolling stone—
Fluellen: Now, now, Ensign Pistol. Fortune is depicted as blind, with a scarf over her eyes, to signify that she is blind. And she is depicted with a wheel to signify—this is the point—that she is turning and inconstant, and all about change and variation. And her foot, see, is planted on a spherical stone that rolls and rolls and rolls. Shakespeare also references this Wheel in King Lear.[5] The Earl of Kent, who was once held dear by the King, has been banished, only to return in disguise. This disguised character is placed in the stocks for an overnight and laments this turn of events at the end of Act II, Scene 2:Fortune, good night, smile once more; turn thy wheel! In Act IV, scene vii, King Lear also contrasts his misery on the "wheel of fire" to Cordelia's "soul in bliss". Shakespeare also made reference to this in "Macbeth" throughout the whole play. Macbeth starts off halfway up the wheel when a Thane, but moves higher and higher until he becomes king, but falls right down again towards the end as his wife dies, and he in turn dies.
In Anthony Trollope's novel The Way We Live Now, the character Lady Carbury writes a novel entitled "The Wheel of Fortune" about a heroine who suffers great financial hardships.
Selections from the Carmina Burana, including the two poems quoted above, were set to new music by twentieth-century classical composer Carl Orff, whose well-known "O Fortuna" is based on the poem Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi.
Jerry Garcia recorded a song entitled "The Wheel" (co-written with Robert Hunter and Bill Kreutzmann) for his 1972 solo album Garcia, and performed the song regularly with the Grateful Dead from 1976 onward. The song "Wheel in the Sky" by Journey from their 1978 release Infinity also touches on the concept through the lyrics "Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin' / I don't know where I'll be tomorrow". The song "Throw Your Hatred Down" by Neil Young on his 1995 album Mirror Ball, recorded with Pearl Jam, has the verse "The wheel of fortune / Keeps on rollin' down". The term has found its way into modern popular culture through the Wheel of Fortune game show, where contestants win or lose money determined by the random spin of a wheel. Also, the video game series character Kain (Legacy of Kain) used the wheel of fate. Fortuna does occasionally turn up in modern literature, although these days she has become more or less synonymous with Lady Luck. Her Wheel is less widely used as a symbol, and has been replaced largely by a reputation for fickleness. She is often associated with gamblers, and dice could also be said to have replaced the Wheel as the primary metaphor for uncertain fortune. The Hudsucker Proxy, a film by the Coen Brothers, also uses the Rota Fortunae concept and in the TV series Firefly (2002) the main character, Malcolm Reynolds, says "The Wheel never stops turning, Badger" to which Badger replies "That only matters to the people on the rim". Likewise, a physical version of the Wheel of Fortune is used in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, a film by George Miller and George Ogilvie. In the movie, the title character reneges on a contract and is told "bust a deal, face the wheel." In the science fiction TV series Farscape, the fourth episode of the fourth season has main character Crichton mention that his grandmother told him that fate was like a wheel, alternately bringing fortunes up and down, and the episode's title also references this. Unlike many other instances of the wheel of fortune analogy, which focus on tragic falls from good fortune, Crichton's version is notably more positive, and meant as a message of endurance: those suffering from bad fortune must remain strong and "wait for the wheel" of fortune to turn back to eventually turn back to good fortune again. Ignatius J. Reilly, the central character from John Kennedy Toole's novel A Confederacy of Dunces, states that he believes the Rota Fortunae to be the source of all man's fate. In the Fable video game series, the wheel of fortune appears twice, somehow perverted. The Wheel of Unholy Misfortune is a torture device in Fable II. It is found in the Temple of Shadows in Rookridge. The Hero can use the wheel to sacrifice followers to the shadows. In Fable III, Reaver's Wheel of Misfortune is a device that, once activated, sends to The Hero a round of random monsters. The Wheel of Fortune is featured in a Magic: the Gathering card by that name that forces all players to discard their hands and draw new ones.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rota_Fortunae
Wheel of Fortune is R.O.T.A or TARO and TORA all 3 are born in same meaning :the workings of a social engine ROTARY'S WHEEL EMBLEM
A wheel has been the symbol of Rotary since our earliest days. The first design was made by Chicago Rotarian Montague Bear, an engraver who drew a simple wagon wheel, with a few lines to show dust and motion. The wheel was said to illustrate "Civilization and Movement." Most of the early clubs had some form of wagon wheel on their publications and letterheads. Finally, in 1922, it was decided that all Rotary clubs should adopt a single design as the exclusive emblem of Rotarians. Thus, in 1923, the present gear wheel, with 24 cogs and six spokes was adopted by the "Rotary International Association." A group of engineers advised that the geared wheel was mechanically unsound and would not work without a "keyway" in the center of the gear to attach it to a power shaft. So, in 1923 the keyway was added and the design which we now know was formally adopted as the official Rotary International emblem. www.icufr.org/abc/abc01.htm
www.rotaryfirst100.org/history/history/wheel/
The most popular symbol is the All seeing eye, and most popular hand signs are the Horn and the 666. Any study of Music and ... Circle (Rotary symbol)
[These are the symbols used by the Reptilian proxy group, the Reptoids (Illuminati, & Freemasons), collectively are known as Satanists or Luciferians. The signs of Evil. The most popular symbol is the All seeing eye, and most popular hand signs are the Horn and the 666. Any study of Music and Movies will find all the usual suspects (proving Satanic control), along with some symbols for mind control. If you want a symbol to use stick with the heart, the exact opposite of Evil. They like to cut them out and offer them to Lucifer, see Blood sacrifice. All the worshiped 'Gods' are a few Anunnaki/Reptilians going under various names down the years such as: Nimrod/Anubis/Horus/Osiris/Baal/Shamash/Janus/Quetzalcoatl/Baphomet/Lucifer/Moloch etc, hence all the snake and horn symbols. The symbols are their secret language, and you can see the connections down the years by the use of the same symbols, e.g. Freemasonry, the US Government, and Communism with the Hidden hand, the hidden hand of history.]
comments and constructive feedback are appreciated. I use sculpy for the armor and a friend of mine painted him. I do commissions. FM me if your interested
Recently my friends have been asking me where I get my inspiration for my photo shoots. And honestly, I can get inspired by the tiniest thing and then add an idea to it, and add on, and continue adding until I get something that I think is beautiful. Like I take down notes in my phone and my friend tried reading them and she couldn't understand it. And when I tried to tell her what I meant she got even more confused. But when I am actually behind the camera and directing is truly my favorite moment, seeing my not-so-clear vision become reality.
What inspires you the most?
And of course here are my other social media sites
My Facebook I Twitter I Tumblr
Origin: Poland
Service: 1935-1944
Info:
The 7tp was a polish light tank developed during the interwar period, based on the vickers 6 ton it was the standard polish tank at the start of ww2, although it performed better than the panzer 2 it wasn’t enough as the Germans annexed Poland in 1939. After that it served with the German army as security vehicles
Elmer is a name of Germanic British origin. The given name originated as a surname, a medieval variant of the given name Aylmer, derived from Old English æþel (noble) and mær (famous). ... The name has fallen out of popular use in the last few decades and it is uncommon to find Elmers born after World War II.
Elmer J. Fudd is a fictional cartoon character and one of the most famous Looney Tunes characters, and the de facto archenemy of Bugs Bunny. He has one of the more disputed origins in the Warner Bros. cartoon pantheon (second only to Bugs himself). His aim is to hunt Bugs, but he usually ends up seriously injuring himself and other antagonizing characters. He speaks in an unusual way, replacing his Rs and Ls with Ws, so he always refers to Bugs Bunny as a "scwewy wabbit". Elmer's signature catchphrase is, "Shhh. Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting wabbits".
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Candid shot in a bar in Memphis Tennessee.
(I am 61 and I couldn't get a drink as I didn't have I.D)
So this guy just looks like an "Elmer" to me.
We Are Vacancy.
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Original sin has made it to Bad Ragaz. Artist Liu Ruowang deals with questions about the origin of humanity, its roots and the meaning of life. The 3.5 m high apes made of copper are no longer brand new. They have already been seen in other places. The artist writes: „Ape-man looking up into the sky symbolize the springing up of ancient civilization; today, high civilization bring advanced material culture, yet the nature we live on is being damaged unceasingly“. This has nothing to do with original sin. *The following text is not suitable for religious people. Which does not mean that religiosity is inferior. The religions transport encrypted knowledge over millennia. The time is not yet ripe for the whole truth, but you can already think a few thoughts*.
Anyone who understands the Bible's hidden truth knows that original sin was a genetic manipulation that forced our ancestors and creators to banish us. Adam refused a first Eve because she had her own gene pool and he saw her as a emancipated competitor. It was only when she was created from his gene pool (rib) that he was satisfied, and this has had repercussions on the position of men and women to this day. Adam made this decision with the reduced collective consciousness of nature with which he was created. After all, he was a test person for genetic improvements. He knew no shame, no morals, and did not know what was good and bad. He was also unaware that he was human. But otherwise he had all the human qualities of his creators. Adam and Eve worked in a genetic laboratory where the tragic story about our genetic information took its course. Eva discovered that tampering with the forbidden area of the DNA would not kill them, and was seduced by the DNA snake into an attempt. With that she lost the collective consciousness of nature and became aware of her humanity. With all the consequences such as shame and the knowledge of good and bad that animals do not know. This intoxicant realization she made palatable to Adam too. But they got caught. And so began a journey through space that finally ended on our earth and makes every science fiction film look old. Example: Cain and Abel, murder and manslaughter over DNA information. The gene mutants of the Abel type were able to repair or improve the gene defect, those of the Kain type could not. The group of human beings with the gene mutation of the Kain type is exterminating the Abel type. Apparently the Abelers manage to call for help to their original home. She reports to the Kainern and asks: What did you do with the Abelians? The DNA pattern holders of the Cain type are pushed even farther from the center of the original home of humans to another planet by the headquarters(1. Moses 4: 11–12). On that planet, life support and food production were even more difficult. Cain speaks to headquarters and says: My genetic defect has grown even bigger. It will no longer be repairable. They will hunt me down and kill me (1. Moses 4: 13). They were given a mark in their DNA that immediately allows anyone examining the genetic material to recognize that, according to the law of the universe, these gene carriers are outcast, but must not be killed (1. Moses 4: 15).
The remainder of Chapter 4 of Book 1 of Moses contains the details of how the Cain-pattern bearer dynasty continued to expand. The DNA carriers who are defective in their genetic information, called people, are visited by children of God, i.e. of beings whose DNA genetic information is still in order (1. Moses 6: 1–2). There was a reason why the original home of humans did not destroy the genetically modified creatures, but only sent them into exile. The combination of the properties brought about by genetic manipulation with the DNA carriers of the original hereditary information led to a new type of living being with outstanding properties (1. Moses 6: 4).
Then the story of Noah, a scientist and expert on DNA problems, who had enough time to take healthy DNA information with him from the animal's genetic material for his journey. And Abraham, the story of the greatest genetic engineer all times. You must consider that all of these stories did not take place on today's earth, but on other planets.
Abraham created the gene type Isaac. Isaac is married to a woman of the gene type Cain, from whom Abraham originally descended. The sons from this connection are among others Jakob and Esau. The story on the planet of the Egyptians begins with Joseph coming to Egypt, so that an Isaac type is brought among the people of the Cain type. Abraham apparently knew very well why he was checking the connection between the Egyptian genetic pattern and the Isaac type. After all, he had found out that his technical skills were not sufficient to master the complicated technical systems for large space travel and to carry out the return to the original home of the people. He was not supported by the Egyptians on his first attempt; on the contrary, he was expelled from the country by them because they pursued other interests of their own. With this experience in mind, he systematically prepared his descendants to move to the Egyptians, to acquire their knowledge or their possibilities, and then to try the return home again. The Egyptians realized that there were Isaac types among them and took countermeasures, which led to the strange circumstances surrounding the birth of Moses. The Egyptians, the genetic information type Cain, were not interested in it, because otherwise the same problems would have arisen as with the tragedy of Cain and Abel. So they let kill male births of the Abel type. Moses was born into this situation. His mother played the baby into the Pharaoh's daughter hands. Was she an Egyptian Eva, a scientist looking for the know-how of Abraham? It is possible, that Moses was purposely and experimentally reared by her to discover the repair step in the genetic pattern that Abraham had performed. Moses grows up, receives an Egyptian education and training. And he learns how they use energies to do space travel. So exactly what Abraham wanted, to get his gene type on the way back to his original home. The years have not passed without any problems for Moses. Moses kills an Egyptian and has to flee. In 2. Moses 3:17–18 he is given instructions: Go to the Israelites. If they agree, go with a delegation of the elders to the Pharaoh and say that we have been called by radio, we can go home. Demand that you be allowed to travel into space, three days' journey from here, where your genetic patterns are checked, before you are allowed to travel. The Egyptians say no, you cannot head out alone. Either all or none. A violent dispute arose among genetic engineers (2. Moses 7: 10–13). On the one hand the genetic scientists Aaron and Moses and on the other the genetic experts of the type Cain. The Egyptian Pharaoh realizes that Aaron's gene strands, which he presents for testing, are superior to those of the Cain type. That they are in principle displaced by the Isaac type. The Pharaoh is pissed off because he has to recognize that a corresponding examination by the original home will enable the Isaac type to return to their original home. So he refuses to allow the people of Moses to face the test. The bible now describes the plagues that break in Egypt until the pharaoh finally lets the gene bearers of the Isaac type go. This is the beginning of an unprecedented space odyssey that is described in every detail. Does anyone get the impression that the Bible is a boring and unrealistic story?
