Sunday 31 August 2014

Le fontainier à l'œuvre

Fountain engineer Versailles fontainier clé lyre
 Can you guess who this is? Yes, one of the palace's fountain engineers, here at work on 15 August in Grand Trianon castle gardens when the fountains were exceptionally flowing for one and a half hours. You can just about see his tool in the second shot behind the fountain. If any of you are in Versailles next month, this will happen again on 20 September.

Bon, le titre du billet vous a déjà indiqué qui est ce monsieur. Le voici à l’œuvre le 15 août dernier lors de l'exceptionnelle mise en eau des fontaines du Grand Trianon. Vous pouvez tout juste voir son outil sur la deuxième photo, il s'agit d'une clé lyre. Si vous êtes dans les parages en septembre, la prochaine mise en eau au Grand Trianon aura lieu pendant les journées du patrimoine, le 20 septembre !
Fountain Grand Trianon Versailles
Fountain Grand Trianon Versailles
 This last shot was taken looking towards the Grand Canal.

Cette dernière photo a été prise regardant vers le Grand Canal.
Fountain Grand Trianon Versailles

17 comments:

Revrunner said...

Must be a blast to turn these things on.

Sunnybrook Farm said...

You need one of those tools so that you can amuse yourself with the fountains when ever you are in the mood.

William Kendall said...

Ah, so that's how it's done! Terrific shots.

Randy said...

Looks like an easy job.

Dina said...

It must be fun to be a fountain engineer, playing with water.

Anonymous said...

Spectacular, hope he didn't get wet!

VP said...

With a simple tool like that, anybody will be able to open all the fountains? That is very interesting, but I guess you have to know where the water valves are...

cieldequimper said...

@ VP: the hydraulic system is... old! When it was built, no one would have dreamt of doing what some people might dream of doing these days...

Lowell said...

I was utterly amazed by all of the Versailles fountains. And they add much to the whole operation. I like the name, "fountain engineer."

Magali said...

Joli et merci pour l'info pour les 20-21 septembre :)

Birdman said...

Never thought about this aspect of fountains before. They have to turn off and on somehow.

EG CameraGirl said...

I think it would be fun to have that job...for a day.

Sharon said...

Amazing that the old engineering still works to this day. A tribute to those builders!

Stuart said...

It's like fireworks in water !

RedPat said...

Wonderful to see how that works, Ciel! I love these fountains.

Halcyon said...

All the time I lived in France and I never went to the spectacle d'eaux. One of these days...

Jack said...

Fabulous! When I was in Russia in June, the guides at Peterhof insisted that the fountains there are better than the fountains at Versailles. Both look beautiful to me. I'm not taking sides.