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hobipaint · 3 years

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Sunshine, Inc. - Masterlist [hiatus]

summary: Every trip for Hoseok is the same. Show them around, take pictures, let them eat, souvenirs, back home. It's easy to smile while doing this, but over the years, he's been on the same route - travelling the world the same way, chasing the sun in one direction. It's only obvious that his awe has reduced. To his surprise, though, there's someone who can rival his disinterest - you.

↳ pairing : hoseok x female reader

↳ genres: fluff, angst, world tour! au

↳ disclaimers: mild cursing, discussions of mental health. warnings will be given at the beginning for each chapter.

a/n: hey there, you! this fic is currently on hiatus because I have once again been thrown on the loop de loop called exams. chapters are currently in work, but I have big ideas and even bigger drafts rn so idk when its going to come back. till then, please be patient! thank you so much for being here 💞

• Destinations:

Hey there!

Welcome to Sunshine, Inc.!

Here, we give you the list of cities for our world tour package we call Strands of Colours™. In this tour, there'll be fun, adventures, food, and maybe, some romance?

Any conditions about the travel will be mentioned alongside the cities as we travel - so rest assured as our capable team takes care of your travels.

We hope you have a wonderful trip, and thank you for choosing Sunshine, Inc.!

teaser

• We begin with our pick up from Los Angeles - in case you're from outside LA, we can arrange for pickups from there as well. No biggie. Your necessary flight details shall be emailed to you with utmost attention paid to your preferences. Just sit back and relax; envision yourself in the flight that will begin your trip.

here is the mood you'll want in this city!

• We head on to London, the capital of the United Kingdoms, home to the Brits. Here, our tour guides shall take you along with locals to showcase the finest sights in a city that holds thousands of years of history. Lose yourself amidst the flowers that line the city's numerous parks, feel like royalty near Birmingham, and of course - try the London Eye!

here is the mood you'll want for this city!

• Next up: the French capital, Paris. Singles and couples, prepare yourself for the abundance of romance that is carefully sprinkled in the air of the city of love. Trace years of French history with heritage walks lined through the heart of the city- including a visit to the majestic Louvre. Our local guides shall also showcase to you how to experience a true Parisian experience, comme les français.

here is the mood you'll want for this city!

• Welcome to the city that holds the legacy of European football, Madrid! Tingle your party sense in the hubbub of Madrid's active nightlife, with evening strolls that show the beauty of the Spanish city. Find peace in the day with the cooling gardens and fountains of the Buen Retiro Park and the Crystal Park. Find various flavours hidden in the delicious streetfood of the city, different from the rest of the world - a truly unique experience.

here is the mood you'll want for this city!

• A city rich with history, welcome to Berlin. Our local guides shall take you back through numerous pages of the city's story, the good and bad, pleasing your senses with architectural beauties like Brandenburg Gate or Reichstag. Watch the numerous memorials of the wars this city has faced, and wonder at the beauty and peace of the city today. All while being accompanied by the best in German food.

here is the mood you'll want for this city!

• After all the heat, we take you to the coolness of Zurich, Switzerland. Let us take you through one of the most luxurious cities in the world, at the foot of the Alps and home to Lake Zurich. Its numerous art galleries and museums will be sure to be of your fancy, and of course, loads of Swiss chocolate will be available for you!

here is the mood you'll want for this city!

• When in Rome, do as the Romans do! Let our guides show you around this marvelous city and its beauty that transcends generations. Enjoy popular attractions like the Colosseum and the Spanish steps, and the Italian grace that lines the cobbled pathways of the city. Also, visit the Vatican city, just a 15 minute walk from the heart of Rome.

here is the mood you'll want for this city!

• Get a feel of the Ancient Greeks in Athens while walking through its streets, aeons of power and tradition shining in its history. See the Greek architectures that are the fame of this city, interspersed with its bustling night life and modern lifestyle. There are surprises hidden in around every corner in this city - showcased to you through customized tour packages that you can choose.

here is the mood you'll want for this city!

• Where Europe meets Asia, welcome to Istanbul! Experience the archaic yet modern vibe of the city, its colourful architecture and its leisurely pace. Visit the historic Silk Market, the beginning of the Silk Route; also, don't forget to join us while visiting the famed Spice Bazaar, Bursa and the other exciting destinations in this one-of-a-kind city.

here is the mood you'll want for this city!

• An ultra modern city, Dubai has proven itself as one of the most indulgent, glamorous and progressive cities in the world. Home to marvels like the Burj Khalifa, Atlantis, while showcasing the beauty of the deserts surrounding the city - let yourself soak the opulence of this city while navigating its multiple shopping areas; all the help of our guides, of course.

here is the mood you'll want for this city!

•The city that never sleeps, Mumbai is sure to awaken all your senses. The Gateway of India, this city will give you a chance to see all of its cultures mingle in one place. Watch the life of the city through its numerous theatres and galleries. Experience the hubbub of one of the most populated cities in the world along with its savoury street food with the help of our guides.

here is the mood you'll want for this city!

• Next, we visit Shanghai, the modern yet quaint capital of China. Take walks around the Bund and its 52 unique buildings, or visit the Yu Garden and the Jade Buddha temple. Soak yourself in classical Chinese art at the Shanghai Cultural Museum and more places - all carefully planned for you by our guides.

here is the mood you'll want for this city!

• Right in time for the cherry blossoms, Seoul will lead us to a spring fairyland that is filled with the natural beauty of the mountains surrounding it. The city also houses massive markets that boast of sumptuous street food and vibrant clothing, and tourist attractions like the Seoul Tower - don't miss out on any!

here is the mood you'll want for this city!

• An ultra-modern city, Tokyo boasts of multiple museums, festivals, internationally appreciated cuisine and sports clubs. This city is also rich in music and theater, with rock and pop concerts, dramas, musicals and symphony orchestras. The city also forms a base to explore all of Japan - pieces of which shall be showcased to you on this tour.

here is the mood you'll want for this city!

• Bangkok is a fascinating city: crowded, noisy, colourful and exciting. There are wonderful, ancient temples and sites, and modern malls that boast of high fashion lined in their shops. The tour shall also be including a visit to Phuket, as a getaway - be sure to be there!!

here is the mood you'll want for this city!

•Home to the Merlion, Singapore has been well known as a tourist destination for decades now. The city's simplicity in transport and beautiful architecture have made it a favourite, and the variance in attractions - from the Gardens by the Bay and Singapore Zoo to Orchard Road and Clarke Quay - makes it a wonderful place to visit. We'll make sure that you don't miss out on any!!

here is the mood you'll want for this city!

• Bali - the name of the city itself brings thoughts of tropical airs, sizzling peanuts, roaring mopeds and the gentle gamelan music. This city is hailed as one of the most popular tourist islands in the Indonesian archipelago, and with all good reasons only. Come and explore more about this island along with us in an all new style.

here is the mood you'll want for this city!

• The oldest of Australian cities, Sydney brings about a wonderful mingling of chic modern styles and energetic adventure. The city is home to famous destinations like the Opera House, and is packed with activities for everyone to give a try! Make sure you don't miss out on any while travelling with us.

here is the mood you'll want for this city!

•Finally, we make the trip back home to LA, where you'll be dropped back to your homes. We hope you will enjoy the your with us, and keep travelling with Sunshine, Inc. Thank you for your time!!

a/n: this is the masterlist for Sunshine, Inc. clicking on the cities will lead you to the chapter for that particular city -if it is confusing, feel free to leave a comment about the same! Thank you for reading 💞💞 Also, if you want to be added to the taglist you can leave a comment or ask for the same! love, hazel 🤗

#sunshine inc #hobipaint #hoseok imagines #hoseok fanfics #hoseok drabbles #hoseok scenarios #hoseok fluff #hoseok angst #hoseok smut #hoseok x reader #masterlist #hoseok masterlist #bts masterlist #bangtanarmynet

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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years

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The Desert Fox: Separating the myth and the man of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

Sweat saves blood, blood saves lives, and brains saves both.

- Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

War hero or Nazi villain? Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is, to this day, the subject of heated debate. He was the “Desert Fox,” revered by Allied Forces for his supposed chivalry, and allegedly implicated in the “Valkyrie” plot to assassinate Hitler.

But present day historians have increasingly come to re-examine the life and the legend of this most iconic of World War Two generals.

I first became interested in this question after reading Corelli Barnett’s magisterial account ‘The Desert Generals’ back when I was in Sandhurst. I read other World War Two books before then of course but it was only at Sandhurst did I first give serious consideration towards Rommel as ‘the Good German’ general. I read other books too like General Sir David Fraser’s ‘Knight’s Cross: a life of Field Marshal Rommel’ as a stand out one on military stuff but a very cursory examination of his early life and beliefs.

Rommel was a legend in the making.

Whichever side of the debate one falls on there is no doubt that Erwin Rommel, was one of the most celebrated and respected generals of the Second World War and indeed, some even say one of the greatest generals of all time. His prowess on the battlefield earned him more than a battlefield earned him the admiration of both his men and his enemies alike, with adversaries lining up to pay tribute to their greatest foe in the field.

“We have a very daring and skilful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general,” said no less than Winston Churchill himself of Rommel, just after the war ended in his book on the conflict, The Second World War.

When Churchill came under fire in the press for praising a man seen as a Nazi, he doubled down, commenting “He also deserves our respect because, although a loyal German soldier, he came to hate Hitler and all his works, and took part in the conspiracy to rescue Germany by displacing the maniac and tyrant.

For this, Rommel paid the forfeit of his life. In the sombre wars of modern democracy, chivalry finds no place… Still, I do not regret or retract the tribute I paid to Rommel, unfashionable though it was judged.”

Indeed, the extent to which Rommel was a Nazi is one of the great questions that has been asked since the war and one that is debated to this day. Rommel, while respected by those who fought him from afar as generals and indeed, thought of a genius to many of those who fought beneath him in the Wehrmacht, has often faced criticism of his tactics and his decision making, with some post-war writers holding him up as a man prone to erratic behaviour on the battlefield and a great sufferer from the stresses of the job.

“Rommel was jumpy, wanted to do everything at once, then lost interest. Rommel was my superior in command in Normandy. I cannot say Rommel wasn’t a good general. When successful, he was good; during reverses, he became depressed,” said Sepp Dietrich, who fought under Rommel in France and ended the war as the most senior figure in the Waffen-SS.

A similar sentiment was expressed by Luftwaffe field marshal Albert Kesselring, a contemporary of Rommel’s and an officer of similar rank, who later wrote: “He was the best leader of fast-moving troops but only up to army level. Above that level it was too much for him. Rommel was given too much responsibility. He was a good commander for a corps of army but he was too moody, too changeable. One moment he would be enthusiastic, next moment depressed.”

Who was this great man then? We know him today as a great tactician, a charismatic leader, a respected general and the last German participant in the so-called “clean war”. But how true are those assessments? Was the Desert Fox as chivalrous as his enemies thought him to be?

Rommel was far from just a Second World War hero – he distinguished himself in World War One too.

Rommel graduated from the military academy in Gdansk – then known as Danzig and an integral part of Germany – in 1912 and was immediately posted back to his home region of Baden-Württemberg.

When war broke out in 1914, Rommel was ready to face his first major conflict posting. As a battery commander within the 124th division of the German army, he would distinguish himself and gain his first recognition from the higher-ups.

Erwin saw his first action at the age of 23 on August 22, 1914, near the French town of Verdun. Rommel led his platoon into a French garrison, catching them by surprise and personally leading the charge ahead of the rest of his men, earning credits for bravery and ingenuity. He would be awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class, for his actions, a promotion to First Lieutenant and a transfer into the Royal Württemberg Mounted Battalion as a company – rather than platoon – commander.

Rommel would go on to fight in the German campaigns in Italy and Romania, with particular note being taken by the German Army hierarchy of his conduct in the Italian campaign. The Royal Württemberg Mounted Battalion fought at the Battle of Caporetto, the twelfth battle to be fought along the Isonzo River in modern-day Slovenia, and one that would go down as probably the largest military defeat in the history of Italy.

Rommel would play a central role, leading the Royal Württemberg, with just 150 men, to capture an estimated 9,000 Italians, complete with all their guns, for a cost of just 6 of his own men.

The young Rommel used the challenging, mountainous terrain of Caporetto – now known as Kobarid – to outflank the Italians and convince them that they were totally encircled by Germans, when in fact there was just one battalion. Fearing that they were surrounded, the Italians surrendered en masse and were surprised to find that so few men were able to capture them.

The efforts of the German Army to break into the Italian Front through the Slovenian Alps – at the time, part of Italy – were vital in furthering an advance towards Venice, though the Germans were eventually stopped and turned back.

Rommel was awarded the Pour Le Merite award by the Kaiser for his leadership at Caporetto, but also gained the respect and loyalty of his men, who were not only impressed by the way in which his tactics had won the battle, but also by the way that he had stood up to the German Army high command and argued for more and better food for his men. The legend of Rommel was growing apace.

Rommel was an effective teacher as well as a military leader.

It shouldn’t be too surprising that Rommel was a capable teacher: his father had been a headmaster, while the ability to communicate his ideas effectively in the field would lead to some of his most enduring military victories. There was no point coming up with a revolutionary tactic to win a battle if you couldn’t then inform and inspire your men well enough for them to then go and carry it out.

At the end of the First World War, Rommel was entering his late 20s and had already been widely feted for his military prowess. While it might have seemed a little dull compared to the derring-do on the Isonzo, the role of the Royal Württenberg Mountain Battalion lay much closer to home, with German society slowly disintegrating into civil wars between, on the left, socialists who wanted Germany to undergo a revolution similar to that which had recently occurred in Russia, and on the right, groups such as the Freikorps, disgruntled ex-soldiers and nationalist, anti-communist paramilitaries that would go on to form the kernel of the Nazi Party.

Rommel, recently promoted again to the rank of Captain, was ordered to use his soldiers in a policing capacity, putting down insurrections all over southern Germany. It was during this period that he showed some of the sense of restraint that would distinguish his conduct in North Africa during World War Two, trying to avoid the use of force against crowds of civilians where possible.

After the Weimar Republic took hold, however, the country somewhat stabilised and Rommel found himself in Dresden, teaching new recruits. He had been promoted in turn to Major, then Lieutenant Colonel, placing him in the very highest echelons of the Treaty of Versailles-reduced German Army.

