Picardie, France: bike trip

I went in  july to Picardie for the day. I took the train and I biked 40K.

I wanted to see Saint-germer-de-fly's abbey, an impressive gothic building. 

Coming back to the station I passed trough Givors, and I sketched the Castle.

Santorini, Greece

I spent some days in Santorini. 

I had mixed feelings about this place : It is really very beautiful and super interesting, but massive tourism can be a real turn off.

Anyway the highlights were : the cities hanging over the cliff (Oia & Thira), the amazing archeological site Akrotiri (probably the Atlantis), the volcanic landscape.....and of course the food.

(These are some of my first attempts to use watercolor....it is very difficult to get it right).

Zeus' Temple in Athens

These ruins are extremely appealing. You can spot them from the Acropolis and you immediately wonder how to get there to get a closer look.

The construction of the Zeus Temple took almost 700 year to be completed. It was the Roman emperor Hadrian who ordered it to be finished. One century later it was pillaged and never repaired. In the following centuries it was used as a quarry for the construction of other buildings.

The size of the remaining columns give us an idea of the massive dimensions of the original temple. 

Temple of Hephaestus, Athens Greece

This is,  probably, the best preserved Greek temple in Greece (Italians claim that in Sicily they are better preserved).

It's located in the Agora of Athens. The first time I saw it was from the Acropolis (the first photo). It immediately caught my attention, so after the Acropolis visit I went down to draw this wonder.

Acropolis, Athens

During my years as an architecture student the acropolis was described, by my teachers, as this mythical place where architects go on a pilgrimage to discover its secret wonders.

Many things were said about it :

- the position of the different buildings are placed in order to have a complete vision of two of the façades from the entrance (Propulaea);

- the perfection of the proportions (golden proportions);

- the deformations of the volumes are made in order to "correct" the visual perspective;

- the shortened distance of the space between the columns of the corners.

I just wandered around and sat to contemplate this "must go place" : I wasn't disappointed. The Acropolis has a massive presence in the city, and it is very impressive when you walk around it.

Mont Saint Michel

Last weekend we went to Brittany and Normandy. One of the highlights in the region is Mont Saint Michel.

When we visited it, the tide was low, and many people  were walking in organized tours around it.

To reach the place there are two options : you can take a shuttle or you can walk, because cars are not allowed in the area anymore.

Walking is a better alternative, because you can gradually get immersed in this very peculiar huge area where the sea, when the tide is high, is present. The view of the Mont Saint Michel is impressive.

Place des Vosges

Today we went to Place des Vosges to visit Victor Hugo's museum, which is located in one of the apartments of this square.

Place des Vosges is a stunning Middle Ages square in "Le Marais", Paris, that measures 140 x 140 meters . It was originally know as "la Place Royale" and it was King Henri IV who commissioned its construction in the sixteen hundreds.

Back in time, Knights tournaments were organized here. Today Parisians enjoy the grassy patches and kids play football around.

I sketched one of the main pavilions (of the Queen or the King, I don't know...) which rises above the main skyline of the square and connects this space to a street through an arched gate.

Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, Paris

This is one of the most popular streets in "Le Marais", one of the nicer neighborhoods in Paris.

"Le Marais" means the Swamp, just because it used to be one (in the Roman era). There are some buildings from the Middle Ages and I drew one of these.

You can see that the old buildings are distorted because of the swampy terrain. 

Le Corbusier  had a plan to destroy this place and replace it with "hygienic" buildings : the infamous "Plan Voisin".  This plan would have been a complete disaster for the city, and buildings like this would be thing of the past.

Just check the plan here

Grande Galerie de l'évolution, Paris

I went to the "jardin des plantes" to visit one of their museums last weekend.: "la grande galerie de l'évolution".

It was built in 1889 and after the WWII started declining because of lack of maintenance. It was almost closed for security reasons in the 60's, but a large public campaign saved it from the ruin.

It was reopened and restored in 1994 by Paul Chemetov and Borja Huidobro (a Chilean architect!).

The exhibition is quite good, but the building itself is worth the visit: an immense canopy of glass, steel structure and old wooden book shelves.