Archive for the 'People' Category

Bealach Na Ba

Bealach Na Ba, once the only road into the remote western shores town of Applecross. Now a ‘must ride’ road for those that prefer the two wheeled mode of transport. Think of the road like any country road around Wicklow, except on steroids. Oh and with a perfect surface. Oh and with no cow/sheep/pig shit in the middle of the road just as you carve through a bend at speed. Oh and… You get the idea. I’ll spare you from the ‘if we pay so much road tax, shouldn’t the roads be better’ rant.

Just like the panorama you’ve already seen except not a panorama. Next time we go up here, we’re bringing a picnic. Very entertaining watching the bikes sweep around the hairpin bends, followed by the cars almost having to perform three point turns to get around them. Not long before we started the climb up to the top, we all (six bikes) overtook a vintage truck crawling out of a nearby town. Some time later, and while standing at the top admiring the view, a local passed by in his car informing us there was an old truck coming up the road and if we wanted to ride the rest of the road in style (my words, not his), now was the time to leave. I was quite tempted to hang about and see exactly how someone in a 30ft long truck was planning on negotiating the switchbacks. My guess; Slowly.

So you get down to Applecross eventually and you do what pretty much everyone else does. You go to the Applecross Inn for lunch. The above is taken from the car park of the Inn. Apparently rooms are expensive but from what I can see, they’re worth it. The problem now is that as Bealach Na Ba is the only good way into Applecross, it’s also presumably the only good way out. You can travel back the way you came or as we did, you head north about 13 miles, then east about 11 miles until you get back to an A road.

When we came back to Dublin, I checked the price of land and/or houses in the area. Although I think I’d have to change career; I take it there isn’t much in the way of demand for network engineers up there.

Published on May 13, 2012 in Landscape, People, Scotland, Video and X100. 2 Comments

Bluebell Hunt

In Cork two weekends in a row (a rare treat) and the promise was made to seek out some bluebells to photograph. Currabinny woods has nealy always been a good spot, something I believe I pointed out on the morning we were setting out to go and take some photos. Without knowing I’d already jinxed the operation completely. Although there were bluebells, there was nowhere near the amount I’ve seen in previous years. So instead, I contented myself with using the remaining frames on the roll of God knows what that was in the A-1 while Julie tried to make the most of it.

When the film counter rolled past 24 with no sign of it stopping, I imagined that the loaded film (which had been in the camera for months by now) was a lovely roll of black & white. Just the ticket for bluebell photography. So I pretty much rattled off the remainder of the roll. I shot the sky, trees, the ground, Julie, grass, more sky. You get the idea. Having rewound the completed roll, it was a nice surprise to open the camera and find a 36 exposure roll of ‘that expired film’ staring back at me.

My distaste for scanning is intact and as such, expect to see spots, lines, hairs and other foreign bodies lurking in the scanned negatives above. It’s only the very special photos these days that get the full spit polish in lightroom. Again the DSLR sat in the bag and the above is a product of my two (and only) gorgeous lenses for the A-1; the 50 ƒ1.8 and the 135 ƒ2. There is a shopping list but it’s better not to explore that too much in case my bank balance gets wind of it and goes into hiding. Let’s just leave it by saying there’s a couple of ƒ1.2′s on there. Or, if I was feeling extra flush, maybe one of those ƒ0.95′s you don’t really see many of anymore.

I could go on and spitball at length about how my love of the FD lenses has led me onto the notion of selling an unused EF lenses and buying a Sony NEX-5N but then I’d just be waffling. And that wouldn’t be like me…

Published on April 30, 2012 in Canon 135 f2, Canon 50, Canon A-1, Cork, Film, Macro and People. 0 Comments

The Proving Grounds

IMMA has become more or less that; A place to bring new or recently dusted off camera gear for a stroll around the grounds. No cat photos and not a focus chart in sight. Just a few from this visit before I drag and drop the set into the abyss that is the 2011 archive.