He was recognised as one of the prime instructors in that army and wrote a book, “Infantry Attacks”, that furthered his theories on warfare and explained his experiences in the Izonzo – it sold incredibly well and increased Rommel’s personal fame, as well as bringing him to the attention of Adolf Hitler, who was known to have read the book.

Rommel met Hitler in Goslar, Germany in 1934, while Rommel was posted as battalion commander. Hitler’s charisma and promises to reestablish Germany as a world power after the crippling results of World War I inspired Rommel to become a fervent supporter of the Nazi Party.

The two men had several encounters following this, and Rommel rose through the ranks on Hitler’s personal recommendation. But it was ultimately Hitler’s liking for Rommel’s book Infantry Attacks that led to his becoming the commander of Hitler’s personal guards during his tour of the Sudetenland.

By the 1930s with Hitler fully secured in power, the German Army, for whom Rommel worked, and the Nazi state were more and more inseparable. It would be this coming together that prompted a major dilemma for the career soldiers such as Rommel: did the duty lie to their country, and whoever might be governing it, or to the party, that was coming to define what that country was about?

Rommel was a committed Nazi and not the “decent face” of the German Army.

Rommel’s antagonism wasn’t so much against Nazism as it was towards the Nazis in leadership who led it. His committment to Nazism eroded as the war took a wrong turn and as Hitler increasingly became erratic in his military decision making that Rommel grew increasingly frustrated.

Just how much of a Nazi Rommel was is one of the biggest questions that is debated about him to this day. It is largely due to the Rommel myth that was perpetuated by the likes of Winston Churchill after the war that Rommel was taken by the victorious Allies as “the good Nazi”, or the honest general who happened to be being ordered about by the Nazis, merely a career soldier who followed orders and stayed out of politics.

Let’s put that one to bed, here and now. Rommel was an early adopter of the Nazi Party and a committed believer in the ideals of National Socialism, while also being an officer who regularly disobeyed orders – making both commonly held assumptions wrong.

That said, he is one of the few figures of that period who is still revered in Germany, who still has streets named after him and memorials in his honour. It seems that the myth persists in his homeland too, despite countless books and articles to the contrary.

One such author attempting to shake this idea from the public consciousness is Wolfgang Proske, a historian and history professor from Rommel’s hometown on Heidenheim, who has written 16 books about his town’s most famous son. “Rommel was a deeply convinced Nazi and, contrary to popular opinion, he was also an anti-Semite. It is not only the Germans who have fallen into the trap of believing that Rommel was chivalrous. The British have been convinced by these stories as well,” he told British newspaper The Independent in 2011 when a new memorial to the Field Marshal was unveiled.

“At the time when Rommel marched into Tripoli, more than a quarter of the city’s population were Jews,” Proske continued, “There is evidence which shows that Rommel forbad his troops to buy anything from Jewish traders. Later on, he used the Jews as slave laborers. Some of them were even used as so-called ‘mine dogs’ who were ordered to walk over minefields ahead of his advancing troops.”

While Rommel was never a member of the Nazi Party, it is widely known that Wehrmacht figures, particularly high-ranking ones such as Rommel, welcomed Hitler coming to power. Those, like Rommel, whose backgrounds had shut them off from the highest ranks of the Kaiser’s forces, saw the new government as one that would see them move to the top of the tree and as such were generally in favor of it.

Goebbels himself wrote in 1942, when Rommel was in the running for the role of Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht, that the Field Marshal was ”ideologically sound, is not just sympathetic to the National Socialists. He is a National Socialist; he is a troop leader with a gift for improvisation, personally courageous and extraordinarily inventive. These are the kinds of soldiers we need.”

Rommel owes a large part of his fame to the fact that he made fools of opposing general - well almost (Patton would disagree).

Rommel’s prowess as a general is unquestioned. On the back of his heroics as a low-level officer in World War One added to by his role teaching at the forefront of modern military tactics, he was perfectly positioned to lead the Nazi war machine into the second conflict.

When the war began, he was leading Hitler’s personal protection battalion – so much for a man who kept a distance from the center of Nazi power – and thus was privy to the highest levels of discussions regarding tactics, particularly the way in which to use mechanized infantry such as tanks. After the early successes in Poland, Rommel moved with the front to France and commanded Panzer units, before distinguishing himself against the British at Arras and leading the drive towards Dunkirk.

With the British regrouping on the other side of the Channel after a crushing defeat – which, lest we forget, Dunkirk was – the focus turned to North Africa, where Rommel would lead the newly-established Afrika Korps. He was the superstar of the German Army, a reputation largely built on his ability to vanquish the British, whom he would now face again in the desert. It was at this time that his nickname, The Desert Fox, was coined by the British press, who sought to create a figure against which the war could be fought.

The legacy of Rommel as the acceptable Nazi could be seen to stem from this point when the media in Britain saw fit to create a worthy adversary for their troops to combat. Rommel was thought to be an old-style soldier rather than an out-and-out Nazi: though we have seen that he was a Nazi, and he had arguably committed war crimes by summarily executing prisoners in France just weeks before.

Come the victory of the British at Tobruk and El Alamein, the British propaganda machine had even more than a noble adversary. They had a noble adversary against whom they had lost in Europe and then subsequently defeated: when the characters of the British side, Auchinleck and Montgomery, were spoken of, they needed someone of equal weight to make their victories seem even more heroic, a role that fit Rommel perfectly.

With morale at home low after the Dunkirk evacuation, the victories in North Africa were vital to keeping spirits up, and a glorious victory against an equally glorious enemy sounded even better. Churchill himself called Rommel an “extraordinary bold and clever opponent” and a “great field commander” in the House of Commons in 1942 – after he had just been defeated.

Rommel’s reputation for chivalry in North Africa might not just be down to his own intentions.

Of course, some aspects the Allied propaganda about Rommel – that he was a fair fighter, that he respected the ideals of chivalry when other Germans didn’t – were generally true.

It is undoubted that, by and large, Rommel adhered to the rules of war when plenty of Nazi generals didn’t, but it bears mentioning that the reason that so many German generals were so callous is that they were ordered to be like that. Orders within the Nazi war machine came down from high and were often brutal in their nature: summary execution of prisoners, rounding up of Jews and other minorities, scorched earth policies. That was just the orders aimed at enemies: often generals would be ordered to stand their ground to the death when all military logic told them to make a tactical retreat.

Rommel’s dedication to upholding the “war without hate” as he called the more traditional methods of war is up for debate, but certainly, he did take measure to negate the harsher aspects. That said, there are other factors that question whether his commitment to the “war without hate” was intentional, circumstantial or ideologically-driven.

When most German generals were likely to commit acts of ethnic cleansing, Rommel was not generally faced with the question. North Africa, where this reputation was developed, had hardly any Jews, for example, and other potential targets for Nazi aggression were protected by being citizens of Italy and Rommel was wary of standing on the toes of their allies. That said, many within the North African Jewish community are reported as having felt that they were spared from the horrors suffered by Jews in Europe by the actions of the Afrika Korps, led by Rommel.

It is also widely accepted that he refused to execute captured Jewish prisoners and hated the use of slave labour. As far as his own troops were concerned, Rommel repeatedly refused orders directly from Hitler. When, at the end of the second Battle of El Alamein, Hitler commanded him directly not to retreat and to show his soldiers “no other road than that to victory or death.”

Knowing that it was impossible for him to defeat the advancing British, who massively outnumbered his forces, Rommel chose to ignore the letter from the Fuhrer and fled all the way across North Africa to Tunisia rather than face death in the sand. While he was way too politically powerful to be censured by Hitler, actions such as this were contributory to a wider feeling among the Nazi hierarchy that Rommel was not one of them.

He was a PR superstar in Germany, but was both respected and later suspected by the Nazi leadership.

Rommel’s reputation within Germany might well have made him untouchable for the Nazi hierarchy, even when he did things that were in direct contradiction of the ideological and military strategy of the regime. They had invested so much time and so much weight in making him the poster boy of their propaganda regime that, when Rommel turned out to be less than what they had hoped for, they could not easily dispose of him.

On paper, he was the perfect fit for their media machine: he was an early adopter of Nazism, already a hero from the First World War and an excellent general, with victories aplenty. Moreover, they could cite the Allies reverence for him in their favor, and Rommel himself was comfortable in the spotlight and relished the attention.

Hitler was always wary of building up any one single figure too far – lest he be challenged himself – but Goebbels, the chief propagandist, knew an opportunity when he saw it and Rommel could not be passed up. As Rommel’s media image grew and grew, he became the darling of the public back home, but in the corridors of power in Berlin, there were plenty of higher-ups who were less convinced of his powers.

Even from the early days of the war in 1941, when Rommel was in France, some of those who fought alongside him were doubting just how effective he actually was a general. By the time that the war in North Africa had turned against him in 1943, the German furthest expansions were contracting: the Battle of Stalingrad had been lost in February and Rommel departed Tunisia in May.

It might have made sense if the Nazis had thought Rommel their best general, to send him to the Eastern Front where the war was being lost. Perhaps, too, the brutal nature of the war on the Ostfront was seen as beyond Rommel’s nature: this was not the time or place for “war without hate”, in the eyes of the Nazi leadership.

Instead, he was dispatched to Italy. As Italy fell, Rommel was demoted from the head of the campaign to second in command to Albert Kesselring, alongside whom he had served throughout the North Africa campaigns.

Later in France, Rommel was the man in charge of building the Atlantic Wall that would protect Nazi-occupied France from Allied invasion: though he had warned heavily that his experiences in North Africa had taught him that land and sea defences would be nothing if air supremacy allowed the Allies to destroy the Nazi army from above, Rommel was ignored.

After the defeat in North Africa, the retreat through Greece and Italy and the failure to stop the D-Day invasions, his reputation as a superstar general back home was in tatters.

Rommel’s reputation got a huge boost because of a 1951 film.

If Rommel’s reputation as a great leader was undermined by the catastrophic defeats on the African, Italian and Western Fronts in the last two years of the war, why was it that the so-called “Rommel Myth” was so pervasive after the war? The theories are numerous, but one major contributing factor must be the success of the 1951 film, The Desert Fox. Rommel was played by the iconic actor James Mason who won critical acclaim for his role.

Rommel was a well-known figure in Allied countries and in 1950, the first biography of the “good German” was released in the UK. Written by Desmond Young, a British brigadier-general who had himself been captured by Rommel during the war, “Rommel: The Desert Fox” was incredibly popular in Britain and cemented the position of the vanquished general as the acceptable enemy.

His later involvement in the 1944 plot against Hitler did a lot to wash Rommel of the stain of Nazism – conveniently forgetting the decade or so that he had spent close to the top of the regime – and his position as the general who was beaten “fair and square” endeared him to a British audience. After all, it’s much easier to build heroes of your own generals when they have beaten a general that you also respect.

The 1951 film of The Desert Fox further spread the myth and was widely popular in the UK. The narrative of Rommel, the good German, being defeated by the heroic British in the clean war in North Africa was a far more palatable one in the burgeoning Cold War than one that emphasised the horrible destruction that had come through the Soviet victory in the East.

There could be little appetite for a war with Russia when people were constantly being reminded of the horrific images that had emerged from the Eastern Front. Thus, the clean general of the fair fight in North Africa was an enticing idea.

The Germans, too, were all too pleased to go along with Rommel as their figurehead. Their army had been severely curtailed after their defeat, but there was a clamour to de-Nazify the Wehrmacht and remove the stigma from the German armed forces. The Bundeswehr, the new German army, was more palatable to a post-war world when it could be seen as the legacy of good soldiers lead by bad politicians rather than an integral and vital part of the Nazi war machine.

Thus, the idea of The Desert Fox was created and, to a large extent, still persists. He remains the only Nazi to be lionised within Germany: public squares and streets bear his name, as does the largest barracks of the Bundeswehr. Whether such a status is deserved, however, is still a question about which historians continue to argue.

During the first half of 2020 many countries have been reconsidering the roles of their historical figures - remembered in statue form - due to their controversial views or actions from today’s point of view. In Britain, France and Belgium, statues of figures associated with the colonial past have become the target of public criticism in some quarters. In the United States, not only statues of Confederate figures who defended slavery during the American Civil War were destroyed or even demolished, but also, for example, the discoverer of America, Christopher Columbus.

In Germany a similar process was also underway. The monument to the Wehrmacht Marshal Erwin Rommel in Heidenheim came under severe renewed scrutiny.

Germany's memorial to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is perched on a hillside overlooking the middle-class town of Heidenheim an der Brenz where he was born 120 years ago. The words inscribed on the white limestone monument describe the legendary Second World War general as "chivalrous", "brave" and as a "victim of tyranny"

The monument, which was built in 1961 by the German Afrikakorps Association, aroused long-term controversy and in the past was repeatedly damaged by inscriptions that called Rommel a Nazi. In 2014, Heidenheim City Hall expressed its intention to contrast the monument with another memorial building. By 2020 those calls took on a greater momentum.

The German artist Rainer Jooss was brought in by the municipal authorities to re-interpret the existing monument without having to destroy it completely. Jooss took as his starting point to focus on other parts of Rommel’s legacy. It was little known that Rommel had large minefields laid during the campaign of German troops in North Africa during World War II. In Libya and Tunisia alone, at least 3,300 people have lost their legs and another 7,500 have been maimed since the statistics were kept in the 1980s. So Jooss designed black silhouette cut out of a maimed child victim of war to complement the monument.

“The monument does not represent the truth, but encourages us to look for it,” said Bernhard Ilg, Mayor of Baden-Württemberg, at the presentation of the monument’s design unveiling in July 2020. Jooss was more stoic. Joos believed it would be a mistake to remove the Rommel monument altogether,"If we let grass grow over it, that would mean the end of the important task of dealing with history.”

The artist behind the modification to the Heidenheim monument said his statue was purposefully made to look small next to the impressive limestone bloc."I wanted to confront the monumental (features) of the original memorial with the fragility of a land mine victim.” Jooss wanted and hoped that it was up to “the next generations to make a picture of themselves based on factual histography.”

Yet eminent historians have since dismissed the fresh silhouette plaque as a transparent attempt to avoid addressing the deep seated questions about Rommel. Indeed Rommel’s privileged position to being seen as the ideal role model for the Bundeswehr (the unified armed forces of Germany and their civil administration and procurement authorities). While recognising his great talents as a commander, they point out several problems: such as Rommel's involvement with a criminal regime and his political naivete. However, there are also many supporters of the continued commemoration of Rommel by the Bundeswehr, and there remains military buildings and streets named after him and portraits of him displayed.