There are also references to this in Nostradamus and in Goethe's secret legacy, when he describes the people before people as Adam and Eve. Switzerland, June 8, 2021.
Hahndorf.
The origins of Hahndorf can be indirectly traced back to George Fife Angas, one of the financiers of SA and the SA Company. Through his SA agent Mr Flaxman, Angas purchased seven Special Surveys totalling 28,000 acres in the Barossa Valley in 1839. But whilst still in England in 1838 George Fife Angas met Lutheran Pastor Kavel and then soon after he financed Pastor Kavel’s passage to SA along with and 250 German Lutherans immigrants. Angas wanted to have a supply of potential labourers and possible tenants for his land purchases in the SA colony. His actions encouraged other German Lutherans to migrate to SA. Another group of German Lutherans arrived in SA in 1838 aboard the ship the Zebra under the command of Captain Hahn. Captain Hahn searched for suitable land for the 200 or so people from the Zebra so that they could settle together as a religious community. He accidentally met William Dutton who had just paid for the Mt Barker Special Survey of 1839. Hahn asked for 100 acres, to be rent free in the first year, to help the Lutherans become established near Mt Barker. Around 150 acres were allotted to the Germans by Dutton, Finniss and MacFarlane from the Mt Barker Special Survey and 240 acres were purchased from the government. Soon more German Lutherans, including some from Klemzig and Pastor Kavel’s group joined the original group led by Captain Hahn. They formed a village in early 1839 along traditional German lines and called it Hahndorf after the Captain that had been so helpful to them. The story of Hahndorf had begun. The land was divided between the 54 founding Lutheran families and Hahndorf thus became the second (after Klemzig) and eventually oldest surviving German settlement in Australia. But it did not remain that way for long. In the 1840s some families moved away to other areas of German settlement, partly because of religious splits between Pastor Kavel and Pastor Fritzsche and by the 1850s English background families started moving into the village of Hahndorf as well. As most families had a frontage to the main street many of the original buildings from the 1840s and early 1850s remain today with their typical German architectural style. They include houses, the old mill (the first settlers grew wheat for the Adelaide market), two Lutheran churches, St. Pauls (1890) and St. Michaels (1858, the second church on the site - the first one opened in 1840), two of the early hotels, several early stores and the Hahndorf Academy. The Hahndorf Academy opened in 1857 as a school for the Lutherans where they were taught in German but learned English as well. The current large Academy building was built with its two storeys in 1871. In 1876 it also became a Lutheran seminary for a short time before reverting to a secular Academy which finally closed in 1912.
Assassin's Creed Origins: The Hidden Ones
Otis_Inf Camera Tools | In-game Photomode | Reshade [my own LUT] | Nvidia DSR | Adjustments in Camera Raw
Picnic by the sea I www.flickr.com/photos/159731463@N04/26100648807/in/album-...
Picnic by the sea II www.flickr.com/photos/159731463@N04/40078545435/in/album-...
Picnic by the sea III www.flickr.com/photos/159731463@N04/40078544755/in/album-...
St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh is a Church of Ireland cathedral in Armagh, Northern Ireland. It is the seat of the Anglican Archbishop of Armagh and Diocese of Armagh. The origins of the site are as a 5th century Irish stone monastery, said to have been founded by St. Patrick. Wikipedia
Address: Cathedral Close, 43 Abbey St, Armagh BT61 7DY
Hours:
Open ⋅ Closes 5 pm
Historicamente, a Pateira deve ser considerada como um antigo braço marinho onde desaguavam, independentemente uns dos outros, os rios Cértima, Águeda e Vouga, antes da constituição da Ria de Aveiro. Aquele braço que os aluviões dos três rios fecharam originou um só curso de água - o rio Vouga - passando a foz a situar-se muito mais a noroeste, como actualmente (Almeida, 2006).
Pinho et al. (1988) cit Gomes Andrade escreve, em relação à Pateira, que o vale do Certoma, naquele ponte era dantes terreno firme, coberto de espessos arvoredos, por entre os quais o rio mansamente deslizava.
Também Morais em Sousa Batista (1945) cita um excerto de uma carta do almoxarife de Aveiro a D. Manuel em que fala da Mata de Perrães (eventualmente compreendida entre Perrães e a frente da freguesia de Fermentelos) dizendo que esta sempre fora coutada para nela se colherem porcos (provavelmente javalis) e veados, referindo ainda que era apaúlada.
Aliás, segundo Pinho et al, 1988, parece admissível supor que se trataria de uma zona bastante rica do ponto de vista faunístico e florístico, muito embora as referências à flora e fauna sejam escassas.
A Pateira ter-se-ia começado a formar em finais do século XV, provavelmente ainda na Idade Média, devido às sucessivas inundações dos rios Certoma e Águeda, e alagamento dos campos ribeirinhos.
Presentemente, a Pateira corresponde ao assoreamento e espraiamento do rio Cértima, perto do local onde desagua no rio Águeda.
A maior lagoa natural da Península Ibérica ocupa actualmente uma área de superfície e profundidade variáveis, de acordo com a estação do ano, que, no seu expoente máximo, atinge mais de 5 Km2. Estes, estendem-se, maioritariamente, pelo concelho de Águeda, abrangendo também o concelho de Aveiro e Oliveira do Bairro.
O termo “Pateira” encerra a especificidade da região do Vouga e afluentes designando, por si só, abundância de patos.
Em termos hidrográficos, a lagoa está compreendida na bacia hidrográfica do rio Cértima a qual, por sua vez, se insere na bacia hidrográfica do rio Águeda e esta, na bacia do rio Vouga.
A lagoa é alimentada pelo rio Cértima (a montante), pela ribeira do Pano (a poente), pontualmente por outras escorrências, e por água subterrânea (sistema aquífero Cretácico de Aveiro), sendo o rio Cértima o principal curso a condicionar a hidrologia.
No que diz respeito ao relevo, a zona envolvente da Pateira apresenta um relevo suave, a oeste, registando-se uma zona com altitude superior a 50 metros em Fermentelos (concelho de Águeda).
A este, na zona de Espinhel, ocorre uma elevação que atinge os 78 metros, revelando declives com relativo significado dadas as características da área envolvente. A noroeste, sensivelmente entre a Oliveirinha e Requeixo (concelho de Aveiro) destaca-se uma faixa com altitude entre os 50 e os 70 metros, com declive suave em direcção à Pateira.
A sudoeste, as áreas de cultivo, na margem esquerda do rio Cértima e de Perrães ladeiam a Pateira com relevos suaves de cotas mínimas.
Estatatuto de Protecção
A Pateira de Fermentelos apresenta características de um sistema semi-lêntico que integra a Zona de Protecção Especial da Ria de Aveiro (PTZPE0004) e, como tal, incluída na Rede Natura 2000.
Protegida pela Directiva Aves, está ainda classificada como “Zona Sensível” de acordo com o Decreto-lei n.º 152/97, de 19 de Julho, Anexo II, tratando-se de uma importante e extensa zona húmida (cit. ICN, 2006).
Por definição as Zonas Húmidas (ZH) são áreas de sapal, paul, turfeiras ou águas, naturais ou artificiais, permanentes ou temporárias, estáticas ou correntes, doces , salobras ou salgadas, incluindo extensões de água do mar, cuja profundidade na maré baixa não exceda os 6 metros e zonas costeiras e ribeirinhas (Convenção Ramsar).
Estas ZH, onde se inclui a Pateira, desempenham importantes funções nos ecossistemas como a regularização hídrica e climática, a purificação da água, contrariam o efeito de estufa, protegem a costa, alimentam reservatórios naturais subterrâneos, suportando uma elevada biodiversidade, entre outras.
As zonas húmidas são, aliás, áreas de grande produtividade primária da Terra (a par com as florestas tropicais), suportando assim uma fauna e flora riquíssimas.
Biodiversidade Faunística
No que diz respeito à diversidade faunística, a Pateira e zonas envolventes destacam-se, particularmente, pela importante componente ornitológica. Nestas áreas ocorrem espécies com estatutos de protecção a nível nacional e internacional — classificadas pela Directiva Aves (Directiva 79/409/CEE), Convenção de Bona, Convenção de Berna.
Surgem espécies de importância comunitária, como:
O Garçote (Ixobrychus minutus) frequenta normalmente zonas com abundante vegetação palustre, sendo difícil a sua observação. Não necessita de grandes áreas para nidificar, sendo uma espécie essencialmente solitária durante a reprodução. Os ninhos são construídos no meio do caniçal, acima da água. Alimenta-se essencialmente de insectos e por vezes de pequenos peixes, anfíbios, moluscos, crustáceos, ovos e crias de outras aves, entre outros.
A Garça-vermelha (Ardea purpurea) prefere zonas húmidas com áreas de vegetação densa de caniçais, procurando águas ricas em nutrientes (eutróficas), pouco profundas, paradas ou com pouca corrente. Os ninhos são construídos junto ou sobre a água, geralmente em caniçais inundados, não voltando a ocupar ninhos de anos anteriores. Alimenta-se principalmente de peixes e insectos (larvas e adultos). Segundo observações realizadas ao longo dos últimos anos, a população de Garça-vermelha tem aumentado na Pateira.
A Águia-sapeira (Circus aeruginosus) também designada como Tartaranhão-ruivo-dos-pauis, nidifica em zonas húmidas onde ocorra uma vegetação aquática emergente abundante, preferencialmente manchas de caniçal, onde são construídos os ninhos. Nestas áreas procura ainda alimento, bem como em águas pouco profundas e com vegetação aquática, caçando frequentemente em campos agrícolas nas imediações. Alimenta-se de animais de pequeno e médio porte, nomeadamente aves, mamíferos (roedores), e, em menor proporção, insectos, sapos, cobras e peixes.
O Milhafre-preto (Milvus migrans) frequenta um número diversificado de habitats embora apareça, principalmente, associado a massas de água. Nidifica nos pinhais e matas ripícolas associadas à lagoa, construindo o ninho nas árvores. Procura alimento em áreas abertas ou semi-abertas, alimentando-se de presas de pequeno porte, como roedores, lagomorfos, aves terrestres e ouriços-cacheiros, especialmente indivíduos jovens, doentes ou feridos mas também répteis, peixes, anfíbios e insectos.
Ocorrem ainda espécies como o Perna-longa (Himantopus himantopus), o Guarda-rios (Alcedo athis), a Petinha-dos-campos (Anthus campestris), a Garça-branca-pequena (Egretta garzetta), entre outras, incluídas no Anexo I da Directiva 79/409/CEE.
Estas e outras espécies, ocorrem na ZPE da Ria de Aveiro, fazendo a Pateira, assim, parte do sistema que “suporta, regularmente, mais de 1% da população biogeográfica de Alfaiate (Recurvirostra avosetta), de Negrola (Melanitta nigra), de Borrelho-grande-de-coleira (Charadrius hiaticula) e de Borrelho-de-coleira-interrompida (Charadrius alexandrinus)” (ICN, 2006).