Published on January 30, 2012 in Black and White, Dublin, Macro, People and X100. 0 Comments

Day 7; Reims

Leading with a photo this time, this was taken on the way to Reims when I pulled over to get out of the wind for a minute. I will admit to the two nights in Reims being somewhat of a backup plan, the original plan was to stay a night or two in the nearby town of Épernay and spend much of the time rolling between champagne houses. Having looked at the prices of hotels in the area (and picking my jaw up off the floor), Reims became the new plan A. By now the full on ‘not doing anything because I’m on holiday damn it’ mode was in full swing and as such, the photography took a back seat. In fact I should probably just name this post ‘Day 7; Reims Cathedral’ because that’s pretty much all we did on our first day in Reims. We walked around the city, ate, drank and generally didn’t do that would make a very interesting blog post.

The hotel was only a few minutes walk from the cathedral, in an out of the way, middle of a residential area kind of place. It was only a few minutes off the motorway and through a very straightforward series of junctions and sat nav directions. Chosen for it’s safe underground parking, the proximity to the cathedral and the city center was a nice surprise. So as you may have assumed already, we discovered the cathedral. It was nice to get inside the cavernous, cool building on a day that must have been in the low to mid 30′s temperature wise. Definitely one of the hottest and most extreme sun days we’d experienced during the holiday.

So the stitching on the vertical panorama above may not be perfect but it gives some sense of the scale of the building. Just ignore the sheared stone column and the half a tourist propelling himself along without any legs. I had considered asking everyone in front of me to stay perfectly still for 20 seconds but I wasn’t sure how well that would be received. After our first experience of Reims in the Cathedral, we wandered aimlessly into what appeared to be the city center and ate a wonderful al fresco dinner in what appeared to be the busiest bar/restaurant in the city. Some more wandering to work off the full stomachs turned into a general meander in the direction of the hotel as the night drew in rapidly around us.

Something we hadn’t expected, when crossing Rue Libergier, was to see swarms of people heading in the direction of the cathedral. Curiosity drew us in their direction and it was immediately apparent what the attraction was.

If I’d thought about it some more, instead of concentrating on the show in front of me, I’d have actually got the settings on the camera right. Maybe I would have even managed to shoot some vide. Several high powered projectors lit up the front of the cathedral and performed a very impressive light show set to music. I remembered seeing this effect on other buildings around the world but up to now had only ever witnessed it on youtube or elsewhere on the internet. Speaking of which, you can watch the entire nearly half hour light show thanks to some intrepid youtuber here as long as you can handle the hand held shaky camera thing. Best to watch in 1080p in full screen if your broadband and/or computer will allow you. This youtube user has just a snippet of the show but managed to get to the front of the crowd with a tripod. It was amazing.

With the smug sense of feeling like we’d accomplished something of cultural value (or at least I did), we headed back to the hotel to snack on the sweet stuff we’d bought in Riquewihr before departing.

Published on October 31, 2011 in France, Macro, People and X100. 1 Comment

Day 6; Riquewihr

I suppose technically that’s not true, given that we arrived in Riquewihr on the afternoon of day 5. For the sake of continuity, lets imagine all these wonderful events took place on day 6. Riquewihr is a strange place, it didn’t quite match up with the photos and descriptions I’d seen of it before we arrived. It’s as if Disneyland suddenly became a working farm. Or perhaps like a long forgotten set piece from “The Sound of Music” was just suddenly dropped in the middle of rural France. It’s a walled town, or at least the part that’s inside the wall is. It seems to expand far beyond the wall in at least two directions, every other direction is taken up with vast grapevines. Everything has taken a decidedly German feel about it. From the buildings to the food even to the people (no, I’m not counting the masses of German tourists). It seems to be a very hard working town intent on fulfilling the requirements of only one industry; Wine.