The politician scientist Ralph Rotte called for his replacement with Manfred von Richthofen. Historian Cornelia Hecht opined that whatever judgement history will pass on Rommel – who was the idol of World War II as well as the integration figure of the post-war Republic – it was now the time in which the Bundeswehr should rely on its own history and tradition, and not any Wehrmacht commander. Jürgen Heiducoff, a retired Bundeswehr officer, had written that the maintenance of the Rommel barracks' names and the definition of Rommel as a German resistance fighter are capitulation before neo-Nazi tendencies. Heiducoff agreed with Bundeswehr generals that Rommel was one of the greatest strategists and tacticians, both in theory and practice, and a victim of contemporary jealous colleagues, but argued that such a talent for aggressive, destructive warfare was not a suitable model for the Bundeswehr, a primarily defensive army. Heiducoff criticised those Bundeswehr generals for pressuring the Federal Ministry of Defence into making decisions in favour of the man who they openly admire.

Rommel has had his supporters from this avalanche of revisionist criticism. Historian Michael Wolffsohn supported the Ministry of Defense's decision to continue recognition of Rommel, although he thought the focus should be put on the later stage of Rommel's life, when he began thinking more seriously about war and politics, and broke with the regime. Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) reported that, "Wolffsohn declares the Bundeswehr wants to have politically thoughtful, responsible officers from the beginning, thus a tradition of 'swashbuckler' and 'humane rogue' is not intended".

According to authors like Ulrich vom Hagen and Sandra Mass though, the Bundeswehr (as well as NATO) deliberately endorses the ideas of chivalrous warfare and apolitical soldiering associated with Rommel. At a German Ministry conference soliciting input on the matter, Dutch general Ton van Loon advised the German Ministry that, although there can be historical abuses hidden under the guise of military tradition, tradition is still essential for the esprit de corps, and part of that tradition should be the leadership and achievements of Rommel. Historian Christian Hartmann opined that not only Rommel's legacy was worthy of tradition but the Bundeswehr "urgently needs to become more Rommel".

There are other historians who have tried to take a middle path on the continued controversy of Rommel’s legacy. Historian Johannes Hürter believed that instead of being the symbol for an alternative Germany, Rommel should be the symbol for the willingness of the military elites to become instrumentalised by the Nazi authorities. As for whether he can be treated as a military role model, Hürter writes that each soldier can decide on that matter for themselves. Historian Ernst Piper argued that it was totally conceivable that the Resistance saw Rommel as someone with whom they could build a new Germany. According to Piper though, Rommel was a loyal national socialist without crime rather than a democrat, thus unsuitable to hold a central place among role models, although he should be integrated as a major military leader.

Whether one is for and against Rommel such debates take place because he is dead in conveniently ambiguous circumstances.

Recovering from skull fractures in hospital, he missed the main event - the 20 July Bomb Plot 1944 - insitigated by other senior German army officers. Hitler survived the blast, and immediately set about executing the plotters.

While Rommel had lots of contact with many key conspirators and was generally aware of the movement(s) to assassinate Hitler, there is no direct evidence that he knew about the July 20th plot in advance, let alone was involved in any detailed planning. Several conspirators allegedly confessed during interrogation that he was involved and, like Speer, his name was found on Goerdeler’s list of possible participants in a new German government.

Rommel was listed among various possibilities for Reich President. Unfortunately for him, there was no question mark or other notation, as in Speer’s case, which indicated that he was unaware of the designation.

He maintained his innocence when confronted by General Burgdorff on the day he died and also told his wife and son that he had played no part in the events of July 20th. But ultimately, there’s no way to know what he was or was not aware of. He took that with him to the grave.

The list of members of the 20 July plot doesn´t name Rommel as part of the attempt to kill Adolf Hitler. But: Rommel was blamed of having known of plans to do so. So he was forced to commit suicide.

On 19 th October 1944 Rommel met two german generals at his home. They showed him pretended evidence about his paticipation in “operation valkyrie”, which he denied to be true. They accompanied him away from his home, where he swallowed a capsule filled with potassium cyanide and died. The two generals Wilhelm Burgdorf and Ernst Maisel , members of german court of military honour, who had handed over the capsule to Rommel, drove back to his home and contended that Rommel had died because of ramifications of an injury he received on 17th of July during an allied bombardement.

Given a choice between a trial, involving his disgrace, execution and his family’s impoverishment - and suicide - he chose the latter.

The story given to the public was that he’d died of wounds sustained in the air attack. He was named a “german hero”, was “honoured” with a state funeral an d buried in Herrlingen, Germany.

Had he lived who knows what his real fate might have been at the hands of the Allies. At the main Nuremberg trials, the two army generals prosecuted were Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and General Alfred Jodl. Both were accused of conspiracy to commit crimes against peace; planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression; war crimes; and crimes against humanity. Both were convicted on all four charges and hanged.

The principal charge against Keitel was the infamous 13 May 1941 Barbarossa Decree, which condemned captured prisoners and ensured a high level of brutality by German soldiers against Soviet civilians. Jodl was the author of the Commando decree – ordering that any Allied commandos encountered in Europe and Africa should be killed immediately without trial, even if in proper uniforms or if they attempted to surrender.

General Heinz Guderian is an example of a prominent German general who did survive the war but was not prosecuted for war crimes.

Another prominent example is Field Marshall Kesselring, who had commanded the defence of Italy after the Allies invaded. Kesselring was not prosecuted at Nuremburg, but did face a British military court in Italy. The Moscow declaration of October 1943 had stated that those accused of war crimes would be prosecuted in the country where they had committed their crimes. Although the trial was conducted in Italy, Italian judges did not participate as Italy was not considered an ally. Kesselring was prosecuted for the shooting of hundreds of Italian prisoners in retaliation for attacks on German soldiers. Kesselring was found guilty and condemned to death. British General Alexander, who had run the Italian campaign, and Winston Churchill pleaded for the sentence to be commuted - which it was. Kesselring was released in 1952 and lived until 1970.

By comparison Rommel was never accused of issuing similar decrees. Many felt that he was an honourable soldier. Nor was he ever accused of shooting prisoners in the way Kesselring was. Rommel’s military reputation is that of a highly professional soldier who carried out his duties according to a military code of ethics. His record is untainted by atrocities or unsavoury tactics against the enemy or civilian populations. He tended to live a charmed life early in the war.

Had he lived one can only speculate as to his fate and his legacy. Speculation regarding a possible role for him in the rebuilding of German forces for NATO, had he survived, is unrealistic. Rommel was never a strategically-minded commander. Indeed it is well known that Quartermasters hated him for his habit of outrunning his supplies on the battlefield.

The likelihood is he might well have been allowed to live without any kind of Allied retribution for war crimes as he was never guilty of any such departures from a strict military code of behaviour. But in trial - he would surely would have been put on trial even if he would be found not guilty - the messy details of his involvement with the Nazi regime would come to light. It would show that Rommel certainly benefited from the regime he served, and I think would have been considered guilty by association, even if his enthusiasm for Hitler waned in his final days.

Post-war, it would not have surprised me at all if the Allies had sought to build a West German government around Rommel. Staunchly anti-Communist, he nevertheless was seen widely as honourable and pro-West. But what role he would have been given - or what role the allies might have been able to make palatable to a war ravaged population - can only be speculated.

I suspect he would have served in some official capacity within the Bundeswehr before retiring to write his highly expected memoirs. It’s telling that Rommel’s chief of staff, Hans Speidel, drove the creation of the Bundeswehr and was the first to be named a generaloberst in that force. Later he was Supreme Commander of all NATO ground forces in Central Europe (which was almost all of it). It’s an intriguiing thought what Rommel might have played in a post-war Cold War Germany and Europe. Speidel and Rommel were inseparable and cut from the same bolt of cloth. Indeed it was Hans Speidel, who had been involved in the July 20 plot, wrote after the war that Rommel was a member of the resistance, (for which there is no evidence) that contributed towards Rommel and ‘The Good German’ Myth.

Given all that was “overlooked” by both the Allies and the German people after World War Two. There’s no logical reason to think that Rommel would not have been as honoured, if not more so, after the war. After all, one of the main Bundeswehr barracks continues to be named after him in 1965.

To me he was a great general rightly lauded by his peers and military historians - but not the best. Rommel was a highly competent tactical commander, but there were many such commanders in the Wehrmacht. His prominence is due to a number of things. Firstly, he was always Hitler favourite; secondly Goebbels played him up in his propaganda; and thirdly he fought the British and Americans and thus received much more attention in the Western press and historians after the War than the German commanders fighting the Soviets.

Indeed an argument can be made that by fighting in the Western Desert in a sector that the British had logistical and material superiority (and thus difficult to defeat), Rommel essentially taught the British and the Americans Blitzkrieg tactics - essentially modern warfare. His very inflated legacy saved the British from admitting their military performance in North Africa was abysmal until the Axis forces overextended their supply lines and the American supply of goods was able to compensate for substandard British equipment.

It’s also forgotten that Rommel also oversaw the building of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall which was essentially a fiction when he took over. Immense resources were poured into the project. The impact was to delay the Anglo-Americn invasion about 5 hours and only on one beach (Omaha).

And no matter how humane and honourable he was, Rommel was ultimately a weak man who chose to look away when it was convenient to his career to do so. Indeed I agree with many historians today that he was primarily bent on serving Hitler to advance his career. He was a man who believed he was serving a king and realises too late that he was a devil. I have little doubt that he was conflicted by that especially as it grew during the seven months of his life leading up to his death. Perhaps the best tactical military manoeuvre he made was to take the poison forced upon him and thereby save his family but also secure his legacy, even if that legacy remains mostly intact if a little more tarnished to this day.

#rommel #nazism #nazi #german history #war #second world war #battle #soldier #general #erwin rommel #allies #germany #afrikacorps #statues #culture #society #history #military #military history

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abseilers · 3 years

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Rappelling vs Abseiling-- What's the Difference?

Trying to memorize all the various climbing up terms can often seem like trying to learn a new language. I have actually always heard rappelling and abseiling made use of mutually, but I wanted to know a little a lot more concerning words, so I did some research on the subject.

So what's the distinction in between rappelling as well as abseiling? Rappelling and abseiling are the same thing; both activities entail lowering on your own in a controlled descent using a piece of rope. The primary difference in between both terms involves their use and background.

Rappelling and abseiling both indicate to make use of an item of rope or cord, integrated with some kind of control gadget, to reduced on your own down. Any individual experience in the language of climbing will identify both terms for what they imply. Rappelling is the term most often listened to in North American, whereas abseiling is prevalent in the UK and also various other European countries. I was curious concerning the beginnings of the words as well as why they're different, so I did some looking on the history of climbing up as well as summarized what I located listed below

Geographical Differences

As I stated above, the only real distinction in between the two words are their varying popularity in various parts of the globe.

In the US and also Canada, the term rappelling is made use of practically specifically, although any kind of skilled climber will certainly recognize words abseiling of what it is. In the UK as well as Europe-- specifically Germany-- abseiling is the go-to when describing a person lowering themselves using Local Abseilers.

In various other locations, nevertheless, the distinction ends up being much less evident. In Australia, New Zealand, and France, for example, the two are used almost interchangeably. The majority of English created climbing publications make use of the term rappelling, but a reasonable piece of them still make use of abseiling.

In conclusion, do not stress and anxiety too much concerning which version of the word you're going to utilize. The integral part is that you recognize what you're doing; as long as you've obtained correct kind, nobody will certainly care excessive concerning what you determine to call it.

Linguistic Heritage

Both words have European heritage, that makes sense because that's where mountain climbing was first exercised. To abseil initially comes from the German word abseilen, which essentially implies 'to lower on a rope'. The term was most likely used throughout the very early days of alpinism, which experienced its birth in Europe throughout the 1800's.

Rappel, as specified over, is a French word. Strangely enough, rappel does not have the exact same actual meaning as its German counterpart. Instead (according to Google equate), to rappel ways to recall or take out. I would think that rappelling was after that used to define the act of decreasing ones self off of a mountain, which could be viewed as 'taking out' yourself from a climb.

The definitions, however, don't aid to clarify why one word is more common that another depending upon what location of the world you remain in. To learn why this occurred, I have actually created a brief history on mountain climbing up listed below, together with my theory as to why both words exist.

The act of ascending a hill or cliff face didn't really exist in old times. Hills were considered as harmful, often sacred places, that's summits typically went untouched for hundreds of years. Several cultures, such as the Greeks, thought that the tops of hills came from gods or other heavenly beings. As a result, those residing in these societies guided well free from those summits.

That began to change around the 1500's, when the knowledge took over Europe as well as secularity began to become a lot more typical in culture. In 1786, 2 mountain climbers names Jacques Balmat and also Michel-Gabriel Pacard made the first ascent of Mount Blanc (the highest possible hill in the Alps). To today, this stands as maybe one of the most vital minute in mountain climbing background.

Over the next 2 a century, mountaineering-- in some cases called mountaineering or alpinism-- removed in Europe. Famous hills like The Eiger and also The Matterhorn were summited, federal government grants were given, and also Alpinism societies started to maintain official registered of which heights were being climbed up. The fervour spread outwards, towards remote arrays such as the Himalayas and also the Andes.

It was in this prime time of alpinism that rappelling was first developed. The first individual ever credited with the act of abseiling-- as for I could discover-- was Jean Charlet-Straton, a Chamonix hill guide that lived from 1840-1925. In the late 1870's, Charlet-Straton made a number of efforts at the un-summited top of Petit Dru, finally reaching the top in 1879. It was on these expeditions that Charlet-Straton perfected the method of lowering himself by means of rope, a skill that would certainly quickly become commonplace among alpinists.

It would make sense to me that in this very early period, the word abseiling was utilized as an actual definition of what Charlet-Straton was doing. As a matter of fact, until 1944, there was no tape-recorded use of words 'rappel' to describe anything mountaineering associated. Roger Frischon-Roche was the supposedly the initial person to describe what Charlet-Straton designed as 'rappelling', although I'll admit that my resource for this is not the most dependable.

So when did words rappelling gain appeal? Why was it used in all, when abseiling was such a literal meaning? To know that, we initially have to take a look at what was taking place across the Atlantic ocean when mountaineering was taking off in Europe.

#local abseilers #Painting abseilers

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zarbakht-bilal · 6 years

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Campervan here everyone! Snacks? Water bottles? Blankets? Sleeping bags? Umbrellas? Firecrackers? Paints and canvas? Notebooks? Camera? Let’s go!

