~aventures du louchette flâneurse: 49ème~

January 2nd, 2010

Working down to the bottom of my research list, we had an adventure on the outskirts of Paris, at Le Parc de Saint-Cloud. It spans over 460 hectares, and on the east end of the park at the Seine, was once the house purchased by Marie Antoinette, that delighted both Napoleon I and Napoleon III.

The chateau burned down in 1870 in the Franco-Prussian War, however the garden grounds including a steep escarpment overlooking Paris with landscaping by André Le Nôtre, remain. The two black/white photographs are of the chateau ruins, 1871, by Adolphe Braun.

Somehow the crumbling remains and the shattering ice suit each other. Alfonso skated rocks across the ice that made an incredible echo-y sound, like saints and clouds.