Refere-se ainda a ocorrência de vários passeriformes migradores de matos e bosques, assim como passeriformes de caniçais e galerias ripícolas. A diversidade de biótopos é propícia à reprodução, refúgio e alimento de aves invernantes, nidificantes e migradoras, sendo a Pateira cada vez mais procurada pelos observadores de aves - Birdwatching - e amantes da natureza para a realização de actividades.
As condições biofísicas propiciam também a diversidade de peixes que se encontra na Pateira. Inserida na bacia hidrográfica do Rio Vouga, ocorrem, ou têm potencial para ocorrer, espécies como o Barbo-do-Norte (Barbus bocagei), a Boga (Chondrostoma polylepis), a Boga–portuguesa (Chondrostoma lusitanicum), o Ruivaco (Rutilus macrolepidotus ), o Bordalo (Rutilus alburnoides ) - com estatuto de protecção comunitário (pelo Anexo II e/ou V da Directiva Habitats).
Ocorrem ainda espécies como a Tainha (Chelon labrosus), a Carpa (Cyprinius carpio), o Escalo-do-norte (Leucistus carolitertii), o Lúcio (Esox lucius), a Enguia (Anguilla anguilla), a Pardelha (Cobitis calderoni), o Achigã (Micropterus salmoides ), etc.
Tratam-se de animais sobretudo nocturnos e que, alimentando-se de larvas de insectos, crustáceos e peixes mortos, podem atingir cerca de 1 metro.
A fauna piscícola encontra na Pateira e sistema hídrico adjacente as condições ecológicas que permitem a vitalidade e subsistência das diversas comunidades, condições que permitem o refúgio e a desova em tempo de reprodução. Surgem então na lagoa áreas que são identificadas, pelas gentes locais, como “verdadeiras maternidades” de peixe.
Entre as várias espécies de bivalves que se observam na Bacia Hidrográfica do Vouga, ocorre na lagoa um, cujas dimensões o transformam numa espécie emblemática - a Anodonta.
Este molusco bivalve de água doce, comummente designado como Mexilhão-do-rio, passa despercebido à maioria da população, devido aos seus hábitos ecológicos discretos, que privilegiam o substrato lodoso, onde se enterram.
É muito importante para o ecossistema, uma vez que se alimenta através da filtração de um grande volume de água (de que retira detritos e plâncton), sendo apontada como um indicador da qualidade da água. A degradação das condições ambientais afecta negativamente a população destes bivalves.
Associada aos habitats de zonas húmidas está também uma elevada diversidade de répteis e anfíbios, característicos destes sistemas e que se localizam sobretudo no interface terra-água e cuja ocorrência potencial se lista de seguida.
Ainda neste interface, bem como nas zonas mais secas adjacentes à lagoa, ocorrem diversas espécies de mamíferos. Destas, destaca-se a Lontra (Lutra lutra), emblemática pelos afectos (e desafectos) que provoca na população, mas também por se tratar de uma espécie protegida pelos anexos II e IV do Decreto-lei nº 49/2005 de 24 de Fevereiro.
A Lontra (Lutra lutra) procura de forma selectiva os locais de descanso e abrigo, sendo possível encontrar os seus refúgios nas margens mais tranquilas da lagoa e onde abunda vegetação. Esta espécie solitária alimenta-se sobretudo de fauna piscícola, embora possa alimentar-se também de anfíbios e crustáceos (como o lagostim-do-Louisiana). Pode reproduzir-se durante todo o ano, dependendo da disponibilidade de recursos alimentares, nascendo as crias (uma a quatro) ao fim de 61—63 dias em tocas dissimuladas na vegetação.
Surgem ainda espécies como o Ouriço-cacheiro (Erinaceus europaeus), a Raposa (Vulpes vulpes), o Coelho-bravo (Oryctolagus cuniculus), o Javali (Sus scrofa), vários roedores, entre outras, que encontram protecção no Direito Comunitário, e Nacional.
Assim, a diversidade de biótopos existentes na região (juncais, caniçais, arrozais, margens com vegetação ripícola, etc.) transforma esta região num complexo ecossistema e, por conseguinte, num importante refúgio para a vida animal..
Biodiversidade Florística
Na zona húmida, que engloba as águas livres e a vegetação alagada das margens e linhas, dominam habitats com povoamentos de Caniço (Phragmites communis), juntamente com a Tabúa (Typha sp.) e o Bunho (Scirpus lacustris). Ocorrem ainda comunidades (ou mosaicos de comunidades) de plantas vasculares com macrófitas flutuantes, enraizadas ou suspensas entre o fundo e a superfície: a Erva-pinheirinha (Myriophyllum sp.), os Nenúfares (Nymphaea sp., Nuphar luteo ) ou mesmo o Jacinto-de-água (Eichhornia crassipes).
Em algumas zonas marginais ao longo da Pateira, verifica-se a ocorrência de diversas espécies arbóreas e arbustivas como:
Salgueiros (Salix alba, Salix sp.), Choupos (Populus canescens, Populus nigra, Populus sp.), Amieiros (Alnus glutinosa), Amieiro-negro (Frangula alnus), Freixos (Fraxinus angustifolia), Pilriteiros (Crataegus monogyna), Sabugueiros (Sambucus nigra), Borrazeiras (Salix atrocinerea ), pontualmente Carvalhos (Quercus robur), Loureiros (Laurus nobilis ), Ulmeiros (Ulmus sp.) ...
Entre as espécies alóctones encontra-se o Eucalyptus globulus (predominante no coberto florestal das áreas adjacentes à lagoa), e outras árvores dos géneros Acacia e Hakea , estas com comportamento infestante e que se encontram disseminadas pelas imediações da lagoa.
Do grupo das herbáceas e sub-arbustivas refere-se apenas a presença do Lírio-amarelo-dos-pântanos (Íris pseudacorus), do Agrião (Nasturtium officinale), do Embude (Oenanthe crocata), da Erva-pessegueira (Polygonum persicaria), Hortelã-de-água (Mentha aquatica), entre tantas outras. Ocorrem espécies com estatuto de protecção como a Gilbardeira (Ruscus aculeatus ) pelo anexo V, e a Marsilea quadrifolia.
Peculiar, e pouco divulgado, é o facto de, em áreas adjacentes à lagoa, ocorrerem ainda espécies de plantas carnívoras como a Pinguicula lusitanica; potencialmente poderão ocorrer ainda outras espécies, embora sejam cada vez mais difíceis de encontrar.
Esta carnívora ocorre sobretudo em sítios húmidos, por vezes turfosos das margens da lagoa (e rios), florescendo entre Março e Maio. É nas folhas que é libertado o muco adesivo que aprisiona os insectos, que se aproximam atraídos pelo odor libertado. Assim que detectam a presa, as folhas começam a enrolar-se de forma a envolver a presa nas enzimas digestivas libertadas.
Um aspecto que se encontra ainda pouco desenvolvido diz respeito à diversidade micológica. Assim, a variedade de fungos que ocorre começa agora a ser inventariada e estudada de forma mais exaustiva, apresentando-se nas imagens laterais alguns exemplos.
Na breve resenha biológica apresentada, ainda que incompleta, fica patente a vasta diversidade biológica e potencial natural (e conservacionista) da Pateira, como é referido para as demais Zonas Húmidas. Não obstante, são alguns os problemas que afectam esta área, entre os quais a infestação com Jacinto-de-água.
Jacinto-de-água
O jacinto-de-água (Eichhornia crassipes) é uma espécie infestante originária da bacia do Amazonas (Brasil), encontrando-se actualmente disseminado nos cinco continentes. Alastra-se pelos sistemas aquáticos de climas tropicais e temperados, causando rapidamente a ruptura dos sistemas naturais infestados. É considerada por muitos autores como “uma das piores pragas de plantas aquáticas a nível global” (HOLM et al., 1977).
Como tal, a ocorrência e disseminação desta espécie exótica infestante na Pateira constitui um dos principais factores que contribui para a degradação das condições ecológicas, económicas e sociais desta zona húmida que urge recuperar e preservar.
A ceifeira-aquática
Dada a área em questão e a dimensão da infestação, as metodologias a adoptar e tecnologias de apoio foram seleccionadas de acordo com a avaliação do risco sobre a ZPE, do efeito ambiental das diferentes metodologias e a eficácia da remoção a curto, médio e longo prazo.
A gravidade do problema da infestação de sistemas aquáticos ao nível global levou ao desenvolvimento de tecnologia específica para a sua resolução e/ou controlo.
Assim sendo, recorreu-se à remoção mecânica, sendo a extracção feita com recurso a uma máquina – ceifeira-aquática – que começou a laborar na lagoa a 13 de Dezembro de 2006.
Com um tapete incorporado, e movido por um motor, extrai as massas de jacintos-de-água. Controlada por um operador, a ceifeira-aquática possui um sistema simples e eficaz: duas rodas de pás com um funcionamento hidráulico independente que garantem a grande manobrabilidade do equipamento.
Em apenas dois meses e meio, foi possível melhorar as condições ecológicas e hidrológicas do sistema aquático, recuperar o espelho de água, melhorar a capacidade para suportar actividades lúdicas e de lazer na área, bem como melhorar as condições para a prática das actividades tradicionais no espelho da lagoa.
Requalificação Ambiental e Paisagística da Pateira
A remoção do jacinto-de-água da lagoa foi apenas a 1ª fase de um vasto e complexo processo, que engloba várias outras medidas e acções que visam o desenvolvimento sustentável, a conservação e protecção da Natureza e, consequentemente, a Requalificação Ambiental e Paisagística da maior lagoa natural da Península Ibérica, a Pateira de Fermentelos.
Após o levantamento topo-hidrográfico realizado, concluiu-se que o leito da lagoa se encontra fortemente assoreado, em particular na zona mais a jusante da Pateira.
Desta forma, ficou patente a necessidade de, a curto prazo, se proceder à normalização do leito natural da Pateira, pela remoção (dragagem) do excesso de sedimentos entretanto acumulados, bem como à reconstrução do pequeno açude localizado na confluência da Pateira e rio Águeda.
Numa área classificada como a Pateira, englobada numa importante bacia hidrográfica (bacia hidrográfica do Rio Vouga), com valores paisagísticos e a nível da conservação da natureza, que se traduzem na elevada diversidade biológica, alguma com estatuto de protecção a nível nacional e internacional, é importante dotar o espaço com infra-estruturas adequadas que permitam a conservação, mas também a observação e a interpretação da natureza.
Neste âmbito, são desenvolvidas várias acções de educação ambiental, como a organização de palestras e acções de sensibilização ambiental, observação de aves, realização de percursos interpretativos, workshops para a construção de ninhos, entre outras actividades promovidas pela Autarquia ou por outras entidades como a SPEA (Sociedade Portuguesa para o Estudo das Aves), a UA (Universidade de Aveiro), a QUERCUS (Associação Nacional de Conservação da Natureza).
A definição de percursos com temas e finalidades várias (educação ambiental, prática de desporto, observação de aves, etc.) está a ser estudada numa perspectiva intermunicipal.
A Pateira é, desta forma, vista como um todo, onde o objectivo é conduzir o visitante pelo espaço natural dando-lhe a conhecer os valores naturais da área (com descritores de paisagem, de espécies), bem como dotar estes percursos do mobiliário adequado (observatórios de aves, pontos de encontro e descanso, material de apoio à prática desportiva, etc) e que dê ao visitante o conforto, a segurança e o equilíbrio natural que procura neste local.
São várias as propostas de actividades que o visitante encontra ao seu dispor na lagoa ou nas áreas adjacentes e que o levam ao contacto quer com a natureza, quer com as dinâmicas culturais e tradições locais. Desde os momentos de descontracção que pode passar nos parques de lazer, a uma travessia nas tradicionais bateiras, a uma viagem nas bicicletas aquáticas, de um passeio a cavalo, de bicicleta ou a pé, a uma tarde de pesca, um dia desportivo, ou simplesmente um momento de pausa a vislumbrar a paisagem, só ou em família, são algumas das ideias já praticáveis na Pateira de Fermentelos.
Considerações finais
Numa época em que o ambiente se assume no contexto nacional e internacional como tema prioritário e se procura evitar a continuação da degradação dos recursos hídricos, surge a Directiva-Quadro da Água (DQA) – 2000/60/CE – transposta para a ordem jurídica nacional pela Lei nº 58/2005, de 29 de Dezembro. Esta vem estabelecer como objectivo a alcançar, até 2015, “o bom estado ecológico ou o bom potencial ecológico e químico de todas as massas de água”.