Before reading, turn on this lovely and light travelling music as we are going to the country where love is in the air, where the magic flows with water and where fragrance is diffused in the air. Yes, we are going to France ❤ This will make you drift onto the adventure road. Enjoy! 🙂

Todays Schedule:

Exploring top 14 exotic towns and villages in France.

TOP 14 EXOTIC TOWNS AND VILLAGES IN FRANCE:

On our today’s scheduled list, we have to chalk out fourteen must-to-go places in France. So, Lets began!

1. Les Plus Beaux Villages de France:

Les Plus Beaux Villages have more to offer beyond a pretty façade. In addition to being beautiful, a village must have at least 2 national heritage sites, have less than 2000 inhabitants, and show a strong plan for welcoming tourists while retaining the original character of the site. Beautiful vintage streets and retro architecture is the speciality of this village.

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2. Castelnaud, Occitanie:

Built on a rocky outcrop in the heart of the Périgord Noir, the Château de Castelnaud offers a magnificent panoramic view over the Dordogne Valley. Founded in the 12th century, it is a perfect example of a medieval fortress. Today, the Château houses an important collection of weapons and armour. Along the bastion, the most powerful siege machines from the Middle Ages have been recreated and placed in attack positions. Castelnaud has a strong architecture and forts. It still holds the mist of medieval ages.

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3. Yvoire village, France:

A flower haven! Yvoire is a classic medieval village with a pop of colour. Summers here are both inquisitive and enchanting. And don’t fail to visit the Garden of Five Senses. This garden will tickle all your senses as you get lost in thousands of flowers, fruits and mazes. Enter at your own pace for an amazing sensory experience. Yvoire was originally a fishing village, not surprising given how close it is to Lake Geneva.

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4. Èze Village, Nice, France:

Completely surrounded with a stone wall, the village has only one entrance/exit. Medieval streets, rooftops, courtyards, wells, create a sense of mystique and mystery. It is best to come here in the spring. And if you arrive in the morning, it almost does not find people, and can, as Nietzsche once, enjoy the peace and quiet. And, despite the fact that in the village are a large number of art galleries and shops, not know about it, and many Frenchmen, not to mention the tourists, they still prefer to Cannes and Saint Tropez. You can get here by car and by bus number 82 and 112 from Nice.

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5. The village of St. Paul de Vence, France:

Medieval walls encircle narrow streets and capture the heritage of more than a thousand years. Picking out the marks of history, either alone or with a guide, is to enter into the soul of Saint-Paul de Vence. The fountain at the heart of the village fills St-Paul’s medieval vaults with music. The village is an open-air gallery with artists at work in their studios and staging exciting exhibitions. A painting hung in the morning can find a home before evening falls… if it captures the heart of a visitor. Savour wine produced in Saint-Paul, stroll around the ramparts, enjoy a drink on a terrace… happy to have found a place where life is still so sweet.

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6. Bayeux, France:

The northern French town of Bayeux is best known for the eponymous tapestry that depicts the 11th-century Norman Conquest. You can see it, of course, on display at the Bayeux Tapestry Museum. The cloth’s original home was the Bayeux Cathedral, which still towers over the area, looking a bit like a Gothic wedding cake. Inside you’ll find beautifully detailed murals and haunting crypts. Bayeux makes an excellent jumping off point to tour nearby historic sites.

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7. Roussillon, Cote d’Azur:

One of the most impressive villages in France, Roussillon is a countryside dream. You’ll quickly notice the famous red cliffs and ochre quarries. The clear blue Provencal sky and the shades of yellow, brown and red (and everything in between) illuminate this magical village. Once you set foot in Roussillon, you’ll instantly be taken it by its atmosphere and charm. You can hike, or hire a mountain bike to see the village up close. And on your travels, stop to take a look at the arts and crafts, galleries, restaurants or any ongoing festivals (usually in the summer months).

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8. Honfleur, Normandy:

Colourful and bursting with life, it’s hard to remember that Honfleur was originally built with the sole purpose of trading. As the years have progressed, this seaside town is now famed for attracting impressionist painters. You can see the art up close among the museums and modern galleries dotted around the town. Honfleur is both cultural and wealthy – a fact magnified by the yachts surrounding Vieux Bassin (the heart of the port), and the rows upon rows of high-rise home packed tightly together. Moving with the tide, this town is now dedicated to tourism so you can choose from an enticing selection of arty hotels, shops, restaurants and more.

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9. Domme, Dordogne:

This picturesque village in the south occupies a splendid position high above the Dordogne River. Honey coloured streets, warm welcoming locals and pretty views to match – need I say more? One thing you should know before visiting is that this village has an intriguing cave system that sits underneath the main square. These caves were used to shelter locals during the war, but today, it’s open for tourists and residents alike to admire the beautiful formations. At the end of your visit, a lift will take you to a remarkable viewpoint overlooking the Dordogne valley. It’s a special sight for sure, and you like many visitors won’t help but fall head over heels for Domme. People say that the best view is in Domme.

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10. Ploumanac’h, Brittany:

Oh, this pink granite coast is a budding photographers delight. The colours of blush pink perfectly compliment the sound of the waves gently crashing on the rocks. You’ll seldom find this sight anywhere else in the world. This quaint seaside village is the definition of calm. Families and nomads should aim to tick this hidden gem of their bucket lists – beaches for days, heavenly coastal walks, and bird watching are within arms reach. But please don’t visit expecting the high life, even during midsummer, Ploumanac’h remains a pleasantly sleepy little place.

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11. St-Guilhem-le-Désert, Languedoc:

On the banks of the Herault gorg, you’ll find St-Guilhem-le-Désert. Medieval personality, this village is surrounded by cliffs and oak trees. Beautiful views will be everywhere you turn in this UNESCO gem. With a little exploration, you’ll find the amber stone houses that have stood the test of time, Renaissance-style windows, an ancient tower and of course the grand focus, Abbaye de Gellone. The church is so beautiful, but above all, you can feel the history through the walls. Like other French religious buildings, the abbey was vandalised by Protestants during the Reformation. But still, it remains intact which further adds to its charm.

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12. St-Tropez, Côte d’Azur:

At the heart of the French Riviera is the gorgeous St. Tropez. Famed in songs and notorious spray tans, you’ll quickly learn why this is one of the most famous resorts in Europe. The Med is truly bluer here, so top up your tan, join the locals in a game of boules or explore the cobblestones streets. We don’t need to sell this seaside town; if you’re after days spent poolside, an eclectic mix of shopping and historical charms then this is the place for you. And if you’re dying to experience a taste of the high life, you can celeb-spot on popular Nikki Beach.

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13. L’Isle sur la Sorgue, Provence:

If you’re looking to experience the scenery of a bygone time, L’Isle sur la Sorgue is one of those places that one has to see. The ebb of greenery and the reflection of the water shining from the several canals is simply superb. Known as the ‘island city’, antique lovers and art collectors will be gifted with more than 300 secondhand shops. You’re more than guaranteed to leave with a steal! The antique fairs during Easter have gained a worldwide reputation, so much so that more than 500 antique dealers come to show off their gems. This is the best place for antique lovers as it offers a wide range of classical antiquity and vintage showpieces. It is paradise away from paradise.

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14. Chamonix, Rhone-Alpes:

This snowtopia quickly gained its fame through its proximity to Mont Blanc. But little do many know that these mountain views are as lovely all year round. Chamonix is great for skiers, hikers, thrill seekers and anyone with a love for picturesque views. The talk about this town being extreme is true -, especially as a sports oasis. But if you haven’t got the adrenaline pumping through your veins, don’t worry, many come to admire the views, the shopping and the gastronomic atmosphere. It is the best place for those who believe in magic. A perfect fairytale indeed!

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Well, folks, that’s a wrap on the best towns and villages in France! But the fun doesn’t end here. In the next part, we will be exploring best restaurants and eatables in France. Suggestions are open for the followers from France. Much Love ❤

sources: https://www.saint-pauldevence.com, https://www.tripadvisor.com, http://castelnaud.com/en/, https://cheeseweb.eu, https://www.oliverstravels.com.

The Traveller’s Notebook- Exploring France. Campervan here everyone! Snacks? Water bottles? Blankets? Sleeping bags? Umbrellas? Firecrackers? Paints and canvas? Notebooks? Camera? Let's go!

#Explore #France #Travel Lovers #Travelling #World #Traveling

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anothergracekellyblog · 7 years

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“MINIATURE MONACO” | National Geographic, April 1963

Article and photographs by Gilbert M. and Donna Kerkam Grosvenor

Portrait of THS Prince Rainier and Princess Grace by Bates Littlehales

SOURCE: My scans @ Google Photos | *Full issue* | *Article only*

SOURCE: Bates Littlehales at Getty Images

SOURCE: Gilbert M. Grosvenor at Getty Images

MINIATURE MONACO

All winter long my wife Donna and I had thought about visiting Monaco. We would swim in the blue Mediterranean, bask in Europe's finest climate, royalty in glamorous Monte Carlo, and savor life in one of the world's smallest and strangest countries.

Besides, Monaco was making news by arguing with its powerful neighbor, France, 368,125 times its size. After seven centuries of self-rule, this toy Riviera principality was teetering on the edge of political disaster

By treaty, Monaco agreed to conform with French political, military, and economic interests. Now France wanted Monaco to impose taxes on businesses based in the principality. If foreign as well as French firms were to be taxed, carefree little country, with its air of musical-comedy charm, might never be the same again.

22,000 Residents, 2,000,000 Visitors a Year

Coming by car from Italy, we first sighted Monaco from one of the world's most beautiful mountain drives, La Grande Corniche. From our high vantage point we beheld the entire principality, cupped between the foothills of the French Alps and the sea.

We could take it all in at a single glance, for 370-acre Monaco is less than half the size of Central Park in New York City. It reaches only three miles along the Mediterranean shore and 200 to 1,200 yards inland.

Monaco’s permanent population consists of 3,400 native Monegasques and 18,600 foreigners with residential privileges. Yet to this tiny principality, pressed on three sides by France, come two million pleasure-seeking visitors each year.

Directly below us spread Monte Carlo, most famous of Monaco's three districts. The huge baroque casino stood out among pastel-hued hotels and apartment houses crowded against the sea.

Fronting the pocket-size harbor lies Monaco’s next district, La Condamine, a residential and business section. Here international firms operate happily, sheltered by Monaco's liberal tax laws, and wealthy or retired people clip their coupons with never a worry about Monegasque income tax.

Beyond the square stone-jettied harbor, atop a headland, sits the third district and capital, Monaco-Ville - the Rock - crowned by the fortress palace of Prince Rainier III. Monaco's renowned Oceanographic Museum, a temple of the sea, is built into the Rock's sheer cliff.

Farthest west lies Fontvieille, an industrial section, not an official district. It turns out such varied products as pharmaceuticals, plastics, tobacco, precision instruments, ceramics, glass, and cosmetics.

Conqueror Comes in Friar's Garb

Donna pointed to the Rock. "That's where it all started," she said, “Do you remember the story of how the early Grimaldis took that fortress in the 13th century?"

It was quite a coup. On a night in 1297, drowsy soldiers inside the fortress on the Rock were shaken awake by a knock on the gate and a friar's plea for a night's lodging. Once admitted, the intruder drew a sword and slew the guards. He hailed companions, and they captured the Rock. The bold adventurer was François (the Spiteful) Grimaldi, scion of aristocratic seafarers from Genoa.

Now, more than six and a half centuries later, a Grimaldi, Prince Rainier III, still ruled the Rock and the principality lying below us.

Like a giant amphitheater facing the sea, Monaco's crowded, sun-splashed buildings rose above the harbor, a stage where luxurious yachts rode side by side.

The magnetism of the setting reached out to us. We descended to the sea.

The glistening yachts, like competing starlets, vied for top billing. Multicolored standards waving from their sterns reminded me of the parade of flags fronting the United Nations headquarters in New York. Donna counted the flags of 12 nations.

On board, professional crews polished brass or varnished brightwork. Although hailing from scattered ports, the crews sported identical blue-denim trousers and white T-shirts their yacht's name emblazoned in blue across the front. The uniform, I learned later, is adopted by virtually all boats visiting Monte Carlo.

At the quay’s end I looked up and across to the Rock and Monaco-Ville clinging to it. Atop the palace flagstaff fluttered a white standard bearing the crest of Grimaldi. It signified the Prince was in residence.

It seemed incredible to me that one family could control the principality so long. How could the Grimaldis hold off the Spanish, the Genoese, Venetians, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and survive two World Wars?

Donna had a theory that seemed likely: The Grimaldis had cleverly kept pace with their times; they never let tradition interfere with progress.

In the 14th century, the wealthy Grimaldis ruled the waters off Monaco and increased their fortunes by levying a droit de mer, or sea tribute, on all goods carried by vessels passing within sight of the Rock.

For the next three centuries, even though outgunned by larger fleets, the Grimaldis held on to their tiny fief by negotiating protective treaties with both France and Spain, and by marrying their offspring into the wealthy and influential families of Europe.

In the 1860's when Monaco's treasury ran low, Prince Charles III - Prince Rainier's ancestor - sold the rights to his country's struggling casino. A shrewd businessman named François Blanc (White) obtained a 50-year operating concession. He guaranteed Monaco a substantial share of profits from the casino.

François Blanc transformed the pumpkin-sized principality into a Riviera playground. Grand dukes arrived in special trains to try their luck. Monegasque fishermen beached their boats, exchanged fish for chips, and became nimble-fingered croupiers.

Blanc's casino profits ran high; the saying still lives that "whether you bet red or black, White will win." The House of Grimaldi won, too. In 1869, Prince Charles III abolished taxes in Monaco.

Albert I Founded Museum of the Sea

Science, ballet, and international conclaves were introduced to Monaco by Charles's son, Prince Albert I. He inherited the early Grimaldis' love for the sea and was fascinated by marine biology, making 30 scientific voyages. In 1910 he opened the Oceanographic Museum to exhibit his astounding collection of specimens. Jacques-Yves Cousteau, renowned undersea explorer, now directs the museum, which last year attracted more than 850,000 visitors and scientists.

Prince Albert, noting that Monaco's climate suited subtropical plants, also started the Exotic Garden. Today it ranks with the finest cactus gardens in the world.