The winding D road that brought us up to the town was lined for miles with fields of sun drenched vines, a sight and smell that will linger in my memory. The entire portion of the walled town is cobbled and I admit to being more than a little puzzled on how best to attack it on the bike, given that our hotel was right in the middle of it. The whole thing is very pedestrian focused, I suppose that can’t really be helped with the amount of tourists that are still around at this stage in September.

Of course at this stage I hadn’t seen how the locals do it. Pretty much just take the most direct route to the destination and the tourists will move. So I found a slightly less busy side street and after some twists and turns down cobbled lanes, we were at the hotel unloading the bike. This was another two night stop so pretty much all the luggage was stripped off and brought up the stone spiral staircase to our room in Hotel de la Couronne. As you can well imagine, there was plenty of exploring. Julie donned her best stripey jumper to fit in with the locals and we were off out amongst the madness and grapes.

Yes, I think I’ve already mentioned there were some grapes in the area. This was taken only about a 5 minute walk from the hotel. It wasn’t hard to find photogenic grapevines in the area. Turns out it was a lot harder to find a can of coke in the area but the less said about that the better in case I launch into yet another long-winded rant. On that, I still hadn’t fully gotten the whole ‘small French town’ thing. Despite Riquewihr being a tourist attraction and having numerous hotels, there wasn’t a convenience store to be had after about 6 or 7pm. The odd evening I take a mad notion for a bottle of coke and it’s been known for me to quaff the odd bottled or canned beer after a hard days touristing. No. Not here. Even the only bar in the town closed at an palette-dryingly early hour. I still hadn’t learned to stock up during the day, as if there was some storm or mythical creature roaming the streets at night that delighted on poking fun at those who found themselves thirsty. Ok, I’m done.

Yes, the town is nice, there’s no denying that. It’s even relatively quiet for such a tourist attraction. Having said that, I’m sure a lot of the visitors were on day trips because at night, it cleared out considerably. So we found somewhere to have our dinner and perched ourselves on the plastic patio chairs in the courtyard of one of the numerous restaurants in the town, all of which seemed to be serving the same food anyway. Julie’s fine as long as there’s something with chicken on the menu. My many attempts to have her try something a little more adventurous have failed up to this point. I can’t remember what I ate on the first night but I’m sure it was something fantastic. Not memorable in the slightest but fantastic all the same.

Day 6, the actual day 6 mind you, started with not knowing where the hell we were going to go get breakfast. We settled (Julie went ‘ooh’ and I wasn’t too bothered either way) on a place pretty much right across from the hotel and had the standard French breakfast consisting of bread, preserves, croissant, orange juice and bad coffee. It is worth noting however that the coffee here was better than any of the previous attempts. Satisfied, we set out back on the same grapevine lined road to find something suitably German sounding in the middle of the French countryside. After a fill of extortionately priced fuel from an unmanned station in the next town over, we found Chateau du Haut-Kœningsbourg. No, I still haven’t figured out how to do the thing over the A in Chateau. It wasn’t really hard to spot the site, it’s nestled high in the mountains overlooking the town in which I’d just been swearing at petrol pumps. When we did finally get up there after yet more impressive switchback turns, the view was quite something.

Just before this was taken, there was a mass of white fluffy cloud obscuring the view. As it moved off to the left I tried in vain to get a photo of it. Needless to say, it didn’t come out as expected. It looked nice anyway, take my word for it. I don’t have any way of accurately describing the size of the castle/Chateau/whatever you want to call it. I’ll just have to settle on ‘feckin huge’.

By the time we had finished all the climbing throughout the many staircases and hallways in the Chateau, we found ourselves in one of the turrets, surrounded by cannons, catapults and other bits & pieces that seemed as if their days of intentionally causing harm was over. Just unintentional these days, having witnessed another tourist stub his toe on one of the smaller canons cast iron wheels. The entire turret was a quite impressive wooden construction, very open and airy. Especially when I walked close to the edge and you could see directly down to the ground many, many feet below. The turret windows did offer views as impressive as the one I posted above in pretty much all directions. Sadly, some of the castle was under repair at the time we visited so you’ll just have to imagine the below photo without the scaffolding or the crane peeking out.