Como tal, “proteger e melhorar o estado dos ecossistemas aquáticos e também dos ecossistemas terrestres e zonas húmidas, directamente dependentes dos ecossistemas aquáticos”, constitui uma atribuição das entidades públicas e um dever dos particulares.
Não obstante, e tal como referido no início deste documento, além da dimensão ambiental, prevalece uma forte componente social, sendo incalculável a importância que a Pateira e ecossistemas associados representam para as populações limítrofes desta área.
Assim, torna-se premente assegurar a continuidade deste projecto, com o desenvolvimento e implementação das acções previstas para a requalificação ambiental e paisagística da Pateira. Pretende-se pois que a Pateira de Fermentelos volte a ser um ex libris natural da região, motivo de referência e orgulho nacional.
Texto retirado do livro
Pateira de Fermentelos: Paisagem a proteger
Célia Laranjeira (CMA) www.cm-agueda.pt/PageGen.aspx?WMCM_PaginaId=28901
I love the way the light casts through at different intervals. I'm very happy with the way this one turned out!
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** Origin and facts of the Hungry Ghost Festival:
The Ghost Festival, also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival, or Yu Lan is a traditional Chinese festival and holiday celebrated by Chinese in many countries. In the Chinese calendar (a lunisolar calendar), the Ghost Festival is on the 15th night of the seventh month (14th in southern China).
In Chinese tradition, the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month (鬼月), in which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower realm.
Distinct from both the Qingming Festival (in spring) and Chung Yeung Festival (in autumn) in which living descendants pay homage to their deceased ancestors, on Ghost Day, the deceased are believed to visit the living.
On the fifteenth day the realms of Heaven and Hell and the realm of the living are open and both Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to transmute and absolve the sufferings of the deceased. Intrinsic to the Ghost Month is ancestor worship, where traditionally the filial piety of descendants extends to their ancestors even after their deaths.
Activities during the month would include preparing ritualistic food offerings, burning incense, and burning joss paper, a papier-mâché form of material items such as clothes, gold and other fine goods for the visiting spirits of the ancestors
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More images of the Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival here:
Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival
More Chinese Temples images here:
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Photo shot with Nikon D600 + AF-S NIikkor 50mm f/1.8G
Processed with Photoshop CS5
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This old barn used to belong to Doukhobors, a Christian group with Russian origins. Information below:
www.bigdoer.com/66001/exploring-history/anastasia-lords-o...
This is the same barn that I posted yesterday, when it was seen from a huge distance and a head-on view.
The day before yesterday, 8 August 2019, was more of a barn day than a bird day. A while ago, another photographer had mentioned that a few barns in a certain area SE of Calgary had been removed and I was curious to see if I could tell which ones were missing. There is one huge barn in particular that I am always hoping still stands. I would love to be able to get photos from both sides of it, but it is way out in a farmer's field that is, of course, private property. Standing in the road, I can only get a distant shot and, as often happens, I had a problem with heat distortion on distant shots. There is an old, round, wooden grain bin and a partly hidden, smaller barn just near the barn, too. I think the first time I ever saw the barn was on 21 January 2015, when I took my daughter out for the day.
My intention two days ago had been to leave early in the morning, but it was already 10:45 am when I climbed into my car. Seeing that the weather forecast for the next six days included rain on each day, I knew I just had to do this trip straight away. Some of the roads I drove to get to my destination(s) were familiar, but others less so. There are two or three highway intersections that are confusing to me and I usually end up taking the wrong turn.
For a change, I turned off the main highway going south before my usual turn, in order to shorten the distance. My first sighting was a distant Red-tailed Hawk perched on a wooden fence at a wetland that used to be a great spot, but now is totally dried up.
After a quick stop at a tiny church that I always photograph when I am out that way, I continued east till I came to the three old Mossleigh grain elevators - one of the places I always get confused about which way to drive. Ideally, a dramatic sky would have been great, but I have taken better photos in the past.
From Mossleigh, I did my usual exploring, finding that a lovely old, wooden house was still standing. I believe this was built from a kit years ago, and it remains in reasonably good condition.
Eventually, I found the large barn that I wanted to see again. It took me a while to work out which road it was on (thought I knew!), but I found it after some driving back and forth. It was good to see the smaller barn, in less then good condition, just down the road. The other two times that I have been standing in the road to take photos of this smaller barn, a lady has come along the road from a nearby farm and very kindly told me to on in and take any photos I'd like. No-one around yesterday, so I stayed on the road,of course. At one point, I happened to glance up the road and saw what I thought was someone's dog on the crest of the road. When I zoomed in on my camera, I realized it was a coyote, who started walking towards me. Unfortunately, it turned off into the field and disappeared. When I was at this smaller barn, it amused me to see a magnificent Mule near the barn, plus a horse. The Mule looked huge and was a real poser, wanting to be in almost every shot I took. Such a gorgeous creature, that I don't remember seeing there before.
Once I had taken a few photos, I started on my homeward drive, not stopping anywhere as I could see that, if I hurried, I could get to the Saskatoon Farm in time to get a meal before the restaurant closed for the day. Yay, I just made it.
Knowing that Frank Lake was only a short drive away, I couldn't resist driving back south to have a quick look. Found a couple of my friends there and spent some enjoyable time with them. Only took a few photos there, most to be deleted, before heading home. A fun day, though hot and hazy.
Strasbourg (/ˈstræzbɜrɡ/, French pronunciation: [stʁaz.buʁ, stʁas.buʁ]; German: Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in north eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace were historically Alemannic-speaking, hence the city's Germanic name.[5] In 2006, the city proper had 272,975 inhabitants and its urban community 467,375 inhabitants. With 759,868 inhabitants in 2010, Strasbourg's metropolitan area (only the part of the metropolitan area on French territory) is the ninth largest in France. The transnational Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau had a population of 884,988 inhabitants in 2008.[6]
Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions, such as the Council of Europe (with its European Court of Human Rights, its European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and its European Audiovisual Observatory) and the Eurocorps, as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union. The city is also the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine and the International Institute of Human Rights.[7]
Strasbourg's historic city centre, the Grande Île (Grand Island), was classified a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honour was placed on an entire city centre. Strasbourg is immersed in the Franco-German culture and although violently disputed throughout history, has been a bridge of unity between France and Germany for centuries, especially through the University of Strasbourg, currently the second largest in France, and the coexistence of Catholic and Protestant culture. The largest Islamic place of worship in France, the Strasbourg Grand Mosque, was inaugurated by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls on 27 September 2012.[8]
Economically, Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as a hub of road, rail, and river transportation. The port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Duisburg, Germany.
Etymology and Names
The city's Gallicized name (Lower Alsatian: Strossburi, [ˈʃd̥rɔːsb̥uri]; German: Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is of Germanic origin and means "Town (at the crossing) of roads". The modern Stras- is cognate to the German Straße and English street, all of which are derived from Latin strata ("paved road"), while -bourg is cognate to the German Burg and English borough, all of which are derived from Proto-Germanic *burgz ("hill fort, fortress").
Geography
Strasbourg seen from Spot Satellite
Strasbourg is situated on the eastern border of France with Germany. This border is formed by the River Rhine, which also forms the eastern border of the modern city, facing across the river to the German town Kehl. The historic core of Strasbourg however lies on the Grande Île in the River Ill, which here flows parallel to, and roughly 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) from, the Rhine. The natural courses of the two rivers eventually join some distance downstream of Strasbourg, although several artificial waterways now connect them within the city.
The city lies in the Upper Rhine Plain, at between 132 metres (433 ft) and 151 metres (495 ft) above sea level, with the upland areas of the Vosges Mountains some 20 km (12 mi) to the west and the Black Forest 25 km (16 mi) to the east. This section of the Rhine valley is a major axis of north-south travel, with river traffic on the Rhine itself, and major roads and railways paralleling it on both banks.
The city is some 400 kilometres (250 mi) east of Paris. The mouth of the Rhine lies approximately 450 kilometres (280 mi) to the north, or 650 kilometres (400 mi) as the river flows, whilst the head of navigation in Basel is some 100 kilometres (62 mi) to the south, or 150 kilometres (93 mi) by river.
Climate
In spite of its position far inland, Strasbourg's climate is classified as Oceanic (Köppen climate classification Cfb), with warm, relatively sunny summers and cold, overcast winters. Precipitation is elevated from mid-spring to the end of summer, but remains largely constant throughout the year, totaling 631.4 mm (24.9 in) annually. On average, snow falls 30 days per year.
The highest temperature ever recorded was 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) in August 2003, during the 2003 European heat wave. The lowest temperature ever recorded was −23.4 °C (−10.1 °F) in December 1938.
Strasbourg's location in the Rhine valley, sheltered from the dominant winds by the Vosges and Black Forest mountains, results in poor natural ventilation, making Strasbourg one of the most atmospherically polluted cities of France.[10][11] Nonetheless, the progressive disappearance of heavy industry on both banks of the Rhine, as well as effective measures of traffic regulation in and around the city have reduced air pollution.
Prehistory
The first traces of human occupation in the environs of Strasbourg go back many thousands of years.[16] Neolithic, bronze age and iron age artifacts have been uncovered by archeological excavations. It was permanently settled by proto-Celts around 1300 BC. Towards the end of the third century BC, it developed into a Celtic township with a market called "Argentorate". Drainage works converted the stilthouses to houses built on dry land.[17]
From Romans
The Romans under Nero Claudius Drusus established a military outpost belonging to the Germania Superior Roman province at Strasbourg's current location, and named it Argentoratum. (Hence the town is commonly called Argentina in medieval Latin.[18]) The name "Argentoratum" was first mentioned in 12 BC and the city celebrated its 2,000th birthday in 1988. "Argentorate" as the toponym of the Gaulish settlement preceded it before being Latinized, but it is not known by how long. The Roman camp was destroyed by fire and rebuilt six times between the first and the fifth centuries AD: in 70, 97, 235, 355, in the last quarter of the fourth century, and in the early years of the fifth century. It was under Trajan and after the fire of 97 that Argentoratum received its most extended and fortified shape. From the year 90 on, the Legio VIII Augusta was permanently stationed in the Roman camp of Argentoratum. It then included a cavalry section and covered an area of approximately 20 hectares. Other Roman legions temporarily stationed in Argentoratum were the Legio XIV Gemina and the Legio XXI Rapax, the latter during the reign of Nero.
The centre of Argentoratum proper was situated on the Grande Île (Cardo: current Rue du Dôme, Decumanus: current Rue des Hallebardes). The outline of the Roman "castrum" is visible in the street pattern in the Grande Ile. Many Roman artifacts have also been found along the current Route des Romains, the road that led to Argentoratum, in the suburb of Kœnigshoffen. This was where the largest burial places were situated, as well as the densest concentration of civilian dwelling places and commerces next to the camp. Among the most outstanding finds in Kœnigshoffen were (found in 1911–12) the fragments of a grand Mithraeum that had been shattered by early Christians in the fourth century. From the fourth century, Strasbourg was the seat of the Bishopric of Strasbourg (made an Archbishopric in 1988). Archaeological excavations below the current Église Saint-Étienne in 1948 and 1956 unearthed the apse of a church dating back to the late fourth or early fifth century, considered to be the oldest church in Alsace. It is supposed that this was the first seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Strasbourg.
The Alemanni fought the Battle of Argentoratum against Rome in 357. They were defeated by Julian, later Emperor of Rome, and their King Chonodomarius was taken prisoner. On 2 January 366, the Alemanni crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers to invade the Roman Empire. Early in the fifth century, the Alemanni appear to have crossed the Rhine, conquered, and then settled what is today Alsace and a large part of Switzerland.
In the fifth century Strasbourg was occupied successively by Alemanni, Huns, and Franks. In the ninth century it was commonly known as Strazburg in the local language, as documented in 842 by the Oaths of Strasbourg. This trilingual text contains, alongside texts in Latin and Old High German (teudisca lingua), the oldest written variety of Gallo-Romance (lingua romana) clearly distinct from Latin, the ancestor of Old French. The town was also called Stratisburgum or Strateburgus in Latin, from which later came Strossburi in Alsatian and Straßburg in Standard German, and then Strasbourg in French. The Oaths of Strasbourg is considered as marking the birth of the two countries of France and Germany with the division of the Carolingian Empire.[19]
A major commercial centre, the town came under the control of the Holy Roman Empire in 923, through the homage paid by the Duke of Lorraine to German King Henry I. The early history of Strasbourg consists of a long conflict between its bishop and its citizens. The citizens emerged victorious after the Battle of Oberhausbergen in 1262, when King Philip of Swabia granted the city the status of an Imperial Free City.