The present Prince, Rainier III, has his ancestors' business sense as well as their flair. He has sparked a fantastic economic boom and a $200 million dollar, five-year expansion project, which includes adding 100 acres of land to Monaco. And he has given his principality a beautiful Princess, the former Grace Kelly of Philadelphia and Hollywood.

Wedding Crowds Jam Monaco

As the days passed into weeks, we explored the principality on foot. Most charming to us was the antique district of Monaco-Ville, which remains unblemished by 20th-century architecture. Its buildings run together like a jigsaw puzzle and the narrow crooked streets, forbidden to automobiles, lead to secluded garden restaurants crammed into small courtyards.

In stark contrast is Monaco-Ville's main square, which bursts with tourist buses and foreign-licensed autos. A good part of the palace's 100-man, whistle-blowing guard - the carabiniers - struggle frantically in the square for control.

At a sidewalk cafe I asked the proprietor what caused the tremendous crowds that day.

"The big wedding,' he replied simply.

"What wedding?" Donna inquired.

"Madame, Prince Rainier's wedding, of course," he answered, annoyed.

"But that was in 1956,” I protested.

"Quite true, and ever since we've had the crowds,” he retorted.

Not many days later, Monaco exploded with excitement. It was Grand Prix week. Europeans jammed the principality in early June for one of several Grand Prix races to determine world auto-racing supremacy.

Monaco's Grand Prix is the most famous auto race through city streets. Stands line the course. Spectators hang from apartment and hotel balconies.

"We reserve race-view rooms years in advance," a hotel manager told me.

Yachts flock to the harbor and anchor close to the breakwater. The owners are hoisted to the masthead in bosun chairs for a bird's-eye view, helicopters churn overhead; light planes circle endlessly.

At race time the loudspeaker crackles, "Ladies and gentlemen, Their Serene Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Monaco."

In his red Porsche, Prince Rainier speeds through the traditional ouverture du circuit. Beside him sits the Princess in a Kelly green dress and white turban.

The racers line up for the start. The red and white flag dips, drivers clutch out, the machines scream, shudder, then leap forward trailing streaks of burned rubber and dense exhaust clouds.

I stand atop protective hay bales at the first turn. Donna remains behind a wall near the track on the Avenue de Monte-Carlo.

Red, green, blue, and metallic blurs of machines and drivers merge into a maelstrom of color as the cars roar toward me at 60 miles an hour. Squinting through the telephoto lens, I sense a dangerous squeezing pattern forming in the heavy traffic.

Suddenly one car nudges another, triggering a chain reaction. Three entangled cars fishtail badly, practically into my lap. A viciously spinning wheel shears loose from its axle. In my rangefinder, I see it coming.

The wheel bounces, gathers momentum, and sails directly at me. Forgetting pictures, I flip backward, cameras flying, and hit the pavement flat out.

An elderly Monegasque track official, standing but three feet away, remains frozen, and the wheel plows into him like a steamroller. He is knocked unconscious. An alert Red Cross stretcher team speeds him away to Monaco Hospital. My enthusiasm for close-up pictures vanishes.

After 82 minutes the lead cars have toured 50 laps - the halfway mark. The field narrows as drivers and machines fail - the three-car crack-up, broken fuel pumps, sheared drive shafts, fractured gearboxes.

At 94 laps a New Zealander, Bruce McLaren, leads the Ferrari team's Phil Hill, an American, by 30 seconds; at 98 laps the lead narrows to 12 seconds; the checkered flag drops as McLaren finishes a scant two seconds ahead of Hill, 1961 world champion.

High Fashions Bring High Prices

After Le Grand Prix, the Monte Carlo summer season shifts into high gear. The small, fashionable dress shops display the newest creations from Paris, Milan, and Rome. Leotard-like outfits of stretch silk by Pucci, the rage of the Riviera, sell for S100 and up, and matching silk shoes and purse for another $50. Antique shops are willing to sacrifice authentic Louis XIV chairs for only a few thousand dollars each.

Monte Carlo's hotels begin to fill up. Of them all, only the Hotel de Paris is really plush. Moreover, it is really expensive - three-room suites can cost $120 a day.

As one Monegasque put it, "If the Hotel de Paris were cheaper, the status seekers would avoid it."

At our hotel, the furniture was only almost antique. Our bathroom was twice the size of our bedroom, and wooden steps led up to the tub - four feet above the concrete floor.

One morning I ordered orange juice for breakfast, and the incident provided an amusing sidelight on Monegasque hotel thinking. The menu listed the beverage for sixty cents, and so when the bill exceeded three dollars, I inquired about this small mistake.

The manager apologized profusely and telephoned the chef. After a lengthy conversation, he reported, "No mistake, monsieur. The oranges were very small today. It took more than usual to fill your glass."

We were learning how Monaco keeps its economy in the black. Tourists and the commerce they generate provide some 40 percent of the Monegasque income.

Anything bought in Monaco carries a sales tax of about 3 percent. All services - hotels, restaurants, entertainment - are taxed 9 percent. The principality also runs a tobacco monopoly and operates highly profitable radio and television stations, among the most powerful in Europe.

In 1885 Monaco issued its first stamp, and unwittingly struck another rich vein of national revenue. No one could have predicted the 20th-century popularity of philately, or that Monaco's stamps would eventually contribute 8 percent of its budget.

Strangely, while it is still Monte Carlo with its casino and glamorous life that draws visitors, gambling profits now bring in only about half as much as Monaco's stamps.

Home of 600 "Presidents”

So successful is this Monegasque economy that the country levies no personal income tax and no property tax; corporate taxes are modest. Yet it is probably the only country left in the world with no national debt.

This economic lure has helped spark the prosperity. Foreign firms need pay only a moderate fee to incorporate in Monaco, but their activities must be real. Holding companies and letter-drop corporations are not allowed.

Monaco presently has 600 corporations. Directeurs (presidents) outnumber croupiers - although the croupiers' tips alone exceed the average annual 'fee' of 10,000 French francs ($2,046) paid the directeurs.

Ironically, Monaco's very success had threatened to bring about her downfall. Her tax inducements figured in the rift between President de Gaulle of France and Prince Rainier.

Paris argued that it was unfair for French businessmen to incorporate in Monaco and thus avoid paying taxes to France.

However, Monegasques countered that France must approve all applications from both French and foreign firms desiring to transfer their activities to Monaco. If France did not wish her citizens to set up business there, she could deny them incorporation.

"Surely, the true source of the French-Monegasque dispute must be obscured,” a Monegasque told me. “Taxation would help France so little, but hurt Monaco so much."

An Italian businessman put it more bluntly: "If the French clamp down, I'll move my offices to Geneva within the month."

We were eager to interview Prince Rainier about his plans, as well as to photograph the princely family. Finally, approval came from Georges Lukomski, palace photographer and assistant press attaché.

Arriving early, we asked Georges to show us around the Palace of Monaco. We started in the inner courtyard which separates the offices, formal reception rooms, and visiting royalty suites from the private living quarters.

"We'll take the back way; it's quicker," Georges announced as we mounted a dark, musty stairway - little changed since the 15th century.

The ornate rooms we passed through were predictably antique, richly leafed in gold and dressed in velvets. Although George Washington never slept there, Georges assured us that numerous popes, cardinals, emperors, and kings had.

Through the labyrinth of halls and stairways, we twisted, glimpsing paintings and relics of the early Grimaldis. Back on the ground floor, we passed what appeared to be a naval torpedo with a seat and controls to guide it.

"That's the Prince's skin-diving submarine,” Georges said casually. "He uses it sometimes when he collects specimens for the Oceanographic Museum.”

We emerged into a sunlit garden where children's swings and sandboxes shared space with the flowers, balls, tricycles, and toy trucks lined the gravel path. An inflated swan, plastic raft, and two tiny paddles drifted in a blue-tiled swimming pool.

Prince Rainier and Princess Grace entered the garden, Prince Albert, then four, and Princess Caroline, five, skipped behind them.

They were so informal that Donna momentarily forgot her much-practiced curtsy.

"Welcome to Monaco," the Prince said.

The fresh, natural beauty of the Princess surpassed her familiar photographic image. But it was the Prince who surprised me. His portraits fail to express fully his youthful exuberance and dynamic personality.

"Does your GEOGRAPHIC article include all the Riviera?" Princess Grace inquired.

"No, your Highness," I replied. "We're photographing only the Principality of Monaco."

"That's wonderful!” the Prince exclaimed in flawless English. He studied in British schools and served as a French liaison officer with a Texas division in World War II.

"I trust you're interested in seeing more than just the casino," the Prince commented.

"We're exploring all the principality this summer," I assured him, "even the blueprints for land expansion."

The Prince lit up. "Good. Then you know of the new land we're gaining both from the railroad and from the sea.”

"Next time you visit Monaco,” he said, "the trains will run underground - not along the waterfront as they do today." (I could vouch for the latter: Our hotel room overlooked not only the harbor but the more than 50 trains a day that rumbled through the principality.)

"You know, don't you," the Prince asked, "that we're using the rock from the rail tunnel to create new land along the shore? We badly need the new industrial sites in Fontvieille and space for new hotels, offices, and apartments in Monte Carlo."

Although the Prince did not mention it, Monaco's growing acres come from an additional source: French soil bought as earth-fill from the owners of nearby hillsides.

"Don't forget to visit our industries in Fontvieille," the Prince said, bidding us farewell.

Welcome to a Woman's Kingdom

So, next day, Donna and I called on the flourishing Lancaster Beauty Products factory. It further emphasized the puzzling relationship between France and Monaco.

Monsieur Georges Würz, the owner, welcomed us into his "woman's kingdom".

"Our lipsticks, facial creams, and extracts for problem skin are sold mostly to the Common Market countries," he told us. "In order to meet the demand for our products, we employ workers from the French towns of Beausoleil and Menton."

"And what would happen if France blocks her roads leading into Monaco?" I asked, recalling newspaper speculation.

"The workers would be jobless, and I would be bankrupt," M. Würz replied.

He opened a door, stepped across the threshold, and announced, "I am now in France. The frontier divides my factory. Under French law I can only store goods here; but where you stand, in Monaco, I produce our produits de beauté!"

This brought to mind the Monte Carlo apartment building where tenants in the front reside in Monaco and pay no taxes, while those in back live in France-among them a French tax collector.

The noon whistle blew, and people scurried from their offices. We left the factory to join throngs headed beachward for a two-hour lunch in the sun.

At the popular Calypso restaurant, on the water, we sat amid bikini-clad patrons who ate pizza and salade niçoise or did the twist to a blaring jukebox.

It was here we observed a most remarkable feat of legerdemain, which revealed, among other things, why Monegasque working girls carry bulky handbags. Each bag contains at least a lunch, beach towel, bathing cap, and bikini. Magician-like, out in the open, the girls shed dresses and underclothes and skillfully don bikinis with a minimum loss of motion or modesty. The execution was brilliant, if devious.

Donna confessed that her admiration failed to spark the necessary courage for emulation. "This is no place for a novice," she said.

Syndicate Controls the Casino

We left until last a visit to the casino that brought reigning royalty to Monaco for a century, We had already been briefed by Monsieur A. G. Bernard, the casino's public relations manager.

While few non-Monegasques know this clever, philosophical gentleman, everyone knows the syndicate he represents: Société des Bains de Mer et du Cercle des Etrangers de Monaco – the Monaco Sea Bathing Society and Foreigners Club.

SBM controls the Casino of Monte Carlo, the Hôtel de Paris, Monte Carlo Beach, the high-stakes Casino d'Eté, modern bowling alleys, and even a jet-helicopter passenger service. A fabulously wealthy Greek shipowner, Aristotle Socrates Onassis, is a large stockholder in SBM. He lives aboard his luxurious Monaco-based yacht, the Christina.

As the short, wiry M. Bernard ushered us into his office, I immediately asked, "How can I expect to win at your casino?"

"Ah! Winning depends upon how you play," he responded. "But winning is not really the primary motivation of our patrons. For some, it is relaxation or release from worry or loneliness; for the system players, it is a study in mathematics; for the tourists, the casino is a novelty; and for a few, gambling is a disease, as destructive as any on medical record."

I asked permission to photograph the casino.

"This is possible, but only if you bring your own models, We must respect the privacy of our patrons who may wish to remain without names or faces - you understand?"

With that, he handed me a pass, "To eliminate temptation for madame, I have issued you a joint card for the casino, monsieur." He smiled, "She cannot go without you."

"That's fine,' I said, “but you still haven't told me how I should play to win."

"Ah, yes, there is one foolproof way," M. Bernard began. "You pass through the salons ordinaires into the salons privés. Select a heavy bettor, station yourself behind his chair, keep your hands in your pockets... ," he paused ever so slightly, "and watch. If you gamble in this way, you will always win."

With that advice, we entered another world, another era. Nothing had been spared in creating this dazzling monument to French baroque architecture and design. Gold-faced moldings, pastel frescoes, and muraled ceilings arc interrupted only by crystals dripping from huge chandeliers suspended above the array of green-felt tables.

We followed M. Bernard's instructions and walked through the salons ordinaires. The attendant bowed as we stepped from wooden floors onto plush, piled carpet and into the hushed salons privés. These are private only in that an extra payment is required, and guests must be properly attired for the privilege of wagering higher stakes.

Voices intermingled with the crisp clicking of chips, the metallic tick of spinning balls in roulette wheels, and the tinkle of the jewel-encrusted wrists reaching to place bets.

At the center table, a small group gathered around a tall, slender Italian, his deep suntan accentuating graying sideburns. Only his eyes hinted of nervousness as he tossed out four-thousand-dollar plaques. In fifteen minutes he won 125,000 francs, more than $25,000. Then he turned and scooped up his winnings. Dropping a $100 tip on the table for the croupiers, he strode briskly away.

This was a night we would not soon forget. Thanks to M. Bernard's foolproof method, we had won a vicarious fortune.

Happy Land of Make-believe

We have come to know Monaco as many things. She is well ruled by one of the oldest and shrewdest dynasties in Europe. She enjoys a booming economy. Since our visit the tiny fief and France have worked out a settlement of their fraternal spat. In the future, French businessmen who settle in Monaco must pay taxes, For those who have already acquired residency, however, the favorable economic climate remains unmarred.

But Monaco emerges, ultimately, as a land of make-believe. She suits the fairy tale, even to the handsome Prince who marries the beautiful Princess and lives in a palace overlooking the sea, hopefully, happily ever after.

As long as enough people want to believe in fairy tales come true, there will always be a Monaco somewhere.