It was the perfect day to visit, slightly misty rain when we arrived and fine when we left. After risking a hernia pushing the bike out of the space I’d parked it in (still haven’t entirely learned to always park facing out), we set off back down the mountain towards Riquewhir. So back down the switchbacks, through the forest and past all that wonderful scenery that I seemed to be growing accustomed to at an alarming rate. Would there be withdrawal symptoms when we left? Hmm…

Back on that same old grapevine lined D road and Julie wanted an excuse to practice her French. Well, it was more a means to an end. I’m sure if you’ve already read her blog post you’ll know where I’m going with this. There were dozens of people out harvesting grapes, big yellow buckets, tractors, jumpers on fenceposts. That kind of thing. Meanwhile, I took the more sedate and less challenging route of photographing an object that I didn’t have to ask permission of and that doesn’t usually talk back.

It was warm. If I didn’t know any better I’d have thought there was a huge storm rolling in. After pictures of friendly farmers had been taken, we returned to the hotel for a much needed afternoon break. Well, and to get out of the heat for a bit. Being Irish on the continent is a hard job. We’re just not built for this kind of weather. So back out into the streets of Riquewihr and while mumbling things like “Ohh I’m not sure” and “I don’t know if I can pull it off”, we wandered into the outlet shop for one of the towns wineries. After tasting some of the recommended wines (almost like we knew what we were doing) and being the uncultured swines that we are and not spitting out the mouthful of wine after tasting (woo, free wine!), we settled on three bottles to bring home with us. Three bottles which sit in the cupboard, waiting for a ‘special occasion’. Much like the bottle of Tattinger champagne that’s sat in the fridge for the last 2 years waiting for a similar occasion. We’re going to have to come up with something to celebrate fairly soon.

Some more farting about looking at tourist tat shops and eating ice-cream ensued after the traumatic wine buying session and before long we were settling back to looking for a place for dinner. As the evening drew in and visitor numbers in the town began to drop, we took a seat on the verandah of a restaurant around the corner from the hotel. Hell, pretty much everything was ‘around the corner from’ or ‘across the street from’ the hotel in this place. It’s not like you could get too lost. Being the sometimes adventurous sort that I am, I went for something new; Chocroute. Back to the uncultured swine thing, I’d never before seen or even heard of this seemingly wonderful sounding dish. What appeared some minutes later was a veritable feast of meat, potatoes and more sauerkraut than one man could (or should) possibly eat in a single sitting.

Having had my fill of sausage (careful now), I pushed aside the remaining sauerkraut for fear that the amount of it I’d already eaten would make my innards rise up against me and stage some kind of overnight coup while I was sleeping. It was then and only then that I noticed a strange sight across the road from the restaurant. I’ve already said that Riquewhir is very much a wine town, a farming town. So no surprise that it’d be inhabited by a French version of the farmers we have in Ireland. So imagine if you will, the sight of an Irish farmer in his early 40′s off out for a drink after a hard day in the fields. He’d have a pint of stout of course. Maybe a pint of Smithwicks or something similar. While his French counterpart, looking much the same, is holding a decorative glass full of red wine. Ok so maybe it looked funnier than it’s coming across here. I just tried to imagine ‘the boys’ in any rural Ireland town going for a few drinks after all the daily chores are done and choosing a nice cold glass of pinot noir.

The chilled red wine thing threw both of us. After some investigation it appears to be the norm in Alsace but the first time we thought the staff in the restaurant were having a laugh at the tourists. Again with the uncultured swine thing. That’s coming up all too often I fear.

