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Château & Co.

Chateau de Chillon

The Chillon Castle (Château de Chillon) is located on the shore of Lake Geneva near Montreux, Switzerland. The castle consists of 25 independent buildings that were gradually connected and now form a single whole.

The oldest parts of the castle have not been definitively dated, but the first written record of the castle is in 1160 or 1005.

(Wikipedia)

And since then, there have been many additions and reconstructions on this Château de Chillon (official site) that’s the topic of today’s photo collection.

As with the flowers yesterday, you can also view all the photos in the Flickr set in the same medium size (and click to get the large size, of course), whereas I’m using different sizes here and add a few words, too. If it’s too much at once, if you’d prefer more small thumbnails or, on the contrary, more larger photos, please speak up…

After the wide-angle view above, let’s have a look from northwest and southeast:

Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon

And now with a ship in the front – and the ugly stilted highway in the back; as well as from 300m higher and with maximum tele zoom (and post-processing to remove the haze):

Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon

Let’s get inside – across the bridge that replaced the drawbridge in the 18th century:

Chateau de Chillon

A few looks into and from the courts (not in the order of the tour):

Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon

Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon

Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon

The gothic cellar vault, part-time jail, and a cellar with a small opening in the top:

Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon

There was a photo exhibition in the coat of arms hall, and I was glad I had that wide-angle lens in the chapel:

Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon

State-of-the-art cooking equipment and the latest in men’s fashion can also be found in the castle:

Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon

On the left a mechanism for the drawbridge or the gate, on the right the view tall people like me (1.90m = 6 ft 3 in) get in many places without bending down:

Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon

A bed, a chair that doesn’t look very comfortable, and a 15th century coffered ceiling:

Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon

An old wall painting, a barred passageway, and a crenel made for firearms:

Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon

Two pictures combined with HDR tone mapping (which I have yet to practice…) from photos with varying exposure:

Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon

And at the end panoramic views from the keep, the highest tower, to the northwest and southeast – and downwards:

Chateau de Chillon Chateau de Chillon

Chateau de Chillon

On December 4…

Smoke on the water – and over an entire city…

A few numbers: 1944: 282, 246246, 1200 → 62, 6500, 1000, 10.

What do these numbers mean, you ask?

Aerial photo of Heilbronn On 4 December 1944, 282 British bombers dropped in one of the most severe air raids of World War II 246246 bombs with a total weight of about 1200 tonnes on Heilbronn – where I was born and lived for a long time –, destroying 62% of the city and killing presumably 6500 people, inluding about 1000 children under the age of 10.

:thumbsdown:

And the umpteen millions of other victims of this war should not be left unmentioned…

(Numbers from Wikipedia.)

Oh, and on 4 Dec 1971, the casino in Montreux burned down during a Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention concert, inspiring Deep Purple to Smoke on the Water.

Fateful day…

Even though the following is just copied from Wikipedia I wanted to mention it, just like other bloggers (and probably many news sites)… isn’t of no importance, y’see:

Schicksalstag (literally day of fate) is a label often used for 9 November due to the special importance of this day in German history. The term was occasionally used by historians and journalists since shortly after World War II, but its current widespread use started with the events of 1989 when virtually all German media picked up the term.

There are 5 major events in German history that are connected to Schicksalstag:

The establishment of the SS in 1925 is sometimes mentioned as having taken place on the Schicksalstag as well.

And in the German Wikipedia, someone already added an item about this year: Telecommunications data retention. (At least temporarily.)

PS.: Want to join the class-action suit against data retention?

Stop data retention - www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de

On October 16…

Head, Oscar, Captain in Paris, Dublin, Köpenick
Disney, Grass, Erhard in Burbank, Danzig, Bonn
Atoms, Karol, Tutu in China, Vatican, Nobel

1793, 1854, 1906
1923, 1927, 1963
1964, 1978, 1984

:hammer: