May 2008 2008

Hello everyone,

No, I'm not authorized to tell you yet who is the Top Model that will star with me in the next ads of the group of optometrists whose motto I have been shouting « Atol, les Opticiens » for close to ten years ; her name will be revealed only on May 12th, at a big convention of the group, in Beaune. In the meantime you can try guessing who she is on watching her silhouette on the home page of oiur website www.antoine.tv... If you think you've recognized her, why don't you leave a word on the website's forum ... All I can tell you is that she is very beautiful !
For now, it's from a place that is very different from the Polynesian lagoons where I've spent the first quarter of 2008 that I send you this letter: the island of Santorin, which we have come to film and photography again (this time in High Definition) nine years after featuring the wonderful blue cupolas of Oia village among the most beautiful shots (and the cover of the DVD) of my film "Once upon an island.. in the Mediterranean"

We have taken advantage of the three days of the Orthodox Easter to settle down in a small traditional house I had been much impressed by nine years ago, and that has recently been turned into a small hotel : just a handful of room whose windows and balconies open right onto the blue cupolas of this small church, certainly the most photographed in Greece.
While the great number of tourists that each day come to Oia, principally to watch the sunset, pass only a few dozen meters away from this part of the village, not one out of a thousand bothers to take the detour, to see this hidden wonder. It's very impressive to look down one's window and see the beauty of these steeples and cupolas, springing from the brightly coloured mass of the village houses that cling to the cliff of the caldera, the crater of the volcano that erupted as recently as 1950.

I have a lot of work, these days, as I finish writing the second volume of my autobiography, as well as the voice over of my next two films, dedicated to Austral Africa and New Caledonia ; then, on May the 12th, I will fly back to Polynesia to embark again on Banana Split to cruise to other places I will tell you about... as soon as I have decided which ones !
Until then, I send you a piece of Santorin's blue, as shown in some of the three hudred photographs taken in two days... Santorin is so beautiful that it's hard to stop filming and taking photos !

Bye for now.