Monday, June 04, 2007

Rowing through Paris


Yesterday (Sunday) something pretty rare happened on the Seine: a rowing race. It was organized by the Chamber of commerce of Paris and the participants were students from Les Grandes Ecoles (mostly Business or Engineers schools). These kind of races rarely happen in Paris because it makes it compulsory to stop all commercial traffic, something thepeople who run Les Bateaux Mouches don't really appreciate ;). I remember being in one of these races about 15 years ago and God was it hard - but really fantastic due to the fantastic scenery. More photos here.
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16 comments:

  1. j'ouvre le bal, ca me rappel mes etudes en angleterre...

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  2. par contre on arrive pas a regarder tous tes clichés sur l'autre site...

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  3. Been there, done that. And I can tell you, it's not fun.
    Rowing on the Seine River (inside Paris City) is far more dangerous than... say, biking on the Périphérique...
    Perhaps the most haunting danger is that of being -almost- run down by huge river barges and freighters (péniches) who find very funny to scare you passing by the closest they can... Whilst kids are spitting or throwing rocks (and any other innovative projectile) when they spot you passing under bridges.
    Not mentionning the poor water quality with all sorts of dead animals (rats, fish...) or garbage floating... Which make you think "I'd rather not put my hand in there, don't want to catch any bad desease"...
    Lovely indeed.
    Sorry for killing the magic ;-)

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  4. bv: La Seine is slightly cleaner nowadays than it was 20 years ago. Maybe that makes a difference?

    (Eric, FYI, it's still very difficult to load your blog today)

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  5. That would have been fun to watch. Very crisp photos, though they don't all download. BV: Eric notes that they stopped traffic of large vessels for this event. I'm sure it was more than hairy with the barges passing by.

    Happy Mothers' Day to all. (They just don't get enough credit, do they?)

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  6. Always great photos and lots of information. Super site!

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  7. Wonderful photo! I love how you're right down at waters level.

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  8. Good fun! But rowing with the barges around would be pretty scary. I naively thought they stopped all commercial traffic on the Seine during the race because running an obstacle race between 'peniches' and 'bateaux mouches' would be dreadfully scary, as bv said.

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  9. Pendant ce temps la, à San Francisco...

    http://tinyurl.com/2gtgjg


    (are you ready, Eric?)

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  10. Greetings from Warsaw! :)
    _________________________
    http://warszawa78.blox.pl (Warsaw Photoblog)

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  11. I wonder were you find so many infos about what's going on in Paris ! ;o))

    What good memories bring back this picture. I remember rowing on the Seine, much dirtier than nowadays, and even with the barges, it was no hell but real fun. Bravo for the extra pictures Eric ! You've got an eye !…

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  12. Do barges participate in this race? :)

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  13. I always smile when the photo downloads and when I look at it feels like I´m there.
    Merci Eric, it was lovely to take a look at La Seine aujourd´hui!

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  14. Oh I bet they had a beautiful ride, even with the difficulty of it. I'm jealous!

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  15. What a great shot! I love how you captured the action with the guy getting into the canoe with the water droplets flying around him - tres cool!

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  16. Great photos, but agree, you can't see all of them on The Making Of site.

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