THE END

#grace kelly #national geographic #gilbert grosvenor #donna kerkam grosvenor #bates littlehales #princess grace of monaco #1963 #prince rainier #monaco #phil hill #jacques cousteau #grand prix de monaco #monte carlo #lancaster cosmetics #musée océanographique de monaco

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zloyodessit · 5 years

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GRU base in the Alps, or the Makarov handgun in the mountains

More and more details are being revealed in the story of the Russian GRU spy base in the Alps, which surfaced in an extremely embarrassing moment, right ahead of the Normandy Summit. But, before I continue, I'd like to note that everything that has been and will be written about the GRU base has already been branded "fake news". It wasn't the French Ministry of Internal Affairs or in any other official agency that refuted the information about the base, but the Moskovsky Komsomolets online newspaper in Russia. In an interview with this outlet, military intelligence veteran and Hero of Russia Rustem Klupov vehemently denied the report.

Well, give me a break, will you? It’s not a secret to anyone that Moskovsky Komsomolets is a publication that has long been working under the auspices of the Russian Ministry of Defense, and you, guys, let a military intel pundit try to refute "fake news" about Russian spies in the Alps? Really?

Although, maybe it's all for the better because it's precisely thanks to such articles that we can once again see whose guilty conscience is speaking. But let's return to the spy base story.

At the moment, the report has revealed that the base hosted such prominent (literally and figuratively) Russian intelligence figures as Ruslan Boshirov (real name Anatoly Chepiga), Alexander Petrov (Alexander Mishkin) and Sergey Fedotov (Denis Sergeyev) – the group of Skripal poisoners; also the group of operatives who tried to poison Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev: (the following are their fake IDs) Nikolai Kononikhin, Ivan Lebedev, Danil Stepanov, George Gorshkov and Sergey Pavlov (the latter also participated in the Skripal attempt); agents with pseudonyms Eduard Shishmakov and Vladimir Popov, who were involved in a foiled pro-Russian coup d'etat in Montenegro; as well as Alexander Kulagin, Yevgeny Larin, Timur Nuzirov, Naman Yusupov and Gennady Shvets – all unknown to the public so far.

Of course, I am more than sure that soon we will learn about the "feats" of the last five persons on the list and I'm just as sure that it'll be The Insider outlet that will make a great deal of efforts to expose them. But today we have a slightly different issue to focus on.

In fact, France had long become become a transit base for the GRU. Russia's infamous "little green men" carried out their operations, assassinations, acts of sabotage, and other activities largely due to the presence of the fact that this "cabin in the mountains" existed. And most notably, the actions we're talking about and the figures we've mentioned have been destabilizing various European states, including France.

I wonder what the new rhetoric will now be of Emmanuel Macron, who just a week ago was calling for peace with Russia and joint efforts against global terrorism, if, in fact, Russia itself is the source of global terrorism…

Besides, the fact that some of the alpine base visitors are still unknown to us leads me to thinking that they may have been involved in much more heinous crimes and what we know about GRU operations in Europe in 2014-2019 may just be the tip of the iceberg. Also, it may as well be that after learning about the Russian spy base in France as late as now, we are yet to learn about more such "mountain cabins" across the entire Europe.

Of course, it will be interesting to see the official reaction on the part of France, given that the country's territory was used to organize and logistically support high-profile "special measures" throughout Europe. However, I believe all we'll see will be deliberate self-distancing, for at least two reasons.

Firstly, Paris is once again embroiled in public unrest, fueled by radical civic groups funded from Russia. So do the authorities want to see their Paris in burning tire smoke on Christmas Eve? I doubt it.

Well, and secondly, let's recall the story of British art historian Anthony Blunt, who had been working for Soviet intelligence for almost 15 years and, after being exposed, was granted immunity and a guarantee that the fact of his cooperation with the Soviets wouldn't be made public. The very fact that in the heart of Great Britain, in Buckingham Palace, a mole that had been working for such a long period, has discredited the Mi-5, so it would make no sense for them to cause any public outrage over the fact. Now, the situation with the Russian spy base in the Alps is very similar to this story, because for six years France has served as a transit hub for Russian hitmen.

I'm sure that for the second day already, someone is fuming really bad over this fact at 14 Rue Saint Dominique, while the office phone is already red hot from angry calls at the headquarters on Boulevard Mortier.

Really, these are not the best times for French intelligence and foreign security. But, perhaps, this could have been avoided had the authorities perceived Russian threat more realistically, without any appeasing and unnecessary maneuvering.

And now, while Europe will continue to bend before the Kremlin, we will continue to learn more about the malign activity of Russian spy cells on European body. But how much more bending will the European spine stand under the weight of such activity?

https://zloy-odessit.livejournal.com/2978807.html

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khorazir · 7 years

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A cartographic plot

The first part of this was written for Spark. I went a bit over the wordcount while talking about the importance of places in my fanfics, and decided to post the entire thing here on tumblr. The bit published in Spark is above, the rest below the cut.

I started writing BBC Sherlock fanfiction in the back of my parents’ car after a week spent cycling in the French Alps. For years, my father had talked about tackling the Col du Galibier, a pass of Tour de France fame, by bicycle. In the summer of 2012, we finally did it. Ah, but Sherlock and cycling? Where’s the connection? When I began writing the story, scribbling on whatever scrap of paper was available in the car, at first the only connection was that I loved both Sherlock and cycling, and that my recent experiences in the mountains, spending hours in the saddle arduously ascending winding roads, had made a deep impression on me. I was desperate for an outlet for my pent up inspiration.

Eventually, what started out as a cracky premise for a Post-Reichenbach Sherlock story became Over Hill and Under Hill, a fanfic of 75k words and the first finished instalment of my Over/Under series. In the story, the extreme, beautiful landscape of Savoyen serves as a backdrop for the Baker Street boys to deal with the fallout of the Fall (written before Series 3 aired, my version of Sherlock’s reunion with John is different from canon) and their feelings for each other while basically doing what I had just done: climbing Alpine passes on their bicycles. At some point, a case creeps into the story, too, which Sherlock solves from abroad.

Apart from telling my version of the reunion, I wanted to write a story about grandiose nature, the hardship of ascending two thousand metres of altitude on a bicycle, the elation of standing on top of the pass glancing over the mountains, and the rush of adrenaline during the steep descents. I yearned to include some of the strange people we’d met on the way and who return as minor characters in the story, such as the chap cycling all the way in tight black swimming trunks and nothing else. How fortunate for the storyteller that the long ascents give John and Sherlock time to think and to talk, while the descents make their adrenaline junkies’ hearts soar. They have to share a room and a double bed at the hotel, of course, which leads to ... things. The plot itself is structured by the landscape, almost following the roads they cycle on bend for bend and landmark for landmark. Weather conditions such as hot, relentless sun and a sudden thunderstorm add a touch of drama. Stops along the way provide incentives for reflections, conversations and realisations, and for the boys getting to know each other again after their separation.

I was surprised by how well it worked to transfer these very urban characters so closely associated with London into this new setting and unfamiliar activity, keeping their essence (hopefully) while letting the landscape and its particular blend of beauty and danger work its magic, moulding the two men into the couple they hadn’t realised they’d been all along.

Looking back, the way Over Hill and Under Hill came about shouldn’t have surprised me. Of the books and stories I grew up with, and which have left a lasting impression on me, most have a very specific setting and precise sense of place. Be it the stories by Astrid Lindgren, mostly set in the Swedish region of Småland during the time of her childhood in the early 20th century, or Vasapark and the small islands around Stockholm of her adult life, or Otfried Preußler’s masterful descriptions of the Lausitz region in Eastern Germany where his captivating novel Krabat is set. Or be it JRR Tolkien, the master of making the fictional yet reality-grounded landscape of Middle-earth absolutely integral to the plot and structure of his writings. Even if many believe Middle-earth to be found in New Zealand, based on Peter Jackson’s film adaptations, the true inspiration for the Shire are Tolkien’s beloved West Midlands. The hemlock glade where Beren sees Lúthien dance for the first time in The Silmarillion is based on a similar glade near Great Haywood Tolkien watched his wife dance. And the gruesome Dead Marshes on the borders of Mordor Tolkien experienced himself on the war-torn battlefields of the Somme. I think it’s safe to claim that the landscapes that he encountered as a child and young man seeped into his writings, in many cases becoming not just interesting tableaux to add colour to the stories, but important tools to provide characterisation, suspense, and poignant reminders of the preciousness of the natural world.

For me, the spatial setting of a story and its detailed description have always been an important requirement for my enjoyment of a tale. The “willing suspension of disbelief”, to quote Tolkien, works best for me when the setting of a story is as detailed and well observed as possible, grounded in physical laws and restrictions as well as the distinctive laws of the story. Weather, vegetation, distances, languages and the effects they have on the characters have to be realistic – both when existing and imagined places are described –, otherwise I’m quickly pulled out of the narrative and lose interest (by the way, this is one of my major gripes with “The Final Problem”: the way it sets at naught many of the basic “laws” established in previous episodes of Sherlock). Hints at local customs and peculiarities add colour, depth and believability to a setting, providing the characters with material to rub against and to engage with, to test their limits and limitations.

For me as an author (and illustrator), researching locations for fanfics or art is part of the enjoyment of writing, especially when it can be linked with visits to said locations (my excuse for frequent trips to the UK – I’m based in Germany). I’m a stickler for detail born out of a profound interest in the natural world, in botany, eco-systems, geology and geography, but also in the way historic events shape and influence landscape and its inhabitants. All these aspects I need to see reflected in fiction, and rendered faithfully, or else I can’t take a setting seriously, not the characters and their motivations. Most of the fanfics I’ve enjoyed so far have a very strong sense of place, be it London, Edinburgh, New York, Continental Europe, the Near East or the English countryside. In my own stories, I try to emulate this, preferring to write about places I’ve come to know through repeated visits and extensive literary and online research, as well as correspondence with locals.

Researching my WW2/codebreaker AU Enigma constitutes a special challenge in this respect, because it not only requires me to gather information about existing locations like Bletchley Park, Kent or London, but also wartime Britain in general, removed not just by space but by more than seventy intervening years. Although the internet is a brilliant tool for research, while trying to find out more about the history of the Enigma locations, visits have brought the places to life for me, particularly Bletchley Park. The venue has been transformed into a commendable museum that seeks to recreate the atmosphere of it’s hay-day as a secret codebreaker base through reconstructed huts and historical installations, as well as information about important figures such as Alan Turing, and live demonstrations of his inventions. Interestingly, at the museum, I even found factual confirmation of what I had considered an invention for my story. When it came to locating Sherlock’s and John’s billet in Bletchley in 1941, Google Maps was of limited help: most of Bletchley was built after the war – it’s now part of Milton Keynes –, and from the map, it was almost impossible to tell which parts of it would have existed during the war and which were built afterwards. Old maps or arial photographs were scarce. So I used a bit of deductive reasoning and common sense, basically looking at the main roads leading in and out of town and assuming that they would have been built first. On a whim, I chose one of those thoroughfares, Buckingham Road, and placed the billet there. And lo and behold, during a subsequent visit to the Bletchley Park Museum, I found a photograph depicting billets of the park’s staff situated on the very road.

Lucky coincidences aside, nothing beats a visit to a location one wants to write about. However sometimes, due to constraints of time or money, visits aren’t possible and research from afar has to suffice. I worked like that when I started writing The Summer Boy. I’d been toying with the idea of a story partially set in Sherlock’s childhood for a long while. 1980s nostalgia played a part since I was a child during that decade as well, as did the desire to get to know the character better and to speculate what made him the man we encounter in the show, after glimpses of his past shown in Series 3.

However, a fitting setting for my story to unfold long eluded me. I was striving for an atmosphere similar to that of one of my all-time favourite films, “Stand By Me”, a bitter-sweet yet authentic depiction of childhood with a strong sense of spatial setting. I wanted the location to be a rural one, preferably close to London, with a distinctive landscape and somewhat fragile eco-system, the partial destruction of which would feature in the story to symbolise a place Sherlock could not really return to, but that offered him the chance of “growing up“ and finding an alternative retreat through his developing relationship with John.

Given the canonical links Sherlock Holmes has with Sussex, I began looking for potential locations along the Sussex coast and in the South Downs. I didn’t just want to invent a village or landmark, but wanted the story that was going to contain mythical and supernatural elements (based on how it’s interpreted, at least), to be set in a real place. The landscape and particular vegetation of the chalky downlands were going to play an important part in the story. And remember: stickler for detail. The plants, animals and historical sites Sherlock encounters had to be correct. So I researched the South Downs and their particular chalk-based vegetation, read up on South Down sheep, about Bronze and Iron Age settlements and their remains, and about the myths and legends of the area. I found striking similarities to Terry Pratchett’s masterful depiction of the Chalk in his Tiffany Aching series (The Wee Free Men and its four sequels), which is doubtlessly based on the chalky Wiltshire Downs he lived on. The link to Pratchett, his blend of real, meticulously observed, and fantastical elements based on myths and local culture (which are again inspired by the landscapes they originated in) seemed a good foil for my own story, which grew to contain lots of references to his works. I even partly modelled some of the characters on figures from his series of books.

Still, the dilemma remained to find a concrete place, preferably one featuring an ancient site or landmark such as a hill-fort or a barrow that would function as a focal place for young Sherlock to discover and to spend time at with the mysterious friend he encounters there, and who seems to be a personification of the South Downs, and of summer. By chance (and Google Image Search), I stumbled across a place called Chanctonbury Ring, a henge of trees planted in the 18th century on an Iron Age hill-fort. The South Downs Way leads past it, it commands a good view all around. Sheep graze there in summer, and on the grassy and partly wooded slopes surrounding it many rare plants grow. It’s in walking distance of a quaint village (Washington), which I could use as a base for Sherlock to be accommodated at with relatives. And what ultimately made Chanctonbury Ring the perfect location for my story was the fact that during the Great Storm of 1987, the trees of the henge were almost completely destroyed. I had wanted to set the story in that very year, because I imagine BBC Sherlock’s age to be around Benedict’s and my own (we are only seven months apart), which would make Sherlock around nine in the story, pre-pubescent. Perfect. His fake gravestone from TRF even says 1977, so that fit. And we all know what’s said about coincidences and lazy universes ...