We packed up to leave the next morning after having breakfast in the same spot and I had to fight off the urges to take the scenic route back through the mountains. This is an area we will almost certainly be back to, although we may pick our hotel a little more carefully next time. The Vosges are amazing (as you’ve seen in the last post) and the many small towns in the foothills are picturesque and thankfully, full of accommodation. It’s to be expected of course, given the alternative route from Thann to Riquewihr and beyond is the famous ‘Route du Vin’. The next stop is Reims, another city I’m not even going to attempt to pronounce properly.

Published on October 23, 2011 in France, Landscape, People and X100. 0 Comments

Day 5; Route Des Cretes

After getting out of the road works mess that was Dijon (twice – long story), I decided to give the scenic route a miss in favour of getting to the mountains early in the day. So it was a couple of hours on the motorway instead. I’d never been this far east in France before and it was starting to feel more and more like Germany with every passing mile. German, Belgian and Austrian cars, trucks and motor homes outnumbered French registered cars by a not insignificant percentage. To cut what could be a long, boring story quite short, the motorway was long and boring. The most eventful part of which was me deciding to take my gloves off an hour or so out of Thann to enjoy the heat and sunshine. More on that later.

So the ‘little town of Thann’ which I can only assume is an ironic name came and went. Then it came and went again a few more times before all the wrong turns and GPS burps were worked out. We got on the right road, out of the town. How did I know it was the right road you ask? Well, because it was at a 45 degree angle of course. We climbed and climbed, then we climbed some more. The dense tree cover on the roads had the GPS in a poor mental state. I think the order was something like, climb climb climb, switchback, climb, motor home, switchback, climb, motor home, car, motor home. After only about 5 minutes it was picnic time. We stopped in a shaded spot and much to the disgust of a few somewhat dodgy looking French people in a motor home, proceeded to eat the food we’d bought just down the road. They looked miffed and threw the odd dirty glance over at us as they prepared their picnic table outside the door of their motor home. The wine came out, then the cheese, then the bread. A traditional French affair. Then some other mad stuff. I was half expecting a guy in a stripy jumper to appear out of the depths of the picnic basket and sing me a song of ennuyeux.

Onward and most definitely upward. Several more switchbacks and we passed Grand Ballon at an altitude of 1423 meters. The road which up to now had been thickly tree lined opened out into a landscape so vast and impressive, I almost automatically pulled over to the side of the road just to take it in.

This was the first of the European mountain passes I’ve been on and while not as high or as long as some of the Alps, it was amazing. I only realised after the fact that I really didn’t take many photos. I was far too busy either staring open mouthed at the peaks and valleys or enjoying throwing the bike around the numerous randomly placed switchbacks. It instantly gave me a taste for more. I knew right away that the Alps will be the next European adventure. It was perhaps fortuitous that we came here when we did. The traffic was quite light (or at least lighter than I had expected) and the weather was absolutely perfect. The sometimes blustery wind wasn’t even putting off some of the hardened cyclists that were fighting their way up the impossibly steep hills as we thundered by them.

I did find myself wishing I wasn’t on such a fully laden bike on the way down. It was possibly as much the fault of my relative lack of experience being back in the saddle as it was the weight on the bike, but I just couldn’t bring myself to fully throw the bike into the corners. The fear of one of the large aluminum cases grounding was ever present. If that happened, we would almost certainly be next seen sliding sideways into an unforgiving tree.

So we stopped at one stage near the top of one of the peaks and it had gotten rather cold. Gloves had to go back on. Only now I noticed that riding without sunblock on my hands for the last couple of hours had graced me with large red rectangles of sunburn. Lovely. Pretty much like something I did the last time I was in France. Over the next few days that’d linger just long enough to remind me to keep my bloody gloves on at all times in future. We pulled in every now and then and reminders of the changing weather were all around us. Most often in the form of ski lift cables overhead. It wasn’t hard to spot some of the spots that would be ski slopes in a few short months when the barriers go down over the roads and the whole mountain range turns into a resort. After what seemed like only a few minutes we arrived at the end of the route at Saint Marie Aux Mines. I’d have happily turned back around and headed in the direction of Thann. Only to turn back around on reaching Thann and return here. Repeat as necessary. Next time.

