Google's special logo is of a ballon Montgolfière. So very French!
Mais pourquoi a balloon today? I wondered. Turns out that today is the anniversary of the first successful attempt of the Montgolfier brothers to fly a hot-air balloon, in France, in 1783. Read more about it here.
Hot-air ballooning is of course popular worldwide, but to me it still has special appeal in France, where it was invented.
I've always longed to go on one of Buddy Bombard's fabulous balloon tours of France. He hasn't invited me on a press junket, yet. I'm still hoping.
Meanwhile, I guess I'll have to settle for a quick ride 500 feet up at the Parc André Citroën.
1 comment:
The original decoration of this air balloon,(I mean the google picture reproduction) can be found at the Annonay museum. Yellowish and greyish, though.
Annonay is the place where the first montgolfière took off 225 years ago. It is also home of one of the biggest montgolfière meeting every year.
And there you get the relationship with the "canson & Montgolfier" paper : the city had (and I think still has) paper manufactories, and the river that brings the needed water is named... Cance. Just hope this does not appear in the wikipedia page ;-)
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