Around 1200, Gottfried von Straßburg wrote the Middle High German courtly romance Tristan, which is regarded, alongside Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and the Nibelungenlied, as one of great narrative masterpieces of the German Middle Ages.
A revolution in 1332 resulted in a broad-based city government with participation of the guilds, and Strasbourg declared itself a free republic. The deadly bubonic plague of 1348 was followed on 14 February 1349 by one of the first and worst pogroms in pre-modern history: over a thousand Jews were publicly burnt to death, with the remainder of the Jewish population being expelled from the city.[20] Until the end of the 18th century, Jews were forbidden to remain in town after 10 pm. The time to leave the city was signalled by a municipal herald blowing the Grüselhorn (see below, Museums, Musée historique);.[21] A special tax, the Pflastergeld (pavement money), was furthermore to be paid for any horse that a Jew would ride or bring into the city while allowed to.[22]
Construction on Strasbourg Cathedral began in the twelfth century, and it was completed in 1439 (though, of the towers, only the north tower was built), becoming the World's Tallest Building, surpassing the Great Pyramid of Giza. A few years later, Johannes Gutenberg created the first European moveable type printing press in Strasbourg.
In July 1518, an incident known as the Dancing Plague of 1518 struck residents of Strasbourg. Around 400 people were afflicted with dancing mania and danced constantly for weeks, most of them eventually dying from heart attack, stroke or exhaustion.
In the 1520s during the Protestant Reformation, the city, under the political guidance of Jacob Sturm von Sturmeck and the spiritual guidance of Martin Bucer embraced the religious teachings of Martin Luther. Their adherents established a Gymnasium, headed by Johannes Sturm, made into a University in the following century. The city first followed the Tetrapolitan Confession, and then the Augsburg Confession. Protestant iconoclasm caused much destruction to churches and cloisters, notwithstanding that Luther himself opposed such a practice. Strasbourg was a centre of humanist scholarship and early book-printing in the Holy Roman Empire, and its intellectual and political influence contributed much to the establishment of Protestantism as an accepted denomination in the southwest of Germany. (John Calvin spent several years as a political refugee in the city). The Strasbourg Councillor Sturm and guildmaster Matthias represented the city at the Imperial Diet of Speyer (1529), where their protest led to the schism of the Catholic Church and the evolution of Protestantism. Together with four other free cities, Strasbourg presented the confessio tetrapolitana as its Protestant book of faith at the Imperial Diet of Augsburg in 1530, where the slightly different Augsburg Confession was also handed over to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.
After the reform of the Imperial constitution in the early sixteenth century and the establishment of Imperial Circles, Strasbourg was part of the Upper Rhenish Circle, a corporation of Imperial estates in the southwest of Holy Roman Empire, mainly responsible for maintaining troops, supervising coining, and ensuring public security.
After the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, the first printing offices outside the inventor's hometown Mainz were established around 1460 in Strasbourg by pioneers Johannes Mentelin and Heinrich Eggestein. Subsequently, the first modern newspaper was published in Strasbourg in 1605, when Johann Carolus received the permission by the City of Strasbourg to print and distribute a weekly journal written in German by reporters from several central European cities.
From Thirty Years' War to First World War
The Free City of Strasbourg remained neutral during the Thirty Years' War 1618-1648, and retained its status as a Free Imperial City. However, the city was later annexed by Louis XIV of France to extend the borders of his kingdom.
Louis' advisors believed that, as long as Strasbourg remained independent, it would endanger the King's newly annexed territories in Alsace, and, that to defend these large rural lands effectively, a garrison had to be placed in towns such as Strasbourg.[23] Indeed, the bridge over the Rhine at Strasbourg had been used repeatedly by Imperial (Holy Roman Empire) forces,[24] and three times during the Franco-Dutch War Strasbourg had served as a gateway for Imperial invasions into Alsace.[25] In September 1681 Louis' forces, though lacking a clear casus belli, surrounded the city with overwhelming force. After some negotiation, Louis marched into the city unopposed on 30 September 1681 and proclaimed its annexation.[26]
This annexation was one of the direct causes of the brief and bloody War of the Reunions whose outcome left the French in possession. The French annexation was recognized by the Treaty of Ryswick (1697). The official policy of religious intolerance which drove most Protestants from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 was not applied in Strasbourg and in Alsace, because both had a special status as a province à l'instar de l'étranger effectif (a kind of foreign province of the king of France). Strasbourg Cathedral, however, was taken from the Lutherans to be returned to the Catholics as the French authorities tried to promote Catholicism wherever they could (some other historic churches remained in Protestant hands). Its language also remained overwhelmingly German: the German Lutheran university persisted until the French Revolution. Famous students included Goethe and Herder.
The Duke of Lorraine and Imperial troops crossing the Rhine at Strasbourg during the War of the Austrian Succession, 1744
During a dinner in Strasbourg organized by Mayor Frédéric de Dietrich on 25 April 1792, Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle composed "La Marseillaise". The same year François Christophe Kellermann, a child of Strasbourg was appointed the head of the Mosel Army. He led his company to victory at the battle of Valmy and saved the young French republic. He was later appointed Duke of Valmy by Napoléon in 1808.
During this period Jean-Baptiste Kléber, also born in Strasbourg, led the French army to win several decisive victories. A statue of Kléber now stands in the centre of the city, at Place Kléber, and he is still one of the most famous French officers. He was later appointed Marshal of France by Napoléon.
Strasbourg's status as a free city was revoked by the French Revolution. Enragés, most notoriously Eulogius Schneider, ruled the city with an increasingly iron hand. During this time, many churches and monasteries were either destroyed or severely damaged. The cathedral lost hundreds of its statues (later replaced by copies in the 19th century) and in April 1794, there was talk of tearing its spire down, on the grounds that it was against the principle of equality. The tower was saved, however, when in May of the same year citizens of Strasbourg crowned it with a giant tin Phrygian cap. This artifact was later kept in the historical collections of the city until it was destroyed by the Germans in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war.[27]
In 1805, 1806 and 1809, Napoléon Bonaparte and his first wife, Joséphine stayed in Strasbourg.[28] In 1810, his second wife Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma spent her first night on French soil in the palace. Another royal guest was King Charles X of France in 1828.[29] In 1836, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte unsuccessfully tried to lead his first Bonapartist coup in Strasbourg.
During the Franco-Prussian War and the Siege of Strasbourg, the city was heavily bombarded by the Prussian army. The bombardment of the city was meant to break the morale of the people of Strasbourg.[30] On 24 and 26 August 1870, the Museum of Fine Arts was destroyed by fire, as was the Municipal Library housed in the Gothic former Dominican church, with its unique collection of medieval manuscripts (most famously the Hortus deliciarum), rare Renaissance books, archeological finds and historical artifacts. The gothic cathedral was damaged as well as the medieval church of Temple Neuf, the theatre, the city hall, the court of justice and many houses. At the end of the siege 10,000 inhabitants were left without shelter; over 600 died, including 261 civilians, and 3200 were injured, including 1,100 civilians.[31]
In 1871, after the end of the war, the city was annexed to the newly established German Empire as part of the Reichsland Elsass-Lothringen under the terms of the Treaty of Frankfurt. As part of Imperial Germany, Strasbourg was rebuilt and developed on a grand and representative scale, such as the Neue Stadt, or "new city" around the present Place de la République. Historian Rodolphe Reuss and Art historian Wilhelm von Bode were in charge of rebuilding the municipal archives, libraries and museums. The University, founded in 1567 and suppressed during the French Revolution as a stronghold of German sentiment,[citation needed] was reopened in 1872 under the name Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität.
Strasbourg in the 1890s.
A belt of massive fortifications was established around the city, most of which still stands today, renamed after French generals and generally classified as Monuments historiques; most notably Fort Roon (now Fort Desaix) and Fort Podbielski (now Fort Ducrot) in Mundolsheim, Fort von Moltke (now Fort Rapp) in Reichstett, Fort Bismarck (now Fort Kléber) in Wolfisheim, Fort Kronprinz (now Fort Foch) in Niederhausbergen, Fort Kronprinz von Sachsen (now Fort Joffre) in Holtzheim and Fort Großherzog von Baden (now Fort Frère) in Oberhausbergen.[32]
Those forts subsequently served the French army (Fort Podbielski/Ducrot for instance was integrated into the Maginot Line[33]), and were used as POW-camps in 1918 and 1945.
Two garrison churches were also erected for the members of the Imperial German army, the Lutheran Église Saint-Paul and the Roman Catholic Église Saint-Maurice.
1918 to the present
A lost, then restored, symbol of modernity in Strasbourg : a room in the Aubette building designed by Theo van Doesburg, Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp.
Following the defeat of the German empire in World War I and the abdication of the German Emperor, some revolutionary insurgents declared Alsace-Lorraine as an independent Republic, without preliminary referendum or vote. On 11 November 1918 (Armistice Day), communist insurgents proclaimed a "soviet government" in Strasbourg, following the example of Kurt Eisner in Munich as well as other German towns. French troops commanded by French general Henri Gouraud entered triumphantly in the city on 22 November. A major street of the city now bears the name of that date (Rue du 22 Novembre) which celebrates the entry of the French in the city.[34][35][36] Viewing the massive cheering crowd gathered under the balcony of Strasbourg's town hall, French President Raymond Poincaré stated that "the plebiscite is done".[37]
In 1919, following the Treaty of Versailles, the city was annexed by France in accordance with U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" without a referendum. The date of the assignment was retroactively established on Armistice Day. It is doubtful whether a referendum in Strasbourg would have ended in France's favour since the political parties striving for an autonomous Alsace or a connection to France accounted only for a small proportion of votes in the last Reichstag as well as in the local elections.[38] The Alsatian autonomists who were pro French had won many votes in the more rural parts of the region and other towns since the annexation of the region by Germany in 1871. The movement started with the first election for the Reichstag; those elected were called "les députés protestataires", and until the fall of Bismarck in 1890, they were the only deputies elected by the Alsatians to the German parliament demanding the return of those territories to France.[39] At the last Reichstag election in Strasbourg and its periphery, the clear winners were the Social Democrats; the city was the administrative capital of the region, was inhabited by many Germans appointed by the central government in Berlin and its flourishing economy attracted many Germans. This could explain the difference between the rural vote and the one in Strasbourg. After the war, many Germans left Strasbourg and went back to Germany; some of them were denounced by the locals or expelled by the newly appointed authorities. The Saverne Affair was vivid in the memory among the Alsatians.
In 1920, Strasbourg became the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine, previously located in Mannheim, one of the oldest European institutions. It moved into the former Imperial Palace.
When the Maginot Line was built, the Sous-secteur fortifié de Strasbourg (fortified sub-sector of Strasbourg) was laid out on the city's territory as a part of the Secteur fortifié du Bas-Rhin, one of the sections of the Line. Blockhouses and casemates were built along the Grand Canal d'Alsace and the Rhine in the Robertsau forest and the port.[40]
Between the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and the Anglo-French declaration of War against the German Reich on 3 September 1939, the entire city (a total of 120,000 people) was evacuated, like other border towns as well. Until the arrival of the Wehrmacht troops mid-June 1940, the city was, for ten months, completely empty, with the exception of the garrisoned soldiers. The Jews of Strasbourg had been evacuated to Périgueux and Limoges, the University had been evacuated to Clermont-Ferrand.