From Saint Marie to Riquewihr and a few more twisties and impossibly well cambered corners along the way. Bloody hell. Wicklow county council, resurface the Sally Gap quick.

Published on October 11, 2011 in France, Landscape, People and X100. 2 Comments

Days 3 & 4; In transit to Dijon

Given the amount of ground we were covering, there were always going to be a couple of ‘down’ days. Days where the aim of the game was to get to the next 2 night stop and get to places where we’d already researched the area. From Maison Laudiere to Dijon is roughly 580km, not an impossible or outlandish distance to do in a day but for the sake of Julie’s sanity and my aging bones (and that it’s been a while since I did big mileage days on a bike), we planned to take an overnight pit stop in Troyes and do the remaining relatively short distance into Dijon the following morning. Troyes is a city that I refuse to pronounce correctly. From what Julie discovered, it seems it’s correctly pronounced much like the number three; i.e. “trois”. No, sorry, I’m going to keep calling it Troyes. As in multiple wooden horses.

Having no route in mind was probably a mistake. All I really wanted to do was avoid most of the motorways (and huge toll charges) on the way. We took mostly back roads thanks to the GPS (which at this stage I became sure was trying to kill us) and tried to find Chateau d’O, alas without success. That’s one we’ll have to add for the next trip over. Sign posts people, put up sign posts. We stopped in Sées briefly to orientate ourselves without much success. Oddly enough, Sées is the seemingly small town that my motorbikes saddle had been manufactured in some months previous. I’d brought it home, even if just for a few short minutes. Failing to find d’O, we put Chartres in as a destination. The objective now was just keep heading east.

We had the opportunity to see a huge vase. Bloody massive. Julie’s boss told her she should go see it. I can’t remember where it was but we passed a roundabout on the way into a town that had what must have been a replica of it in the middle. As far as I was concerned, that was us seeing it. That was further reinforced when we were riding by the place it was housed. Dozens of coaches filled with bored looking French school kids, dragged in to see this thing like we were all dragged in to see similarly ‘awesome’ and ‘educational’ stuff in Ireland. No ta, on we go.

On reaching Chartres, it seems it wasn’t so much a town as a whopping great city. Balls. I don’t much like riding around in unfamiliar cities. Countryside is fine, small towns no problem. I just don’t tend to do too well in big cities that I have no direction bearing or final destination in mind for. We fought our way through the city until Julie spotted a quiet place beside the Ibis hotel for food. Funnily enough, an Irish pub. Predictably enough, it was about as Irish as well, a not very Irish thing. They did however have a great old photo of a group of workers outside the Beamish brewery in Cork though. Lunch consisted of mystery meat we were told was ‘poulet’. I doubt it. If anything, I’d have said it was meatloaf. I didn’t really give it a second though, my past frequent trips to Spain (and not speaking Spanish, therefore unable to decipher menus) has taught me that whatever the locals eat probably won’t kill you. It might make you wish you were dead and give cause to have a freshly refrigerated toilet roll, but you’ll probably survive.

Chartres came and went and Fontainebleu came and went. Well, after a diversion around some road works that brought us through an amazing and unexpected piece of forest. It felt odd riding around within a couple of hours reach of Paris and not venturing up to see the city again. We had already decided that Paris was best left to another trip, one where we can fly in and fly back out without wondering how much stuff we can carry home.

A few wrong turns and some swearing at the GPS later, we arrived in Troyes. Good timing really, the light was just beginning to fade and come night fall, the wrong turns and subsequent swearing at the GPS would have increased a hundred fold. I should have taken the opportunity early on to explain that the maps on my GPS are over three years old at this stage and so are completely befuddled by new roundabouts, changes to junctions and pretty much any modifications to the road system. We got into the hotel, a rather standard cookie cutter Mercure and after some swift peeling off of sticky bike gear, we made our way to the restaurant. We’d only been in France a few days but our proficiency at ordering food and generally communicating in French seemed to be increasing every day. The amount of wild hand gestures and ‘drinky drinky’ motions I was making had decreased to a satisfactory level, thankfully.

