Along with the Cinque Terre region of Italy, La Flotte in Ile de Re is one of the prettiest small towns I have visited in Europe. On Ile de Re every house has a strict colour palette which includes a choice of 18 shades of paint for the shutters and windows (blue/green/grey). All buildings are simple plan with red terracotta roofs. All houses are either white or cream and are adorned with beautiful flowers including hollyhocks. We visited in October so a lot of the flowers were no longer in bloom but you get an idea from my photographs. The old port area is so quaint and charming. It is really laid back with lovely residential areas. If you are looking for a really charming place to visit, check out La Flotte.

As a follow on to my post on Palma de Mallorca, the next stop on our holidays was the
city of Marseille in southern France. I have visited the south of France before taking in Monaco, Nice and Cannes so it was nice to explore further along the coastline. Marseille is France's oldest city and as a result it is steeped in history. The weather was lovely when we visited and we spent a lot of our time around the lively Vieux Port (Old Port).

As promised, here are some more photos of our trip to Madeira, all of the images below are of Funchal the capital city of Madeira.

Old Town

View from Marina back to town

Urban Garden

Old Town

Cathedral

 

Taxi Rank

Marine with cruise liner

 

Boats at Marina

 

 

This post is all over the place, I have just posted on things that I came across this weekend, so apologies if it doesn't really make sense or flow properly.

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Firstly here are more of my sketches and ground figure analysis from Urban Design Module. I like looking at the layout, form and pattern of development of urban centres in this way. You can see clearly the road layouts and open space within the urban centres.

Some more sketches for a development brief project in University

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Still very cold here in Ireland, it started to thaw a little today but it has started to snow now, today I took a trip to some of our lakes which are still frozen over, here are a few photographs, the gardai have a problem with people walking out onto the lakes and even driving on them, I wouldn't chance it though.

I also passed these cows on the farm, one of them I call the dwarf cow as it never grew fully and therefore has a larger than average head for its body :) Cute ain't they! Still no water here! :(

It's Saturday- Welcome to the Weekend :) I didn't get up to much creative crafty things today :( Last night I went through some of my University course work from years gone by. Here are some of my sketches from university which I like and enjoyed doing, yes you may have gathered I'm a nerd! I love study, study and more study! The nearest University to me is over 70 mile away  though so when I was in University I had to live away for a number of years, I attended two universities and also completed a distance learning diploma course from another of our universities. In Ireland we have around seven universities. I have considered doing a PhD only I really don't want to move away again and work in the city, I'm a country girl at heart and home is where the heart is! I'm hoping to stay all my life in a rural area as I don't like all the rushing around, the traffic, alarms, crowds etc.. I know some people love life in the city, all the shops, the cultures, the hustle and bustle but it ain't for me. I like small rural village life. I love to wake up in the morning and hear nothing only bird song, look out the window and see nice green fields, hedges and the lake. Go for a walk in the peaceful countryside.Oh yeah sorry back to some of my college work/notes...

This wee sketch was part of a Space Place and Quality of Life assignment.

It involved selecting an individual human being and identifying the space occupied by that individual in a typical week of their life. The individual componenents of this space had to be analysed as well as the interactions between the space and the life. It then had to presented on a presentation board. I decided to base my assignment on a close friend who is confined to her home as she is limited in terms of her mobility. This is a wee sketch of her tiny living room which she keeps so pretty with all her personal items.

 

This is a view out of her window from her living space

As she lives at the end of a T junction she has a clear view out her window to the village square with market house as shown in the sketch above, sorry the photograph is abit sideways.

Another view of the market square

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 Last night was a cold one , the fog fell over the hills in the distance and it was very frosty out so I made sure I wrapped up warm, had lots of supplies in for the weekend and drank lots of tea at the warm fire :) The weather is very cold here in Ireland again today, it started to snow this morning and now the water mains pipe is frozen and all the people along our lane have no water! :( Hopefully it will be sorted soon. Here is a photograph of yesterday evening.