After the ceasefire following the Fall of France in June 1940, Alsace was annexed to Germany and a rigorous policy of Germanisation was imposed upon it by the Gauleiter Robert Heinrich Wagner. When, in July 1940, the first evacuees were allowed to return, only residents of Alsatian origin were admitted. The last Jews were deported on 15 July 1940 and the main synagogue, a huge Romanesque revival building that had been a major architectural landmark with its 54-metre-high dome since its completion in 1897, was set ablaze, then razed.[41]
In September 1940 the first Alsatian resistance movement led by Marcel Weinum called La main noire (The black hand) was created. It was composed by a group of 25 young men aged from 14 to 18 years old who led several attacks against the German occupation. The actions culminated with the attack of the Gauleiter Robert Wagner, the highest commander of Alsace directly under the order of Hitler. In March 1942, Marcel Weinum was prosecuted by the Gestapo and sentenced to be beheaded at the age of 18 in April 1942 in Stuttgart, Germany. His last words will be: "If I have to die, I shall die but with a pure heart". From 1943 the city was bombarded by Allied aircraft. While the First World War had not notably damaged the city, Anglo-American bombing caused extensive destruction in raids of which at least one was allegedly carried out by mistake.[42] In August 1944, several buildings in the Old Town were damaged by bombs, particularly the Palais Rohan, the Old Customs House (Ancienne Douane) and the Cathedral.[43] On 23 November 1944, the city was officially liberated by the 2nd French Armoured Division under General Leclerc. He achieved the oath that he made with his soldiers, after the decisive Capture of Kufra. With the Oath of Kuffra, they swore to keep up the fight until the French flag flew over the Cathedral of Strasbourg.
Many people from Strasbourg were incorporated in the German Army against their will, and were sent to the eastern front, those young men and women were called Malgré-nous. Many tried to escape from the incorporation, join the French Resistance, or desert the Wehrmacht but many couldn't because they were running the risk of having their families sent to work or concentration camps by the Germans. Many of these men, especially those who did not answer the call immediately, were pressured to "volunteer" for service with the SS, often by direct threats on their families. This threat obliged the majority of them to remain in the German army. After the war, the few that survived were often accused of being traitors or collaborationists, because this tough situation was not known in the rest of France, and they had to face the incomprehension of many. In July 1944, 1500 malgré-nous were released from Soviet captivity and sent to Algiers, where they joined the Free French Forces. Nowadays history recognizes the suffering of those people, and museums, public discussions and memorials have been built to commemorate this terrible period of history of this part of Eastern France (Alsace and Moselle). Liberation of Strasbourg took place on 23 November 1944.
In 1947, a fire broke out in the Musée des Beaux-Arts and devastated a significant part of the collections. This fire was an indirect consequence of the bombing raids of 1944: because of the destruction inflicted on the Palais Rohan, humidity had infiltrated the building, and moisture had to be fought. This was done with welding torches, and a bad handling of these caused the fire.[44]
In the 1950s and 1960s the city was enlarged by new residential areas meant to solve both the problem of housing shortage due to war damage and that of the strong growth of population due to the baby boom and immigration from North Africa: Cité Rotterdam in the North-East, Quartier de l'Esplanade in the South-East, Hautepierre in the North-West. Between 1995 and 2010, a new district has been built in the same vein, the Quartier des Poteries, south of Hautepierre.
In 1958, a violent hailstorm destroyed most of the historical greenhouses of the Botanical Garden and many of the stained glass windows of St. Paul's Church.
In 1949, the city was chosen to be the seat of the Council of Europe with its European Court of Human Rights and European Pharmacopoeia. Since 1952, the European Parliament has met in Strasbourg, which was formally designated its official 'seat' at the Edinburgh meeting of the European Council of EU heads of state and government in December 1992. (This position was reconfirmed and given treaty status in the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam). However, only the (four-day) plenary sessions of the Parliament are held in Strasbourg each month, with all other business being conducted in Brussels and Luxembourg. Those sessions take place in the Immeuble Louise Weiss, inaugurated in 1999, which houses the largest parliamentary assembly room in Europe and of any democratic institution in the world. Before that, the EP sessions had to take place in the main Council of Europe building, the Palace of Europe, whose unusual inner architecture had become a familiar sight to European TV audiences.[45] In 1992, Strasbourg became the seat of the Franco-German TV channel and movie-production society Arte.
In 2000, a terrorist plot to blow up the cathedral was prevented thanks to the cooperation between French and German police that led to the arrest in late 2000 of a Frankfurt-based group of terrorists.
On 6 July 2001, during an open-air concert in the Parc de Pourtalès, a single falling Platanus tree killed thirteen people and injured 97. On 27 March 2007, the city was found guilty of neglect over the accident and fined €150,000.[46]
In 2006, after a long and careful restoration, the inner decoration of the Aubette, made in the 1920s by Hans Arp, Theo van Doesburg, and Sophie Taeuber-Arp and destroyed in the 1930s, was made accessible to the public again. The work of the three artists had been called "the Sistine Chapel of abstract art".
Architecture
Strasbourg, Cathedral of Our Lady
The city is chiefly known for its sandstone Gothic Cathedral with its famous astronomical clock, and for its medieval cityscape of Rhineland black and white timber-framed buildings, particularly in the Petite France district or Gerberviertel ("tanners' district") alongside the Ill and in the streets and squares surrounding the cathedral, where the renowned Maison Kammerzell stands out.
Notable medieval streets include Rue Mercière, Rue des Dentelles, Rue du Bain aux Plantes, Rue des Juifs, Rue des Frères, Rue des Tonneliers, Rue du Maroquin, Rue des Charpentiers, Rue des Serruriers, Grand' Rue, Quai des Bateliers, Quai Saint-Nicolas and Quai Saint-Thomas. Notable medieval squares include Place de la Cathédrale, Place du Marché Gayot, Place Saint-Étienne, Place du Marché aux Cochons de Lait and Place Benjamin Zix.
Maison des tanneurs.
In addition to the cathedral, Strasbourg houses several other medieval churches that have survived the many wars and destructions that have plagued the city: the Romanesque Église Saint-Étienne, partly destroyed in 1944 by Allied bombing raids, the part Romanesque, part Gothic, very large Église Saint-Thomas with its Silbermann organ on which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Albert Schweitzer played,[49] the Gothic Église protestante Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune with its crypt dating back to the seventh century and its cloister partly from the eleventh century, the Gothic Église Saint-Guillaume with its fine early-Renaissance stained glass and furniture, the Gothic Église Saint-Jean, the part Gothic, part Art Nouveau Église Sainte-Madeleine, etc. The Neo-Gothic church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Catholique (there is also an adjacent church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Protestant) serves as a shrine for several 15th-century wood worked and painted altars coming from other, now destroyed churches and installed there for public display. Among the numerous secular medieval buildings, the monumental Ancienne Douane (old custom-house) stands out.
The German Renaissance has bequeathed the city some noteworthy buildings (especially the current Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie, former town hall, on Place Gutenberg), as did the French Baroque and Classicism with several hôtels particuliers (i.e. palaces), among which the Palais Rohan (1742, now housing three museums) is the most spectacular. Other buildings of its kind are the "Hôtel de Hanau" (1736, now the city hall), the Hôtel de Klinglin (1736, now residence of the préfet), the Hôtel des Deux-Ponts (1755, now residence of the military governor), the Hôtel d'Andlau-Klinglin (1725, now seat of the administration of the Port autonome de Strasbourg) etc. The largest baroque building of Strasbourg though is the 150 m (490 ft) long 1720s main building of the Hôpital civil. As for French Neo-classicism, it is the Opera House on Place Broglie that most prestigiously represents this style.
Strasbourg also offers high-class eclecticist buildings in its very extended German district, the Neustadt, being the main memory of Wilhelmian architecture since most of the major cities in Germany proper suffered intensive damage during World War II. Streets, boulevards and avenues are homogeneous, surprisingly high (up to seven stories) and broad examples of German urban lay-out and of this architectural style that summons and mixes up five centuries of European architecture as well as Neo-Egyptian, Neo-Greek and Neo-Babylonian styles. The former imperial palace Palais du Rhin, the most political and thus heavily criticized of all German Strasbourg buildings epitomizes the grand scale and stylistic sturdiness of this period. But the two most handsome and ornate buildings of these times are the École internationale des Pontonniers (the former Höhere Mädchenschule, girls college) with its towers, turrets and multiple round and square angles[50] and the École des Arts décoratifs with its lavishly ornate façade of painted bricks, woodwork and majolica.[51]
Notable streets of the German district include: Avenue de la Forêt Noire, Avenue des Vosges, Avenue d'Alsace, Avenue de la Marseillaise, Avenue de la Liberté, Boulevard de la Victoire, Rue Sellénick, Rue du Général de Castelnau, Rue du Maréchal Foch, and Rue du Maréchal Joffre. Notable squares of the German district include: Place de la République, Place de l'Université, Place Brant, and Place Arnold
As for modern and contemporary architecture, Strasbourg possesses some fine Art Nouveau buildings (such as the huge Palais des Fêtes and houses and villas like Villa Schutzenberger and Hôtel Brion), good examples of post-World War II functional architecture (the Cité Rotterdam, for which Le Corbusier did not succeed in the architectural contest) and, in the very extended Quartier Européen, some spectacular administrative buildings of sometimes utterly large size, among which the European Court of Human Rights building by Richard Rogers is arguably the finest. Other noticeable contemporary buildings are the new Music school Cité de la Musique et de la Danse, the Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain and the Hôtel du Département facing it, as well as, in the outskirts, the tramway-station Hoenheim-Nord designed by Zaha Hadid.
Place Kléber
The city has many bridges, including the medieval and four-towered Ponts Couverts that, despite their name, are no longer covered. Next to the Ponts Couverts is the Barrage Vauban, a part of Vauban's 17th-century fortifications, that does include a covered bridge. Other bridges are the ornate 19th-century Pont de la Fonderie (1893, stone) and Pont d'Auvergne (1892, iron), as well as architect Marc Mimram's futuristic Passerelle over the Rhine, opened in 2004.
The largest square at the centre of the city of Strasbourg is the Place Kléber. Located in the heart of the city's commercial area, it was named after general Jean-Baptiste Kléber, born in Strasbourg in 1753 and assassinated in 1800 in Cairo. In the square is a statue of Kléber, under which is a vault containing his remains. On the north side of the square is the Aubette (Orderly Room), built by Jacques François Blondel, architect of the king, in 1765–1772.
Parks
The Pavillon Joséphine (rear side) in the Parc de l'Orangerie
The Château de Pourtalès (front side) in the park of the same name
Strasbourg features a number of prominent parks, of which several are of cultural and historical interest: the Parc de l'Orangerie, laid out as a French garden by André le Nôtre and remodeled as an English garden on behalf of Joséphine de Beauharnais, now displaying noteworthy French gardens, a neo-classical castle and a small zoo; the Parc de la Citadelle, built around impressive remains of the 17th-century fortress erected close to the Rhine by Vauban;[52] the Parc de Pourtalès, laid out in English style around a baroque castle (heavily restored in the 19th century) that now houses a small three-star hotel,[53] and featuring an open-air museum of international contemporary sculpture.[54] The Jardin botanique de l'Université de Strasbourg (botanical garden) was created under the German administration next to the Observatory of Strasbourg, built in 1881, and still owns some greenhouses of those times. The Parc des Contades, although the oldest park of the city, was completely remodeled after World War II. The futuristic Parc des Poteries is an example of European park-conception in the late 1990s. The Jardin des deux Rives, spread over Strasbourg and Kehl on both sides of the Rhine opened in 2004 and is the most extended (60-hectare) park of the agglomeration. The most recent park is Parc du Heyritz (8,7 ha), opened in 2014 along a canal facing the hôpital civil.
Yep, it's one of those original British Leyland Range Rovers, this one sporting a colour scheme that looks an awful lot like Coronation Chicken (by the way, Coronation Chicken is absolutely delicious and I recommend it to everyone!)
Yes, believe it or not, the origin of the mighty Range Rover goes back to the communistic clumsiness of British Leyland, where, in one of their rare moments of genius, they realised the dream that a contemporary 4x4 could be married with the luxuries and styling of a regular saloon car!
The original concept of the Range Rover can be traced back to the groundbreaking original Land Rover of the 1940's, where upon its introduction in 1948 as an extended development of the American Willy's Jeep, the Land Rover had taken the world by storm and become the most desired 4x4 in the world. Light, practical, endlessly tunable and easy to maintain, the Land Rover was a hit across the globe, primarily in the colonies of the British Empire, taking people to remote regions that had once been only within the reach of a Horse or a Camel. Initially, a plan was made to create a saloon style version of the Land Rover in 1949 with the help of coachbuilder Tickford, dubbed the 'Land Rover Station-Wagon', but this was not exactly a success and sold only 700 examples before the car was withdrawn from production in 1951. The main features of the Station-Wagon were a wooden-framed body, seven seats, floor carpets, a heater, a one-piece windscreen and other car-like features, its hand-built nature kept prices high.
