Samois bridges - Ile de Berceau

billyshakes

I was just looking at overhead images of Samois and noticed that there were two bridges onto the island at Samois--one at the north end and one at the south end.

It has been many years since I was there but my memory recalls that there was no bridge at the south end (coming from Samoreau) and there was only the nice, wide newer bridge at the north end and a more narrow bridge on the western side that arrived on the island about near the back of where the seating stands used to be.

Am I misremembering? Did they tear down that western bridge or did something happen to it (collapse, etc?) Maybe in the heavy floods a while back?

wim

Both the north bridge (longer one) and the smaller south bridge (one near the sculpture of Django) are there for as long as I can remember. I think the west bridge is only temporary one and setup during the festival to use as an entry / ticket gate.

This is the North one in June 2016 shortly after the flooding, it was fine although there was a lot of trash and flotsam. South one was fine too. West one was not there at all because fest was at Fontainebleau that year.

billyshakes

Yeah, that north bridge was solid and wide enough to handle all the festival traffic leaving the island after the shows.

Wikipedia has an image that shows the "temporary" bridge (not the one in the thumbnail below) and I found a similar one in Anthony Voisin's "Minor Swing" book. When I saw it, I guessed it might be temporary.

Not sure about the statue of Django you mentioned, Wim. I never saw it. Last time I was there was 2005 so a lot could have changed. I remember walking to all the luthier tents on the south end but surely don't remember being able to walk on/off the island there, nor do I remember being able to enter on that end of the island when walking from Samoreau.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samois-sur-Seine#/media/File:Ile_du_Berceau_Samois-sur-Seine.jpg

wim

Hmm, the sculpture was probably not there 2005. I first went 2009 (for seeing Les Doigts De L'Homme) and don't remember it being present then either - I think it was put up in 2010?

But you can actually see it on google maps street view!

wim

I found some more info about the bronze sculpture, it is from Alain VANDENBROUCK and was commissioned in 2010

http://www.djangostation.com/Une-statue-pour-Django-a-Samois,1189.html

http://www.jacques-lelut.fr/Astroport/Alain_VANDENBROUCK.html

There are a bunch of photos of it (and other sights around Samois) here

https://www.flickr.com/photos/24271543@N03/28833320008/in/photostream/

billyshakes

Thanks for the photo and link to the others. After your previous e-mail, I was able to spot the statue in that green space just as the road splits. I can only guess that the road split and the connection to the south end were put there some time after 2005. I would have noticed that alternate path to the island on the walk from Samoreau and wondered why it wasn't being used.

It was nice to look through those photos. I stayed by myself in a tent at Petit Barbeau the first year I went and took very few pictures. My wife was upset when I got home because the few I took were pretty lousy at showing what it was like. We had to go back the next year for her to experience it herself. I guess that was a small benefit of my lack of photographic skills!