finally ( and very slowly ) i am reducing my backlog of photos. instead of posting pictures from half a year ago, i am currently only 4 months behind schedule, haha. which is kind of great. hopefully i will return to posting more up to date in a few months.
anyway, let's jump onto the upcoming pictures. they will be about france, particularly a special region in france: the vosges mountains. i've been travelling there for years already, mainly because the village i'm from has partner ties with a french village and we've been visiting each other every year alternately - one year in france, and the other in germany. those visits were always wonderful and remain in my memory as very special happenings. the people of our sister city were always so welcoming and kind and we also had lots of funny/enlightening/culturally diverse experiences in the past. to this day, we still visit each other every year and even sometimes out of the normal official meet-up.
this visit was one of those unofficial happenings. there is this married couple ( both around the age of my parents ) we always felt drawn to, because they loved to participate in all kinds of activities, never were too shy to try to talk to us and just were generally good-natured! after years of getting to know each other they told us that they had a little chalet up in a little town in the vosges mountains and asked us to come visit them and go on vacations there. they didn't had to ask twice! we jumped on that offer immediately and we've been on vacation in the chalet three times already! and it's always such a wonderful time we spend there. the little village the chalet is situated in is called le val-d'ajol and it's perfectly nestled in a tiny lush valley with woods and meadows and little rivers calmly flowing through the valley. it's one of the most peaceful places i've ever been to and i will always think fondly of it, simply because it reconnects me with nature on such a visceral level, so deeply felt in my bones and being. i love the vosges mountains! they're not super high ( okay, they have mountains that are more than 1000 meters in elevation - but they are not the alpes! ), they've got tons of woods on their slopes and many ponds, lakes and rivers speaking for them and the way people live in this region seems to be much simpler and more in tune with nature than i've experienced in any place before. of course this is only an assumption, but it certainly feels like it. i also love all the little towns and villages ( and even the bigger cities! ) dotting the lands of the vosges mountains.
as you can see, i am deeply in love with this particular region of france, and i hope to return many more times in the future. before we dive into the bigger adventures of our recent visit, let me show you a few pictures from le val-d'ajol, the place of residence :D
this is basically our garden! we were very lucky to still say hello to the cows, because a few days later the farmers picked them up from their summer hayfields and led them back to a much warmer place ( a barn, of course ) for winter.
the last flowers! i love the time in autumn, when the temperatures cool down, and the golden october sun sets in and shines her light on the last remaining flowers. the contrast is wonderful.
le val-d'ajol is full of crosses! i've been chronicling the abundance of crosses in past posts ( here )
old vosgiennes houses and granges can be found all over the vosges mountains. i sometimes wish i could renovate one and move in and then live a happy mountain life.
we met this beautiful cat along the way!
the vosges mountains are full of cats roaming free and it's a delight! it's one of my inofficial projects to shoot pictures of all the cats i meet in my life. maybe i will publish a cat book in the future ( haha, just kidding, i think there's no demand anymore for such books, like who am i even kidding? ) ah, but look at that beauty! isn't she marvellous?
another cat, another beauty :D ( aren't all cats? ;O; )
growing pumpkins.
more flowers against old stone walls. ( i cannot currently recall their name, even though i actually knew it before, ahah )
old stone chimney of a neighbouring house.
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