In 1954 Land Rover took another stab at the Station Wagon concept, only this time it was built in-house rather than outsourced to a different company. This version's primary market was for those who required an off-road vehicle with greater capacity, such as ambulances or even small buses in remote regions such as the Scottish Highlands. But even though this second incarnation of the Station Wagon was available with features such as an interior light, heater, door and floor trims and upgraded seats, the basic Land Rover roots of this car meant it was still tough and capable, but the firm suspension made its road performance somewhat mediocre.
In 1958, Land Rover took yet another stab with the Road Rover, a development of combining the Land Rover chassis and running gear with the internal furnishings and body of a regular saloon car. The intended audience of the Road Rover was again in the remote British Colonies of Africa and the Australian Outback, where the firm suspension would be useful on the long, uneven roads. By the 1960's however, developments across the pond in the United States were starting to rock Rover's boat, as the newly coined Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) began to make progress. International Harvester released the Scout, and Ford the Bronco, offering a different blend of off and on-road ability from existing utility 4x4s such as the Land Rover and the Jeep, proving capable of good on-road comfort and speed while retaining more than adequate off-road ability for most private users. The Jeep Wagoneer proved the concept further, being both spacious and practical, but still with the raunchy off-road abilities to conquer the harsh American terrain.
Being frontline observers to this, Rover dealers in the United States looked on in horror as the American motor industry cornered the market for the SUV, and through frustration the president of Rover's USA division sent head office a Land Rover Series II 88 fitted with a Buick V8, designed for contemporary American pickup trucks, which offered far greater on-road performance and refinement than any Land Rover then in production.
Things came full circle though thanks to a man named Charles Spencer King, a former apprentice at Rolls Royce and one of the most prominent figures in the ownership of Rover and its transition to British Leyland. Taking over the development, he began the development program with the 100-inch Station Wagon project, taking the original concepts of the previous Road Rover and fitting it with coil springs after coming to the conclusion that only long-travel coil springs could provide the required blend of luxury car comfort and Land Rover's established off-road ability. His realisation of this apparently came when he drove a Rover P6 across rough scrubland adjacent to Land Rover's Solihull Factory, but was also helped by the fact that Land Rover purchased the coil springs from a Ford Bronco and began developing from those. Permanent 4WD was also necessary so as to provide both adequate handling and to reliably absorb the power that would be required by the vehicle if it was to be competitive, which came through in the form of a new transmission known as the Land Rover 101 Forward Control. The final piece to the puzzle though was the use of the Buick derived Rover V8, a strong, reliable, lightweight and endlessly tunable engine. In addition to the regular V8, the car was fitted with both a starting handle for emergencies, and carburettors to help continue to supply fuel at extreme angles.
The final design, launched in 1970 with bodywork styled largely by the engineering team rather than David Bache's styling division, was marketed as 'A Car For All Reasons'. In its original guise, the Range Rover was more capable off-road than the Land Rover but was much more comfortable, offering a top speed in excess of 100mph, a towing capacity of 3.5 tons, spacious accommodation for five people and groundbreaking features such as a four-speed, dual-range, permanent four-wheel-drive gearbox and hydraulic disc brakes on all wheels. The body was constructed, in keeping with other Rover products, of lightweight aluminium, and in its first incarnation was only available as a two-door utilitarian runabout, rather than the five-door luxury car we know today. This was rectified in 1981 when a 4-door version was made available, but this doesn't mean that the Range Rover wasn't a success before this change.
Upon its launch in June 1970, the Range Rover was lauded with critical acclaim, and Rover was praised for succeeding in marrying the practicalities of a modern 4x4 with the luxury capabilities of a standard road car. With a top speed of 95mph and a 0-60 acceleration of less than 15 seconds, performance was stated as being better than many family saloon cars of its era, and off-road performance was good, owing to its long suspension travel and high ground clearance. The bulky but practical design was also praised, with many considering it a piece of artwork, with one example being put on display in the Louvre in Paris! Early celebrity ownership also helped the sales quota, but not in the same way you'd expect today. Instead of Musicians and Movie Stars buying up stashes of Range Rovers like they do nowadays, people of established wealth such as Princess Diana and Government bodies became proud custodians of these mighty machines.
Problems however were quick to occur, as let's not forget, this was a British Leyland product. Reliability was a major issue, with strike cars being especially poor as many would leave the factory with vital components missing or not installed properly. To save costs, many pieces of the cars were carried over from other Leyland products, with switches and dials being donated from Austin Allegros, and the door handles coming direct from Morris Marinas. Name any of the faults endemic to British Leyland products of the time, and the Range Rover suffered from the same curse, be they mechanical, electric, cosmetic, or, worst of all, the demon rust!
But the Range Rover survived to see the 1980's despite its faults, and after the introduction of an extra set of doors it started to gain a true identity as the luxury motor of choice for the new money. With the additional 5-door layout, new variants such as the long wheelbase Vogue and the SE (Special Equipment) versions took many of the luxury items of the Jaguar XJ series such as leather seats and hazelnut wooden trim and placed them into the Range Rover. In the 1980s as well, special utility versions began to be developed, including a 6x6 Fire Tender for airfields and small airports, Ambulances for military bases and remote regions, and one special variant for his holiness the Pope, affectionately dubbed the Popemobile!
However, towards the late 1980's the Range Rover in its original incarnation was starting to look very much its age. The angular design was looking tired, and internally its utilitarian roots were in evidence. The dashboard was not much like that of a regular saloon car, but more a bus or a truck, with a huge steering wheel like that from a tractor, and was not particularly well equipped. Land Rover however intended to narrow the Range Rover's portfolio to the truly luxury market rather than having the low end versions which didn't sell as well due to their expense. In 1989 Land Rover launched the Discovery, which was similar in size to the Range Rover but cheaper and given a more family layout with seats and furnishings being carried over from the Austin Montego. To bring the Range Rover back into the front line of luxury motors for the 1990's, Rover Group (the descendant of British Leyland) put together a plan to design a new car under the chassis codenumber P38A (or just P38 for short). Four years of development and £300 million later, the car was launched to a whirlwind of critical acclaim. With a beautifully equipped interior, a more car-like design of dashboard and with a wider variety of luxury trim levels, including the personalised Autobiography editions, the P38 was the first of the mighty Range Rovers to appeal to the bling-bling generation.
This, however, left the original Range Rover out in the cold, and even though it was still a much loved part of the British motoring scene, the time had come for the original, dubbed the Range Rover Classic after launch of the P38. The last of the original Range Rovers slunk silently of the production line at Solihull in 1996, with production now fully based on the new P38, as well as to future developments such as the Freelander of 1997 and ongoing Discovery and Defender. Today original Range Rovers are somewhat easy to come by depending on where you look. In London you'll find a fair few (after all, these were the original Chelsea Tractors), but even in the country you'll bump into these things, especially around my home of Devon where the Range Rover/Land Rover products were perfect for the rugged Moorland terrain. Early British Leyland ones you'd be hard pressed to find, most rusting away in the 1980's, but the Rover Group ones of the 80's and 90's are by no means rare.
But even so, 45 years after the first Range Rover left the factory in Solihull, Range Rovers continue to be produced today, now in it's 4th Generation and available in more variations than ever before! Although British Leyland has long since died together with their many woeful products such as the Morris Marina and the Austin Allegro, the Range Rover is very much their legacy, the last of their original products to survive the strikes and bankruptcy, fighting off the fuel crisis and privatisation by the Thatcher Government, and then being split in 2000 by BMW and juggled between owners Ford and TATA Steel, and still being the luxury motorised toy of the modern day rich! :)
I love when nature decides she's had enough of our intrusions.
Processed with one of my upcoming presets. The rest of them can be found here: jmacdonaldphoto.com/new-products/
©2015 Jamie A. MacDonald
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Finished back in March, photographed in May. Sometimes it happens like that!
Avignon Picnic pattern at Moda Bake Shop:
Temple maçonnique
Construction: 1928 / John Smith Archibald (1872-1934), architecte d'origine écossaise.
Style: Renouveau classique (dernière période du style des Beaux-arts).
Façade avant (élévation Nord)
Portail à rosaces finement sculpté flanqué de deux magnifiques lampadaires bicéphales.
On sait qu'il existait déjà au moins une loge maçonnique en Nouvelle-France (avant 1760).
Toutefois, ce n'est qu'au début du XIXe siècle, avec l'arrivée des Britanniques, que le mouvement des francs-maçons a véritablement pris son essor. Ils devront pourtant attendre le XXe siècle, et la plus grande liberté de l'Entre-deux-guerres, avant de penser à se doter d'un temple bien en vue, rue Sherbrooke Ouest.
Source: L'architecture de Montréal / Guide des styles et des bâtiments: François Rémillard & Brian Merrett, 2007.
But, in my opinion, the origin of so great a city, and the establishment of an empire next in power to that of the gods, was due to the Fates. The vestal Rhea, being deflowered by force, when she had brought forth twins, declares Mars to be the father of her illegitimate offspring, either because she believed it to be so, or because a god was a more creditable author of her offence. But neither gods nor men protect her or her children from the king's cruelty: the priestess is bound and thrown into prison; the children he commands to be thrown into the current of the river. By some interposition of providence,[9] the Tiber having overflowed its banks in stagnant pools, did not admit of any access to the regular bed of the river; and the bearers supposed that the infants could be drowned in water however still; thus, as if they had effectually executed the king's orders, they expose the boys in the nearest land-flood, where now stands the ficus Ruminalis (they say that it was called Romularis). The country thereabout was then a vast wilderness. The tradition is, that when the water, subsiding, had left the floating trough, in which the children had been exposed, on dry ground, a thirsty she-wolf, coming from the neighbouring mountains, directed her course to the cries of the infants, and that she held down her dugs to them with so much gentleness, that the keeper of the king's flock found her licking the boys with her tongue. It is said his name was Faustulus; and that they were carried by him to his homestead to be nursed by his wife Laurentia. Some are of opinion that she was called Lupa among the shepherds, from her being a common prostitute, and that this gave rise to the surprising story. The children thus born and thus brought up, when arrived at the years of manhood, did not loiter away their time in tending the folds or following the flocks, but roamed and hunted in the forests.[Pg 9] Having by this exercise improved their strength and courage, they not only encountered wild beasts, but even attacked robbers laden with plunder, and afterwards divided the spoil among the shepherds. And in company with these, the number of their young associates daily increasing, they carried on their business and their sports. - TITUS LIVIUS
French postcard in the 'Les geants du cinema' series, by Editions et Impression Combier, Mâcon (Cim), no. 2. Illustration: Jean-Pierre Gillot.
French actor of Spanish origin Louis de Funès (1914-1983) was one of the giants of French comedy alongside André Bourvil and Fernandel. In many of his over 130 films, he portrayed a humorously excitable, cranky man with a propensity to hyperactivity, bad faith, and uncontrolled fits of anger. Along with his short height (1.63 m) and his facial contortions, this hyperactivity produced a highly comic effect, especially opposite Bourvil, who always played calm, slightly naive, good-humored men.
Louis de Funès (French pronunciation: [lwi də fynɛs]) was born Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza in Courbevoie, France in 1914. His father, Carlos Luis de Funès de Galarza had been a lawyer in Seville, Spain, but became a diamond cutter upon arriving in France. His mother, Leonor Soto Reguera was of Spanish and Portuguese extraction. Since the couple's families opposed their marriage, they settled in France in 1904. Known to friends and intimates as ‘Fufu’, the young De Funès was fond of drawing and piano playing and spoke French, Spanish, and English well. He studied at the prestigious Lycée Condorcet in Paris. He showed a penchant for tomfoolery, something which caused him trouble at school and later made it hard for him to hold down a job. He became a pianist, working mostly as a jazz pianist at Pigalle, the famous red-light district. There he made his customers laugh each time he made a grimace. He studied acting for one year at the Simon acting school. It proved to be a waste of time except for his meeting with actor Daniel Gélin, who would become a close friend. In 1936, he married Germaine Louise Elodie Carroyer with whom he had a son, Daniel (1937). In 1942, they divorced. During the occupation of Paris in the Second World War, he continued his piano studies at a music school, where he fell in love with a secretary, Jeanne Barthelémy de Maupassant, a grandniece of the famous author Guy de Maupassant. They married in 1943 and remained together for forty years until De Funès' death in 1983. The pair had two sons: Patrick (1944) and Olivier (1947). Patrick became a doctor who practiced in Saint-Germain en Laye. Olivier was an actor for a while, known for the son roles in his father's films, including Le Grand Restaurant/The Big Restaurant (Jacques Besnard, 1966), Fantômas se déchaine/Fantomas Strikes Back (André Hunebelle, 1965) starring Jean Marais, Les Grandes Vacances/The Big Vacation (Jean Girault, 1967), and Hibernatus (Edouard Molinaro, 1969) with Claude Gensac as De Funès’ wife, a role she played in many of his films. Olivier later worked as an aviator for Air France Europe.