So, perfect spatial and temporal setting found, I still faced the sad fact that I hadn’t actually visited Chanctonbury Ring, nor could see any chance of getting there soon. Nevertheless, the story demanded to be written. Consulting Google Maps as well as photographs helped to get an idea of the place. I looked at similar places in my home country across the Channel. Thus equipped, I started writing (the muse wouldn’t suffer any delay and kept pestering me until I relented), in the hope to actually be able to visit Chanctonbury Ring before I had come too far, enabling me to revise potential mistakes.

Eventually, when the story was already half written, and during the wrong season of the year (the story is set in the summer, I went in December), I visited Chanctonbury Ring. I was pleased to find that my descriptions of the landscape were surprisingly accurate based on what research I’d done, although the visit did add a feeling for the place that hopefully enabled me to make the latter chapters more poignant.

Arguably the most important location for writing Sherlock fanfic is London, a place I’ve become very familiar with in recent years due to frequent visits with long walks and a full timetable of museums, exhibitions, galleries and cultural events, lots of reading about the history of the city, a strong interest in current events, and constant curiosity that lets me explore places off the beaten tracks.

London was one of my favourite places even before I my obsession with BBC Sherlock happened. Actually, I’m convinced the way London is portrayed in the series is one of the main reasons Sherlock struck such a chord with me. Apart from the humour, the obvious chemistry of the protagonists, the cleverness of the dialogues and the overall aesthetics, it was the way modern London was depicted and made an integral character that fascinated me so much about the show. Despite large parts of Sherlock being filmed in Cardiff and elsewhere, they nevertheless feel like parts of the British capital just off the main tourist tracks. Sherlock’s London is both familiar and strange, ugly and beautiful, dark and bright, historic and modern. The character’s particular way of focussing on seemingly unimportant details is reflected in the cinematography. The choice of unusual settings and locations such as Speedy’s Café, Battersea Power Station, the streets of Soho, Leinster Garden, a disused Tube station and the banks of the Thames add atmosphere and colour, making London a living, breathing character in the show – as it was in the original Conan Doyle stories. Occasionally, a touch of Victoriana, ever present even in modern London, creeps into the series, linking it back to the stories it’s based on. Sherlock has definitely rekindled my love of London, or rather, has fanned the already existing embers into hot flames. In the sequels to Over Hill and Under Hill, and several of my other Sherlock fanfics, I’ve tried to honour this tradition by including curious locations in, and little-known minutiae about London to make it come to life as an integral part of the narration, and also to create credibility for the setting.

I have plans to dive even deeper into London past and present. For about a year and half I’ve been working on a Sherlock/London graphic novel in which the location becomes centre point. The story is simple: to alleviate boredom, on his birthday, Sherlock is sent on a “treasure hunt” through London, moving from riddle to riddle and clue to clue set, from one little known location to the next, discovering facts and anecdotes about what he visits in the process. The idea for the book was born out of my many walks through London, along the South Bank, through the City on Sunday mornings when it’s like a ghost town, deserted, along the Regent’s Canal to Camden and on to Hampstead Heath, through the East End and the West End, Chinatown, Soho, Bloomsbury, through Chelsea and Kensington, and further out to the Docklands and Greenwich. I’ve discovered real gems through these walks, some of which Sherlock is going to visit as well – as many as I can realistically squeeze into twenty-four hours without completely exhausting the poor man.

The project is going to occupy me for a good while yet. Also planned are two sequels to The Summer Boy. One is based on a painting I did for the Holmestice Exchange and which depicts John and Sherlock in a disused Tube station. There was some clamouring for a story based on the image, so I’m going to oblige. Since the Tube is such an integral part of London and I’ve long been fascinated with its history, I look forward to researching it.

The second sequel is going to be set in the Lake District. Some of the research for this new story has already been done, and another visit to the area has been booked for the autumn. I haven’t really thought of a plot for the story yet, some vague ideas aside, but I’m very sure that the landscape of Cumbria will provide it once I’m there. A cartographic plot, as usual.

#sherlock #fanfic #spark #enigma #summer boy #over hill and under hill #over/under #sherlock graphic novel #tolkien #jrr tolkien

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casualarsonist · 5 years

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Steep review (PC)

If you’ve ever dreamt of killing yourself by hurling your body into a tree at fifty miles an hour, then Steep is here to satisfy that desire. Developed by Ubisoft’s Annecy studio, the game is their first lead-developer credit after a career of working on the multiplayer portions of some of their parent’s most notable single-player franchises - Splinter Cell and Assassin’s Creed. And it shows. Because while the passion for X-Games, and for the beautiful French Alps is evident, the developer’s skill at realising their intentions is not.

When you think of X-Games, you think of a thrill, right? Hurtling down picturesque yet treacherous terrain in the world’s most remote and unspoiled wilderness. Skin-of-your-teeth weaving through trees and over cliffs. Mastery over mind and body, as a peak physical form is pushed to its limits. You don’t think about people fighting with their own feet to get themselves to go where they want, and slamming head-first into fences and houses again and again because their body isn’t doing what you’re telling it to. Well...bad news. Because the latter is the experience you’re going to primarily indulge in Steep as you wrestle with the unintuitive and uncustomisable control system that Annecy have forced down your throat.

Somehow both twitchy and unresponsive at the same time, the controls are the game’s biggest flaw, if, for nothing else, than the fact that this is a god-damn sports game. On the ground you’ll try to steer away from obstacles and the character either won’t move fast enough, or simply won’t move at all, and in the air a mosquito’s fart on your joystick will cause you to initiate a spinning or flipping trick for which there is no clear indicator as to when it will stop, sending you crashing into the ground, or slowing you down and knocking you off balance and leaving you vulnerable to being knocked off your feet at even the slightest jostle thereon. There is a certain learning curve that can make you ‘better', but there’s no way to make you good, because the game’s course and mission design prevent you from being able to finish the majority of the courses the first time round. This is often due to the lack of direct camera control - a nightmare if you’re heading over a steep drop in which unknown peril awaits. And if you move into the first-person view, brace yourself for the motion sickness. Your head whips hard into the direction you’re intending to steer your character, which is problematic given the fact that your character often won’t travel in the direction you point them. That, combined with the incessant bumping and jostling, makes you wonder why they implemented it in the first place. It’s not like I go for a jog in real life and have to stop and retch because the head-bobbing has made me sick. Your brain corrects for the movements of your body - so why would anyone think that a go-pro-eye view is the right kind of ‘realism’ for their game? Outside of the core design, the courses are severely wanting in quality as well, and this is almost entirely due to the fact that at least half the runs require you to hit extremely specific markers in order to finish them. You can ski through this little mountain town if you want, but to *win* you’ll need to follow this exact path to the letter, because if you miss a single checkpoint, you gotta start again. Yes, instead of just hitting you with a time penalty or something equivalent, Steep instead opts simply to fail you outright for not hitting each check point on the money. And if it’s not doing that, it’s telling you to complete one single trick worth a certain amount of points. And if it’s not doing that it’s telling you to knock down some snowmen which, for some reason, don’t lie on a single path to be linked together, but are scattered around all sides of the mountain and can’t ever be toppled in less than 4-5 separate runs. Because that’s why people go snowboarding. To do a single trick, or to take round-trips down a mountain and back to collect all the snowmen. I can see that it’s an attempt to give some sense of narrative to an otherwise borderless, open gaming experience, but the point of X-Games is to slide down a mountain. Give me a decent path to slide down and I’ll slide down it happily and thank you for the privilege. There’s no need for this to be an open world. There’s no need for narrative. Give me a proper career mode if you’re so desperate for a story. There is no functional benefit to the XP system. There is no functional benefit to the ability to walk the map - the drop-zones are kilometres away from one-another and you trudge through the snow at a crawl, so it’s never a practical feature worth using. I admire the fact that they’ve tried to make a ‘modern’ X-Games experience, but the word ‘modern’ as it exists in Ubisoft’s lexicon is far-removed from anything one can define positively. Ubisoft’s ‘modern’ is shorthand for ‘trope’. And the trope here is the open world - a genre in which Ubisoft has consistently demonstrated they lack the chops to fill. And for all its faults, I think it’s the lack of room for spontaneity that really sucks the soul out of the experience. While limiting the breadth of activities might have rustled some feathers, replacing all the boring ‘follow this NPC’ missions and all the checkpoint garbage with free-style time trials would have been far more fun and far more replayable than a course that requires you to restart again and again in order to learn the exact path you need to follow to hit certain markers - a course you don’t want or need to repeat once you’ve done it already. For a game that is trying to buy into the whole ‘open world’ deal, it rarely lets you simply go and see what lies ahead and tackle it as it comes - you have to tackle everything as the game wants you to, and if you don’t, restart, restart, restart. You’ll clip the top of a tree and have to restart. You’ll fall too hard and have to restart. There’s no option to adjust your footing mid-air, so you’ll drift off your axis and have to restart. Errors at speed send you plummeting down the mountain for 15-20 seconds before you grind to a halt and your character slowly, slooooowly, climbs to his feet, and you may as well have restarted when you took the first hit. You’ll try, fail, and either figure out a way to cheat the system, or give up annoyed and move onto more open-ended and enjoyable activities.

Which is a real shame, because they’re trying something different here and I wish it was a winner. Cool Boarders and the SSX series defined much of my childhood, and I’d been watching Steep for a while, hoping for enough of a discount to justify buying what I knew to be a game that had had mixed reactions. I’m always keen to try out new genres, but the level of inexperience here, coupled with Ubisoft’s usual dirty tricks (money-grubbing corporate tie-ins, invasive advertisements for DLC, and obnoxious, cloying writing that tries too hard to appeal to dudebros), leaves it feeling deeply unsatisfying. Of course, there’s always a chance that you might find it a simple guilty pleasure - it’s easy to pick up and play. It’s just not that much fun in the playing. Get it dirt-cheap or not at all. 4/10

#steep #ubisoft #video game #review #pc #x-games #interactive #french alps #snowboarding #skiing #sled?

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aliatisgianpaolo · 4 years

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Smartphones – The Poison and The Antidote to Our Modern Brains

Are our thoughts really our own?

This wicked, little device liberates you whilst simultaneously enslaving you, and it does it all right under your nose. It liberates you because it is helpful in so many ways, it allows you to run your business and stay in touch with everyone and everything, whether you are snowboarding the highest mountain peaks in the Alps or sailing on your boat in the French Riviera. However, as good as that may be it is also very destructive because you just can’t stop yourself from repeatedly checking texts, emails or apps. It is the only thing that I have ever been addicted to, and I find it quite challenging to maintain a healthy balance between purposeful usage and increased stress.

Using a smartphone for work often means taking your work at home and in your personal life. You feel the pressure to be available, never out of touch with work. This need to constantly check and respond to emails can contribute to higher levels of stress and even burnouts.

The endless stream of notifications and information from a smartphone will overload your brain and makes it difficult for you to spend longer than a couple of minutes on something that doesn’t provide as much pleasure, without needing to move on and do something else.

It is even crazier how this addiction attacks kids more so than adults. I see them playing outside for a few hours then all of a sudden these regular games become dull and boring, I sense their need for a dopamine rush, their brains feeling the urge to go inside and play games on a smartphone or watch videos on a tablet, this stimulates their brains much more than socialising with each other. It is very similar to the consumption of drugs and alcohol, which also trigger the release of dopamine, the “feel good” hormone and brain chemical that makes you happy, that then changes your mood

What is even more problematic, we build up a tolerance quite quickly, so it takes more and more time spent in front of those screens to receive the same pleasurable reward, it keeps us coming back for more. Furthermore, this addiction makes you neglect other crucial aspects of your life like real-world relationships, hobbies and social activities. The rewarding feeling of always checking your socials, different apps and addictive online gaming is ever powerful.

This smartphone addiction is multiplied tenfold because you always have your phone with you. The size and comfort of smartphones and tablets make them inseparable from our daily lives. We can take them anywhere and keep our compulsions fulfilled at all times. Indeed, most of us always have their smartphones at hand’s reach. They are a never ending flow of news, informational videos, music. They provide us with access to our office from anywhere, to our colleagues and employees. Uninterrupted access to our loved ones, friends and family... which is not always the best thing!

Honestly, I am not sure if this is the best invention in the world or one of the worst, but I have this impression that like the mousetrap is for mice, the smartphone is for humans. You will always find a reason to check it, just to look at the screen - maybe someone has texted you, maybe there is something of huge importance happening in the world and you are missing out, or that tingling urge to check how things are going at the office, you can even make fast market research from your phone if the idea pooped on your mind, or purchase things online. My phone is something I haven’t quite yet mastered how to control while running a business. Because it is nearly impossible to run a business successfully without having your phone on you 24/7.

Now another struggle that I have regarding this subject is - are our thoughts even our own anymore? Writer Richard Foreman asked the same question a few years ago in an online magazine I read, implying: “Are we becoming Pancake People — spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button?”

American writer Nicholas Carr is suggesting that the internet is not only influencing our lives but it is also physically altering our brains! We simply absorb information as it is served to us, without really knowing the true background of the story. The media companies broadcast whatever they want us to watch, whilst Google algorithms decide what “truths” we should not see vs. what “lies” we should. Sadly, it has been given unprecedented power to the media organisations, and social media as well, run by the conglomerates and megalomaniacs behind the scenes. They understand that once they control what we can see, they can control what we think. Then when they have control over our thoughts, they have the same control over our actions, our consumption behaviours, political views… you name it.

A wise man once told me - “People don’t have ideas, but ideas have people”. It resonated with me because all these ideas we think we have created with our inexhaustible brains are actually someone else’s ideas planted in our heads decades ago - very subtly and without us even realising it. This level of indoctrination requires special attention, that way at least you can make an effort to try to establish what is logical and what is not, really. In my opinion, the best way to keep safe is to have the conservative values at hand as some broad measurements. These values have guided humanity hundreds of years backwards and through religion, they have provided peace and order so today we can clearly see the results, which are definitely not perfect, but at least our society today has found the sufficient time to delve into notions such as all these different dimensions of sexuality and “which toilet should transexual people use?”.

It all comes down to the fact that the biggest problems nowadays are actually those each of us has in their own head. I feel so lucky having grown up in an era without so much nonsense, rules and regulations. Those were the times when we were actually free, unlike today when we have all these “woke”, politically correct lefties trying to dictate what we should think and how we should behave. All this political correctness is absurd.

#gianpaoloaliatis paoloaliatis smartphone addiction smartphoneaddiction tech technology society business personallife stress

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wallythayer · 5 years

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Running for a Reason: Clare Gallagher

Growing up in Englewood, Colo., Clare Gallagher was surrounded by the strip malls that dot Denver’s suburban valleys. But the nearby Rocky Mountains served as an outdoor playground away from the concrete and cacophony. “My parents really valued the mountains, so, like good Denverites, we would regularly head up into the high country to go skiing and hiking,” she recalls.

