December 2013

Hello everyone,

Building on water

No, it's not the time when I was an engineer that comes back to me, it's just that throughout the past month , all over the western regions of France where we gave thirty lectures for World of Knowledge Islands of the Indian Ocean , we've encountered a good number of buildings on the water, and I thought it would be fun to gather some pictures and some memories : a hotel on stilts on the banks of the Vilaine river, of oyster shacks in Oleron island, the fishing "carrelets" of Isle Madame have followed one another throughout our tour ; they might not be as spectacular as the "palafitos " , houses on stilts on the island of Chiloé, Chile or as the bungalows on stilts of a village near Sihanoukville , Cambodia, nor those that trigger everyone's dreams, Polynesian hotels' bungalows on the lagoon; but regularly encountering them throughout our tour brought us closer to the water, lakes, ponds and the sea, which in fact, in France's western regions, was never far from us.

A fascinating construction, too, that of the Hermione sailing ship in Rochefort: after many years of effort, the crossing to the United States in the wake of Lafayette is near. Finally today, on the Arcachon basin, it is a traditional sailing ferry that has taken us to the famous "tchanquées" houses.