Through the early 1940s, Louis de Funès continued playing piano at clubs, thinking there wasn't much call for a short, balding, skinny actor. His wife and Daniel Gélin encouraged him to overcome his fear of rejection. De Funès began his show business career in the theatre, where he enjoyed moderate success. At the age of 31, thanks to his contact with Daniel Gélin, he made his film debut with an uncredited bit part as a porter in La Tentation de Barbizon/The Temptation of Barbizon (1945, Jean Stelli) starring Simone Renant. For the next ten years, de Funès would appear in fifty films, but always in minor roles, usually as an extra, scarcely noticed by the audience. Sometimes he had a supporting part such as in the Fernandel comedy Boniface somnambule/The Sleepwalker (Maurice Labro, 1951) and the comedy-drama La vie d'un honnête homme/The Virtuous Scoundrel (Sacha Guitry, 1953) starring Michel Simon. In the meanwhile, he pursued a theatrical career. Even after he attained the status of a film star, he continued to play theatre. His stage career culminated in a magnificent performance in the play Oscar, a role which he would later reprise in the film version of 1967. During this period, De Funès developed a pattern of daily activities: in the morning he did dubbing for recognized artists such as Renato Rascel and the Italian comic Totò, during the afternoon he worked in film, and in the theater in the evening. A break came when he appeared as the black-market pork butcher Jambier (another small role) in the well-known WWII comedy, La Traversée de Paris/Four Bags Full (Claude Autant-Lara, 1956) starring Jean Gabin and Bourvil. In his next film, the mediocre comedy Comme un cheveu sur la soupe/Crazy in the Noodle (Maurice Régamey, 1957), De Funès finally played the leading role. More interesting was Ni vu, ni connu/Neither Seen Nor Recognized (Yves Robert, 1958). He achieved stardom with the comedy Pouic-Pouic (Jean Girault, 1963) opposite Mireille Darc. This successful film guaranteed De Funès top billing in all of his subsequent films.
Between 1964 and 1979, Louis de Funès topped France's box office of the year's most successful films seven times. At the age of 49, De Funès unexpectedly became a superstar with the international success of two films. Fantômas (André Hunebelle, 1964) was France's own answer to the James Bond frenzy and lead to a trilogy co-starring Jean Marais and Mylène Demongeot. The second success was the crime comedy Le gendarme de Saint-Tropez/The Gendarme of St. Tropez (Jean Girault, 1964) with Michel Galabru. After their first successful collaboration on Pouic-Pouic, director Girault had perceived De Funès as the ideal actor to play the part of the accident-prone gendarme. The film led to a series of six 'Gendarme' films. De Funès's collaboration with director Gérard Oury produced a memorable tandem of de Funès with Bourvil, another great comic actor, in Le Corniaud/The Sucker (Gérard Oury, 1964). The successful partnership was repeated two years later in La Grande Vadrouille/Don't Look Now - We're Being Shot At (Gérard Oury, 1966), one of the most successful and the largest grossing film ever made in France, drawing an audience of 17,27 million. It remains his greatest success. Oury envisaged a further reunion of the two comics in his historical comedy La Folie des grandeurs/Delusions of Grandeur (Gérard Oury, 1970), but Bourvil's death in 1970 led to the unlikely pairing of de Funès with Yves Montand in this film. Very successful, even in the USA, was Les aventures de Rabbi Jacob/The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (Gérard Oury, 1973) with Suzy Delair. De Funès played a bigoted Frenchman who finds himself forced to impersonate a popular rabbi while on the run from a group of assassins. In 1975, Oury had scheduled to make Le Crocodile/The Crocodile with De Funès as a South American dictator, but in March 1975, the actor was hospitalised for heart problems and was forced to take a rest from acting. The Crocodile project was canceled.
After his recovery, Louis de Funès collaborated with Claude Zidi, in a departure from his usual image. Zidi wrote for him L'aile ou la cuisse/The Wing and the Thigh (Claude Zidi, 1976), opposite Coluche as his son. He played a well-known gourmet and publisher of a famous restaurant guide, who is waging a war against a fast-food entrepreneur. It was a new character full of nuances and frankness and arguably the best of his roles. In 1980, De Funès realised a long-standing dream to make a film version of Molière's play, L'Avare/The Miser (Louis de Funès, Jean Girault, 1980). In 1982, De Funès made his final film, Le Gendarme et les gendarmettes/Never Play Clever Again (Tony Aboyantz, Jean Girault, 1982). Unlike the characters he played, de Funès was said to be a very shy person in real life. He became a knight of France's Légion d'honneur in 1973. He resided in the Château de Clermont, a 17th-century monument, located in the commune of Le Cellier, which is situated near Nantes in France. In his later years, he suffered from a heart condition after having suffered a heart attack caused by straining himself too much with his stage antics. Louis de Funès died of a massive stroke in 1983, a few months after making Le Gendarme et les gendarmettes. He was laid to rest in the Cimetière du Cellier, the cemetery situated in the grounds of the château. Films de France: “Although fame was a long time coming, Louis de Funès is regarded today as not just a great comic actor with an unfaltering ability to make his audience laugh, but practically an institution in his own right. His many films bear testimony to the extent of his comic genius and demonstrate the tragedy that he never earned the international recognition that he certainly deserved.”
Sources: Steve Shelokhonov (IMDb), Films de France, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
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Man’s origin is essentially not natural, which can also be said about nature itself.
Spiritual and theistic world-views should be markedly different from materialistic and atheistic ones in each aspect of life: in eating, sleeping, walking but first of all in their views.
133. The aim of man’s activity in life can be the Absolutum or nothingness.
138. Sticking to the only-human leads not to remaining in the human sphere but to becoming sub-human. For persisting in something is to loose it: to loose that which was intended to be retained.
139. The one in whom the problems of life, consciousness and death do not arise cannot in the strictest sense of the word be regarded as a human being. Undoubtedly he looks like a man but in reality he is not.
140. If superhuman principles does not stand behind man’s intention of changing himself then he will not remain in the human state but descend to a subhuman condition.
141. Without aims going beyond life one does not only go in the wrong way but strictly speaking, one should not be called a man.
142. The one who is not able to live his life as a constant ascension, which attains its perfection in the period right before death, but from a certain age starts to descend, in reality abuses his life.
143. He who does not strive upwards, descends.
144. He who lets himself be taken by the current, is certain to follow the wrong path.
174. Without exception, everyone reaches their goals, if they really have these goals.
175. Man is always born in the place where he has to be born.
176. Man should arrange his external world forever so that it fits his inner world.
177. Between man’s inner world and the more increasingly chaotic surrounding external world there is a definite correspondence.
178. All that is somatic in man, that is, which is in connection with body and face, mainly expresses the past.
179. Resignation to one’s fate as well as revolt against one’s fate are lunar attitudes. A truly spiritual attitude aims at transcending fate: one does not resign and does not revolt, but by depriving fate from its importance transcends it.
188. Concerning metaphysical realisation every »must« refers only to the man who wants to do something with himself. The one who does not intend to do anything with himself, does not have to do anything.
190. In times past, one school, one sacred book, even one sentence of such a book was enough: through that everything could be reached. Today, if one wants to get back to the spirit, one has to surround oneself with several traditions, schools and trends.
191. The spiritual path even two thousand years ago was called the »narrow path«, or was compared to the edge of a sword. However, this path is not simply narrow, but is also getting narrower and more impassable. The »wide path«, on the contrary, which many people follow quite happily, is indeed a wayless way; a wide path, which is not a real path: it leads nowhere, to nothing, to death...
194. Whatever a man wants to reach he reaches. If it should not happen, it is because he is unable to want it.
195. He who wants to awake, awakes.
196. Not gaining initiation is never due to the fact that a man could not find an appropriate initiatory centre, but because he is not mature enough for initiation.
203. Every true ascent from below is an ascent controlled from above. I want to get higher for what is higher in me »calles for« what is lower in me.
204. The adequate and legitimate way of getting back to Heaven is well symbolized by the ladder of Jacob: getting back to Heaven is only possible by climbing up the ladder which descends from Heaven. The inadequate and illegitimate way is the story of the Tower of Babel: the ascent from the Earth necessarily leads to collapse and confusion of mind.
218. He who wants the Goal, should also want the means that lead to the Goal. For if he does not want the means leading to the Goal, he certainly does not want the Goal.
224. Man should not ensure reservations of darkness in his life.
244. By gaining power over consciousness man gains power over being.
245. While I do not have control over my circumstances I should at least try not to let circumstances have control over me.
293. Knowledge of the origin, knowledge of the path, knowledge of the all-transcending, ultimate goal: this is metaphysical tradition.
294. Tradition springs forth from the eternal, points at the eternal, and in the human modality of being represents the aspiration towards the eternal.
376. One has to accommodate himself to the modern world so that his powers will not wear him out - but not in the sense of bending and assimilating to it, but as a kind of acclimatisation; for he who gets acclimatised will not »serve« the climate but resists the climate.
377. Despite all its losing track, deterioration and dissipation, today’s world and the tendencies operating in it show one direction: the direction of nothingness.
404. As light magnetises certain insects, so spiritual darkness attracts the overwhelming majority of people.
405. Darkness can not be recognised by its declaring itself to be dark. Things can not be accepted at their nominal value. Most things are not what they say or what they show about themselves.
424. Man’s origin is essentially not natural, which can also be said about nature itself.
427. Everything that is against the supernatural also turns, sooner or later, against the natural.
513. Essentially each epoch is a state of consciousness - as is the Dark Age. They are historical periods only in the second place.
553. Though religion has developed in the period of Kali-yuga, it cannot be considered as the product of a darkening process, but rather as the reaction to it. Since prior to Kali-yuga man had lived in a circum-spiritual state, there was no necessity for a particular religion or rite.
567. The under-valuation of any religion entails the undermining of all religions including one’s own.
642. Problem-solving thinking is not real thinking, but only the intense degradation of thinking. The real thinking is creative thinking which means thinking at high intensity.
644. Thinking imbued with emotionality, which drifts toward a problem, is undoubtedly a kind of concentration: although not I am who concentrates, rather I am concentrated on.
660. There is no hierarchy in the Centre and from the Centre; but this is much more the case with the realisation of the Centre.
661. The grades in the sphere of beings are the grades of the withdrawal from the centre of being and the grades of the returning to the centre of being.
673. Quantitative aspects have no value at all, because value is, essentially, attached to quality.
676. Quantity is by the side of chaos.
755. The past has the strongest connection with neglecting. There is past because man continuously misses opportunities, he fails to collect and hold together the totality of being.
756. There is past because the presence of man in the present is not sufficient.
757. We have temporality because our experience of the present is not intense enough. If it were completely intense, there would be no temporality, the temporal present would absorb both past and future, and Time itself too.
The origin of Orient Watch Company dates back to 1901 when Shogoro Yoshida opened a wholesale shop called "Yoshida Watch Shop" in Ueno, Taito, Tokyo, Japan. In 1920, Toyo Tokei Manufacturing was established, originally producing table clocks and gauges. It was not until 1934 that Toyo Tokei Manufacturing started the production of wristwatches. Affected by the poor Japanese economy after World War II, the company shut down in 1949.
After Toyo Tokei Manufacturing was shut down, Yoshida’s wristwatch manufacturing company was reborn in 1950, founded under the name Tama Keiki Company. Tama Keiki Co., Ltd. continued manufacturing watches at the Hino Factory. Just one year later, in 1951, Tama Keiki Co., Ltd. changed its name to Orient Watch Co., Ltd., and in the same year the first Orient Star went on sale.
Photo: Thomas Ohlsson Photography
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