“My dad was really into scaling 14ers, and Colorado is home to 53 peaks over 14,000 feet,” says the 27-year-old ultramarathoner. But unlike her peak-bagging father, Gallagher didn’t much enjoy hiking. Instead, she swam with local clubs and took up lacrosse and track in high school.

That competitive spirit helped land her at Princeton, where the budding environmentalist studied coral ecology. “I spent a summer in Bermuda researching the impacts of climate change on reefs,” she notes.

She also ran. A lot. “Indoor track, outdoor track, cross-country — it was like 12 seasons of running,” Gallagher remembers. Plagued by injuries from covering so much ground, however, she decided to take a break from the grind.

After graduation, she moved to southern Thailand on a yearlong fellowship to teach English and swimming to kids. While she was there, she cofounded Earthraging with English, a youth environmental and swim program based in Bangsak.

Gallagher also took the opportunity to explore the beauty of Southeast Asia. It was during a backpacking trip that she heard about an ultrarace (a contest covering more than a standard 26.2-mile marathon; typical distances range from 50 kilometers to 100 miles) in northern Thailand.

“It made sense geographically, so I signed up with some of my friends and we made a big, fun trip out of it,” she says. “The race was heinous — and it was awesome! There were four aid stations for what was about a 50-mile race in a remote area, home to poisonous snakes. I was completely hooked!”

Finding Her Stride

Gallagher headed home to Colorado in early 2016 with a reinvigorated passion for running and fell in with a supportive crew in Boulder. In August the then-24-year-old made her debut at the storied Leadville Trail 100 Run (which is produced by Life Time). Fueled by cake frosting, homemade rice balls, and veggie broth, Gallagher took first place — clocking the second-fastest women’s time in race history.

“Winning Leadville completely changed my life,” she says. “I had given up my plans to go to med school already, but winning nabbed me a North Face sponsorship, and I ran for the next year.”

Along the way, Gallagher set the course record at the CCC, a 100-kilometer race around the Mont Blanc massif in the French, Italian, and Swiss Alps. But the dirtbagging life was unsustainable. “That year was incredible, but it’s really hard to be an endurance athlete trying to make ends meet,” she admits. She eventually began a partnership with Patagonia and now serves as the company’s trail-running ambassador. It was the perfect fit.

“Patagonia doesn’t care about race results; they care about how you live your life,” she explains. “Now I can embrace all of my talents. I can do the races that I’m inspired to do, which allows me time to also focus on environmental stewardship.”

Spending all that time running in nature, she adds, “makes me a better, stronger, and more motivated environmentalist.”

In 2017, Gallagher started POW Trail, a branch of the climate-change advocacy organization Protect Our Winters. “Traditionally, trail running hasn’t had a community environmental organization like climbing, snow sports, surfing, hunting, and angling have,” she explains. “I wanted to fill that void.”

Gallagher’s goal is to engage fellow trail runners to register and vote, volunteer for trail-maintenance efforts, and contact their elected officials about environmental policies, such as renewable-energy development.

“During the last election, we organized trail runners to campaign for a Colorado attorney-general candidate who wasn’t backed by the fossil-fuels industry,” she notes.

Gallagher hopes her organizing efforts will inspire everyone to connect with nature regularly. “You don’t have to hike 14ers,” she says. “I grew up in suburban Denver with a backyard, a big garden, and chickens.”

Going With the Flow

“Now, as an adult, I’m reliant on being able to go out in the woods for an hour, to breathe clean air, and to feel what it’s like being in a flow state.”

Finding and staying in that state is a key to Gallagher’s long-distance success. “The goal is to be in flow state coming toward the end of the race,” she explains. “So even if you see a snake or spill your entire soft flask of Coca-Cola all over your face and end up super sticky for the next 10 hours, you just keep mentally going.”

Gallagher employs mind tricks that help her stay in the zone. “For example, I’ll tell myself not to look at my watch for a while,” she says. “Then an hour goes by and I haven’t looked at my watch, which helps me stay in flow state in good or difficult times.”

That mental toughness and resilience come in handy off the trail as well. “Running helps me be resilient to things that would maybe normally throw me off, make me mad, or otherwise distract me,” she says. “I think I’m almost a better person when I’m running, because I don’t let little things bother me.”

Enjoying and submitting to the process of running helps her avoid fixating on each mile or hour that she runs and gets her through injuries and discomfort. “From accepting the process, I’ve learned to focus on the beauty of each unique, imperfect run,” she says. “I’m obsessed.”

Get the full story at https://experiencelife.com/article/running-for-a-reason-clare-gallagher/

#brain

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zarbakht-bilal · 6 years

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Campervan here everyone! Snacks? Water bottles? Blankets? Sleeping bags? Umbrellas? Firecrackers? Paints and canvas? Notebooks? Camera? Let’s go!

Todays Schedule:

Exploring top 14 exotic towns and villages in France.

TOP 14 EXOTIC TOWNS AND VILLAGES IN FRANCE:

On our today’s scheduled list, we have to chalk out fourteen must-to-go places in France. So, Lets began!

1. Les Plus Beaux Villages de France:

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2. Castelnaud, Occitanie:

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3. Yvoire village, France:

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4. Èze Village, Nice, France:

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5. The village of St. Paul de Vence, France:

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6. Bayeux, France:

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7. Roussillon, Cote d’Azur:

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8. Honfleur, Normandy:

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9. Domme, Dordogne:

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10. Ploumanac’h, Brittany:

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11. St-Guilhem-le-Désert, Languedoc:

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12. St-Tropez, Côte d’Azur:

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13. L’Isle sur la Sorgue, Provence:

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14. Chamonix, Rhone-Alpes:

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sources: https://www.saint-pauldevence.com, https://www.tripadvisor.com, http://castelnaud.com/en/, https://cheeseweb.eu, https://www.oliverstravels.com.

Traveller’s Notebook- Exploring France. Campervan here everyone! Snacks? Water bottles? Blankets? Sleeping bags? Umbrellas? Firecrackers? Paints and canvas? Notebooks? Camera? Let's go!

#Explore #France #Travelling

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healthylifepage · 7 years

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SPRING SKIING IN MEGEVE!

I recently had the excellent fortune to visit a charismatic, cozy, alpine bolt-hole named Les Fermes de Marie, nestled within the charming cobblestoned town of Mègeve, high up in the mountains of the French Alps. If you fancy going on a little ‘last-minute spring skiing weekend’, then perhaps read on to discover a little of the magic behind this outstanding traditional mountain destination!

HITTING THE TOWN OF MEGEVE

This ultra-picturesque town runs rich with charming authentic Savoyarde architecture as if you’ve time-warped back to a magical place where you’re riding in a horse-drawn carriage whilst church bells echo around the surrounding mountain shoulders. Unlike many ski resorts, some of which feel as if they were purpose-built in the 1970s, this entire town feels authentic, genuine and understated but is by no means sleepy! There is a pleasing blend of superb slopes, compelling hospitality options, countless boutiques and at the end of the day you can retire to Les Fermes de Marie by the fire in the coziest of chalets with all the modern amenities to make skiing enjoyable, deeply enrobing mattresses and possibly the best mountain spa I’ve encountered.

LES FERMES DE MARIE…

There are nine chalets, forged from reclaimed timber, sprawling across four acres of alpine garden. Whilst people may know Mègeve predominantly for skiing it’s active throughout the whole year, and is perfect as an active escape in summer for hiking and yoga, or likewise as relaxing spa retreat amidst the fresh spring air. The site was founded in 1981 by Jocelyn and Jean-Louis Sibuet, and as the name would suggest, the building was traditionally a farm. Jocelyn’s daughter is called Marie, and she feels it was a lucky name, so has since named many other hotels in their collection after her daughter as well. Jocelyn Sibuet designed Les Fermes de Marie and in many ways pioneered the distinctive chalets style across this region. If you get the chance to visit, you can expect large rustic properties decked in distressed wood from mountain farmhouses, plus beautifully detailed hand-painted ceilings, dim cozy lighting, fluffy fur blankets, and aromatically invigorating log fires all hidden under a blanket of deep snow. Throughout my time, I felt that the service was confident, super friendly and professional but not overbearing; instead, it boasted genuine warm French charm, often notable for its absence in the hospitality industry.

WELLBEING…

This is a place for complete wellbeing. During my stay, I slept plentifully on a vast bed, woke to a classic healthy breakfast, would head out for a full morning of hard skiing, take in the crisp, fresh alpine air scented with pine, grab lunch, dispatch some more skiing and then return to base. The experience leaves you quite drained, but feeling superbly energized.

Megève’s ski domain spans a monstrous 300km of slopes with and 80 perfectly integrated ski lifts within three areas – the Rochebrune Cote 2000, Jaillet and Mont d’Arbois. It’s comfortably suitable for all levels – you’ll find a good mix of green, blue, red and black, such that you should find it hard to get piste-fatigue here within a week! Megève also links the ski areas of Combloux, Saint-Nicolas de Veroce, and Saint Gervais completing the Evasion-Mont Blanc ski area.

BENEFITS OF SKIING?

•THRILL: Skiing as a sport is simultaneously thrilling, exhausting, exhilarating, uplifting, and perilous. If nothing else, it is a workout for all of the emotions! The thrill of tearing down the slopes means worldly troubles could not seem further away; adrenaline and endorphins flow freely in this pursuit!

•CORE BURN: You’re engaging the muscular ‘core’ to stabilize yourself, for hours on the trot. As a result, this activity hones and refines the agility and balance.

•CARDIO: It is a superb aerobic workout; an hour of skiing clocked up c.450 calories of energy consumption for me, though it would be more than double that should you go cross country skiing! Poling along on the flat, something I did quite a fair bit of, is a real leg-burner, and I loved it!

•LEG BURN: The entire leg complex benefits from the lunging and squatting silhouettes adopted during a day’s skiing; the glutes, the quads, the hamstrings and the calves all feel the benefit of moving on plains they rarely otherwise do, and bearing stresses as you go; you feel it after day 1, no matter how much you prep! Likewise, the joints and bones take the impact of the shock absorption required to navigate the piste, so are being strengthened too.

•FLEXIBILITY: Given that you’re constantly stretching and moving at extreme ranges of motion, skiing naturally improves your flexibility as the week goes on.

•MOOD BOOSTING: The mood is elevated; soaring amidst vast majestic mountains just fills you with renewed life. The air is crisp and pure, restoring strength to the lungs and constitution; the colors are divine, with an inky darkness of blue possible only at extreme altitude, cutting deliciously against the fresh white of the groomed snow, and the contenting effect of the sunshine amplifies it all with a sprinkling of vitamin D.

•CONCENTRATION & FOCUS: It’s also a mental workout, focussing the mind on spatial awareness as there’s a complex radar to monitor; other skiers, your own immediate and future path, your speed, pitch, altitude, incline, and overall technique! It’s a proper challenge for cognitive function.

•REST & RECOVERY: Sleep gets a huge boost, for, at the end of the day, you’re utterly shattered, leaving no alternative but to seek restorative shut-eye!

RESTAURANTS AT LES FERMES DE MARIE…

There are 3 restaurants that I think seem to offer a suitable breadth of flavor for every palate…

1) Restaurant Traditionnel

Per the name, they serve up traditional Savoyarde cuisine centered around natural local flavors. The dishes work in harmony with the seasons: fish is sourced from local mountain lakes, the herbs are from Les Fermes de Marie’s alpine gardens, fruits and vegetables are grown locally, and cuts of meat are signature Metzger, whilst the cheese platters stem from the master Cheese-monger Boujon.

2) Restaurant Alpin. In summer and autumn, Les Fermes de Marie offers a table d’hôtes in a magical natural setting, high among alpine fields, looking out across the peaks and directly at snow-capped Mont Blanc.

3) Le Bar – A relaxed affair which suits the purpose after a day of skiing; perfect to sit down for a game of chess, read a book or enjoy a hot chocolate in the cozy sofas.

ROOM WISE;

There are a total of 70 rooms and suites, each decorated with the simplicity of the traditional chalet style, and each with its own story, uniquely designed by Jocelyne Sibuet. There is an atmospheric and mysteriously cosy sensation in each of the rooms I visited, quite unlike anywhere else I’ve visited. It all promotes a sense of ease and comfort after a demanding day of exertion!

Pure Altitude Spa at Les Fermes de Marie

To counterbalance the daytime active pursuits, I found 100% Alpine Wellness at the hotel’s spa. It’s a superbly well invested facility with some serious diversity of spa features to keep you coming back in every evening! There are 17 gorgeous spa treatment rooms, an indoor swimming pool surrounded by bay windows opening slopeside, with a choice of indoor or outdoor jacuzzis in which to relax, and likewise, indoor/outdoor saunas. As well as a wet sauna, steam room, Japanese-style Ofuro baths both hot and cold, and a terrace relaxation area looking out across the alpine gardens!

My time here was characterized by an overwhelming sense of ease and comfort, in contrast to my historic memories of skiing of old. There are comforts at every turn, with cozy, family-run individuality running through it as a constant thread. I returned more relaxed than when I left, in spite of the heavy physical activity – a key measure of a worthwhile escape!

Faya x

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muscledemandsrespect · 7 years

Text

SPRING SKIING IN MEGEVE!

HITTING THE TOWN OF MEGEVE

LES FERMES DE MARIE…

WELLBEING…

BENEFITS OF SKIING?

•CORE BURN: You’re engaging the muscular ‘core’ to stabilize yourself, for hours on the trot. As a result, this activity hones and refines the agility and balance.

•FLEXIBILITY: Given that you’re constantly stretching and moving at extreme ranges of motion, skiing naturally improves your flexibility as the week goes on.

•REST & RECOVERY: Sleep gets a huge boost, for, at the end of the day, you’re utterly shattered, leaving no alternative but to seek restorative shut-eye!

RESTAURANTS AT LES FERMES DE MARIE…

There are 3 restaurants that I think seem to offer a suitable breadth of flavor for every palate…

1) Restaurant Traditionnel

3) Le Bar – A relaxed affair which suits the purpose after a day of skiing; perfect to sit down for a game of chess, read a book or enjoy a hot chocolate in the cozy sofas.

ROOM WISE;

Pure Altitude Spa at Les Fermes de Marie

Faya x

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