Pretty big day in the saddle, a bit over 400km. I don’t know exactly how Julie was doing with it but I was starting to feel the stiffness and general ‘sitting in one position for too long’ feelings. I was also getting tiny pangs of guilt for not using the camera at all today given some of the amazing countryside we were in. But I suppose as I said above, there were always going to be down days. Days where the objective is just to get from A to D via interesting points B and C. Thankfully, the next day’s ride south into Dijon was going to be a shorter one, only about 170km.

We set off early so we’d get to our nights destination at a reasonable time. The chosen spot for this stay was Hotel Le Sauvage and after negotiating the third circle of hell which was the road works that had most of the outer city dug into a state of post apocalyptic bliss, we arrived. The photo says it all. I opened the window in the room to look out on the courtyard and was greeted by what seemed to be half grapevine, half berries. No idea what kind of berries and I wasn’t about to taste one to figure it out. The hotel was reasonably cheap and very well situated; in the red light district.

Or at least that’s what we were told. If it’s true, I guess Dijon doesn’t have a very lucrative or exciting sex trade. We were surrounded by a good variety of restaurants and only a 10 minute meandering walk from what appeared to be the city center. After Julie got some of the ‘spicy bread’ she had told me about (Pain D’epice), we found lunch. Hell, it was so good I would have found it twice more if the kitchen hadn’t been closing.

We wandered the city until dinner time then surveyed menus on our way back to the hotel, recoiling in horror at what some places appeared to be serving. Mice? Really?!? No, not really. Holiday kinda stuff really. Nothing I need burden you with now that you’ve fought your way past that epic monolith of text above.

Dijon really is a beautiful city. The weather was perfect for sitting around in the park watching the world go by, for walking down the narrow streets finding (at least in Julie’s eyes) interesting architecture (I wouldn’t know an art nouveau from the back end of a bus) and for following little metal birds set into the pavement at regular intervals. It’s not my fault, the damn birds appeared to be pointing at something. It seemed a shame that we only had a short time in Dijon and alas, I never even got to try lapin a la moutarde. Neither did I get to try moutarde au lapin. I’m reliably informed (by a postcard) that both are marvelous. Having said that, I think we saw a nice slice of the city and got out before we were hanging around wondering what to do with our time.

In a rare event, postcards that were promised before we left were actually purchased. What’s even more strange is that they were written and had stamps placed upon them. No, I didn’t have anything to do with this process. My usual method for acquiring and distributing postcards is to buy them in the airport/ferry terminal on the way home and hand them to people on my return. Unwritten of course. Julie, as always, was as good as her word and set about documenting the previous few days of our trip in detail to several different people. Yes, even my family.

So another couple of days down and the feeling I had before arriving that I had been on the holiday just to get to our next destination had vanished. I think I left it somewhere near Mont Saint Michel on the evening we returned there (yes, just before the bat incident). We were on our way to the ‘little town of Thann’, at least that’s the description I had read on a website somewhere. The start, or end depending on how you look at it, of the route des cretes. Forget the freebie back roads, this was a 230km blast down the motorway to keep traveling time to a minimum.

From the winds of the Loire valley on our way to Troyes to almost running out of fuel on our way to Dijon, it had been an interesting trip. Julie’s first experience of leaning at a steep angle into the wind while going 80mph and being wildly buffeted about by passing trucks. Who says biking is all relaxation and not thinking you’re possibly going to die at any moment?

As usual, I’ve been beaten to the punch posting about the trip. You can read Julie’s account (and marvel at her far more impressive photos) on her blog post.

