Frogsmoke

Last Sunday, Nasa shot this wonderful picture (click for bigger) of Maupiti, a small coral atoll with a volcanic island in its midst, in French Polynesia. Lost in the ocean, its population of 1,200 souls lives mainly of fishing and growing noni, better known as cheese fruit. In the top-right corner you can see an [...]

How little information do you need to be able to draw a map? This zen-like question provided the basis for a short article in the May 21st, 1971 issue of Nature, intriguingly entitled Construction of Maps from “Odd Bits of Information”. One of the experiments involved a map of 88 French departments (excluding the Corsican [...]

It's always sad to leave… Kisses from Paris is a new video ad, directed by Yvan Attal for the Paris Tourist Board. With hotel stays down 10% in the first half of 2009, Paris wants to put itself back on the map as the city for lovers. The kissing is done by Zoé Schellenberg and [...]

It's official: France 'most unwelcoming country in Europe' according to British tourists They are known for their Gallic froideur and now France's reputation as the most unwelcoming country in Europe has been confirmed. A spokesman for OnePoll, which carried out the research, said: 'A surprising number of people have experienced rudeness from French people. But [...]

Carlat in France teams up with Bruni in Italy. And guess who's invited at the party? European towns like to have twins in other countries. Usually the purpose is to organize cultural happenings between the two communities. In the case of Carlat (pronounced Carla, in the French Auvergne) it's more like a publicity stunt. After [...]

Google Street View surprise from Paris: View Larger Map

If you have nothing better to do try this: Buy a map of Paris, get yourself a sharp blade, and cut everything out except the paths, nodes, circles, boulevards, parks and streets. What's left is a map cut like the one shown above. (Click for more detail.) It's a nice way to make some money [...]

Photographer Michael Wolf, in search for a new way of seeing Paris, clicked on Google Street View and was captivated. "I spent hours each day, travelling virtually through the streets, looking at every square inch of Google's robot pictures." He loved their pixellated texture, set up his tripod in front of the computer and started [...]

This is one of the photos on a Cemeteries photo contest on Worth1000: A street of tombs in the cemetery of Père Lachaise, Paris. (Click for source.)

Sylvain Freyermuth shot this picture at the Forum des Halles in Paris. His Flickr page is here. Poitrine pigeonnante. Click for (much) bigger. Via Rue89

Worldmapper keeps amazing the, er, world with new looks at our planet. In their latest project they redraw maps based on population size rather than land mass. The startling cartography also includes maps of individual countries, whereby the most populated areas are bulging out. Here's how France is projected (click for bigger): I'm glad I [...]

Martigues is a small flowered town in Provence, by the Mediterranean Sea. Because of its bridges, islands and canals Martigues likes to call itself “La Venise provençale” (Provençal Venice). Each year in September the town pretends to be Venice even more, with a parade of Venetian carnival masks and gorgeous costumes. Rêveries à Martigues is [...]

Frenchman Jeremy Marie has no wife and no job, so he chose to travel the world by hitchhiking. From a hard-hitting interview on KOMO News: His technique? "I'm very 'old school,' so I like to stick my thumb out," Marie says with a grin. But his thumb hasn't worked everywhere. "In some Muslim countries, it's [...]

With a bit of talent and an internet connection you don't have to get out of the door to paint landscapes. American artist Bill Guffey travels the world using Google Street View, and recreates the beauty spots he discovers on canvas. Here's one of his French landscapes. Not bad if you consider what inspired him: [...]

Now that all the French have returned to work and the tourists have left the country, I'm taking a short break to enjoy an empty France. With one wife, two dogs, lots of books and a tent, all packed in a little orange Land Rover, I'm off to the Atlantic coast. If all goes well [...]