\nOn Wednesday I flew to Paris and then took a train to Angers, a small town about 100 km from Le Mans. Angers is home to the Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO), an EU agency that manages EU-level plant breeders rights, where I was the headline speaker at a big event the next day, presenting a new joint study on the impact of plant breeding on Europe’s economy and environment. Angers turned out to be a lovely small town, and the bed & breakfast where I stayed was right in the centre:
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![\"DSF2099\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_1.jpg\")
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\nI photographed this statue on the square both that evening and the next day. Obviously, the light was better in daytime, but I prefer this evening photo:
\n![\"DSF2101\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_2.jpg\")
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\nThe view from my room, a lovely guesthouse above a crafts shop, run by two ladies who made an extremely generous breakfast for me in the morning:
\n![\"DSF2104\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_3.jpg\")
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\nI got up in the morning and made my way to the conference centre where the event was taking place. It was a nice walk of about 1 km, some of which was along the Maine river-I always like to look at rivers and bridges:
\n![\"DSF2109\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_4.jpg\")
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\n![\"DSF2110\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_5.jpg\")
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\nSomething I have never seen before–a pizza vending machine. Gives quite a new meaning to fast food:
\n![\"DSF2113\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_6.jpg\")
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\nAngers is an old town, but the town hall is quite modern:
\n![\"DSF2117\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_7.jpg\")
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\nAt the launch event, the moderator from CPVO introduces one of the panels:
\n![\"R007168\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_8.jpg\")
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\nIt was a hybrid event, with about 150 people in the room and another 250 or so online. Everything was well organised and worked well, including simultanous translation English-French. Here is Francesco Mattina, CPVO’s president, on a big screen, while one of the two photographers is photographing him on the podium:
\n![\"R007174\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_9.jpg\")
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\nIn the afternoon we had a visit to GEVES, a testing station outside Angers. A new plant variety is examined during two growing cycles (i.e. 2 years) on what is essentially an experimental farm. Here we are in the laboratory where the samples of the plants are analysed:
\n![\"R007176\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_10.jpg\")
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\nAfterwards, we walked out into the fields to see the research in action. It was a bit surreal to see a group of besuited people in this setting:
\n![\"DSF2123\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_11.jpg\")
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\nOne of the GEVES employees explains testing rapeseed for disease resistance:
\n![\"R007180\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_12.jpg\")
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\nOne of the women in our party was wearing high-heeled shoes, not the optimal attire for walking in dirt. GEVES is prepared for such eventualities and provides shoe covers for such visitors:
\n![\"DSF2121\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_13.jpg\")
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\nAnother GEVES employee explains diseases of winter wheat:
\n![\"R007182\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_14.jpg\")
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\nThis is what diseased wheat looks like:
\n![\"R007183\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_15.jpg\")
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\nWe had a couple of members of the European Parliament with us. This is Juozas Olekas, a Social Democratic MEP from Lithuania. I liked his public display of solidarity with Ukraine:
\n![\"DSF2125\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_16.jpg\")
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\nAround 5 p.m. we came back to Angers, and I walked around a little bit. This is the square in front of the main art museum:
\n![\"DSF2128\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_17.jpg\")
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\nI noticed this dog looking at the world from his apartment window. I followed the usual photographer instinct to get the photo right away, to make sure I had one:
\n![\"DSF2129\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_18.jpg\")
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\nThen I moved in for a closer look:
\n![\"DSF2131\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_19.jpg\")
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\nThe square in front of Angers’ train station. I had a train to Paris leaving around 8 p.m., but first I had to go to a nearby pharmacy for the Covid test which would determine whether I could travel from Paris to Washington the next day, or whether I would have to go back to Alicante, bitterly disappointed:
\n![\"DSF2126\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_20.jpg\")
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\nWhile waiting for the test result to arrive on my phone, I hung around the departure hall of the station and spotted this trailer with a sign “I live with my cat”:
\n![\"R007185\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_21.jpg\")
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\nAnd indeed, there was a cat in the trailer. Right after I took the photo, the cat’s human stormed out of a store and demanded that I delete the photo. I explained to him that although France has very strict anti-paparazzi laws (put in place after the death of Princess Diana), those laws do not apply to cats:
\n![\"R007184\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_22.jpg\")
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\nWith great relief I received my negative test and shared it with my family–especially my son in New Jersey was happy to see it–and then I got on the train to Paris, took a taxi to my hotel and went out in search of a late evening beer (I had dinner in Angers before taking the train, so that need was taken care of). I had asked for a hotel in the Latin Quarter, and Sorbonne was just around the corner:
\n![\"DSF2141\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_23.jpg\")
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\nI walked along Boulevard Saint-Michel, looking for a suitable watering hole (and I found one, not pictured):
\n![\"DSF2145\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_24.jpg\")
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\nMy flight for Washington left around 4 p.m., so I had a free morning in Paris. I decided to check out the area around the Panth\u00c3\u00a9on, the resting place for the great and good recognised by the French state. On the way, I passed the Sorbonne law school:
\n![\"DSF2158\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_25.jpg\")
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\nThe Panth\u00c3\u00a9on with a somewhat inaccurate inscription, referring to “great men” recognised by a grateful nation:
\n![\"DSF2157\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_26.jpg\")
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\nThe main hall of the Panth\u00c3\u00a9on was very impressive:
\n![\"DSF2199\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_27.jpg\")
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\nAs I wrote above, when the Panth\u00c3\u00a9on was established in 1791, one spoke of “great men”. But we live in a different age, fortunately, and there are many great women there as well, some of whom are not even French:
\n![\"DSF2189\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_28.jpg\")
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\nAfter spending an hour or so at the Panth\u00c3\u00a9on, I continued my walk to one of my favourite places in Paris, Jardin du Luxembourg. Near the entrance, I saw something new, a memorial to the slaves in the French colonies:
\n![\"DSF2206\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_29.jpg\")
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\nJardin du Luxembourg is a wonderful park, with many interesting statues:
\n![\"DSF2203\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_30.jpg\")
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\nIn the pond in front of France’s Senate, you can sail little remote-control boats:
\n![\"DSF2216\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_31.jpg\")
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\nThe boats are rented, and you can have them in your national colours:
\n![\"DSF2217\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_32.jpg\")
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\nAfter enjoying the Jardin du Luxembourg, I walked back to the hotel to pick up my luggage and take the metro to the Charles de Gaulle airport. This is my last photo from Paris, a snap while passing a caf\u00c3\u00a9 on Boulevard Saint-Michel:
\n![\"DSF2223\"](\"uploads\/2022\/17_33.jpg\")
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