France is an amazing place and surely you will hear more on the subject from me in the future.  But, as a photographer, it was a joy to take photos of things normally mundane like doors and windows.  The history and age on some of these doors was so interesting.  The design on others was fascinating and at times breathtaking.

Below is a door from Mont Saint Michel that was gorgeous in its simplicity and bold color.

This red and black door was also from Mont St. Michel.  I love that it is aged and dirty.  The metalwork on it is lovely.

This door is spectacular and just a standard site in Paris.  I can only imagine what is on the other side of this door.

This is probably cheating but this is of course a spectacular window at the Notre Dame.

This, my friends, is a Troglodyte cave being re-purposed as a storage shed.  There is literally no better place in the entire world to store your wine and your shovels than in this very spot.  (This is probably one of my favorite photos from all of France.)

This lovely blue window was around the corner from the above cave door.  I love the color and the large molding and the aged wall around it.

This knocker is dainty and sweet and scary all in one.

Below is another troglodyte cave again.  France is full of them many of which were originally used for security from threats and are now used to live in, work out of, used for storage, and even in some cases as B&Bs.

Well, depending on what you believe this is certainly one kind of door.  It just doesn’t lead to a traditional home.  This is a dolmen, found commonly in the united kingdom.  I found this one in the middle of some farms in France and had to show Eric.

This little heart door was sweet and of course needed to be added to my collection.

This is an example of a troglodyte cave turned very fancy home.  Nearby was one that had been a bakery and another that was a B&B.  In this area it was very common for people to live in these for thousands of years.  The French felt the need to continue using the caves in what seems like ingenious ways.  Some only had hatch doors and reminded me of people living off the grid with no power or running water and others, like this one, seemed modern and interesting.

One more troglodyte cave door.  I just couldn’t get enough of these finally thinking it probably wasn’t much different than our ancestors digging caves or digging basements in order to keep their food cool.  But, in some cases these caves were created long before modern times.  Another blog post about those caves another day…