Published on September 27, 2011 in France, Landscape, People and X100. 0 Comments

Camden Again

I will eventually round up the photos from the Cork photowalk a couple of weeks ago. This is the last of them, another visit to Camden with the rest of the gang this time. It’s pretty much the same up there, although with the notable exception of several new rooms now being open to the public. Most of these rooms were hosting an art exhibition but there were one or two that were bare, as pictured above.

Although not very visible in the shot, the majority of the floor space in this room was converted into a shallow pool with several tiny boats doing laps. Yes, I thought the reflection was more interesting than the boats and chose to compose and expose accordingly.

Other than that, Fort Camden is as it was from our last visit so there’s no major updates. They did open one of the piers at the end of the impossibly long (and quite steep) staircase though and it is nice to see the place further developing. We were all treated to sunshine again for our morning at the fort, rounding off the Cork photowalk nicely. When those snowy winter months roll in I’ll have to start putting together some thoughts for Cork Photowalk 2012. Thanks to all that attended, great to see some new faces and of course equally great to see all the regulars. Hope you all enjoyed the day (and a half) out.

The full set from the photowalk is available on Pix.ie and Flickr

Published on August 26, 2011 in Black and White, Cork, Event, Landscape, Macro, People, Photowalk and X100. 2 Comments

Donadea

As if an excuse was needed to bring the bike out for a spin on a somewhat pleasant Sunday, we ended up at Donadea forest, as did much of the rest of Kildare as it turned out. No sooner had we walked into the park than I was bitten by something very large and orange coloured yet even fearing an almost certain agonising death I soldiered on to put some 1′s and 0′s on the memory card. It turned out to be a lovely day down there and the threat of rain was just that and nothing more. Of course, every time you go to the woods, a wood elf jumps into the frame and completely throws off your auto focus. Inevitable.

X100 use update for anyone that’s interested; I’ve forgotten where my 5D is…

Published on August 8, 2011 in Kildare, Landscape, People and X100. 1 Comment

The English Market

As much as I’d like to have a witty title, those that know me will know I’m anything but. A little appetite whetting in advance of the Cork photowalk thats taking place later this month. This, as the title suggests, is the English Market in the center of the city. A wealth of food, drink and some clothing can be found inside along with some more obscure outlets. I’ve always had a soft spot for the market and when living in Cork it was one of my regular haunts.

It’s just the spot to enjoy a sausage in a bap (I’m hesitant to call it a ‘hot dog’ as essentially what you’re getting is a half pound of meat in a soft roll) while sitting on the fountain (pictured right) and afterward sipping a coffee and lazily flicking through a newspaper while watching the world go by.

Of course you can also get the nights dinner while you’re there with plenty of butchers and a couple of grocers available. One of the more recent additions is a purveyor of fine cakes. Well, recent to me given how often I get to wander around in here nowadays. Along with the sausages and the coffee, I was particularly taken with some miniature pickled gherkins for sale at one of the stalls (pictured below). I have it on good authority that the same stall does fine olives and numerous other pickled and not so pickled items.

Speaking of pickled, it’s just a stones throw away from the Mutton Lane Inn, somewhere I hope to visit after the successful completion of the first days photowalking.

The market is a Cork institution and always seems to have as many tourists with cameras strolling around as it does locals fighting their way around for supplies.

Worth a walk by if only for the sights, sounds & smells. Don’t miss the fish section for some outlandish stuff and no matter what happens, don’t miss the seemingly daily show of tripe sales at one of the Grand Parade exits. For anyone that doesn’t want to google it, tripe is stomach lining. The sight of it doesn’t make me gag as much as it used to, but every now and then…

If you haven’t read up on the Cork photowalk, follow the link above. We’re going to be taking in Spike Island (the former jail in Cork harbour), some finer points in the city and Fort Camden the next day. All are welcome.

Published on August 4, 2011 in Black and White, Cork, People and X100. 1 Comment