Showing posts with label main street. Show all posts
Showing posts with label main street. Show all posts

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Skies

This time I will focus my post not on the buildings, the theming, the details of Disneyland Paris, but on one of the rarest and most beautiful sights over there: the blue sky. Can you believe that in 10 years of trips to Disneyland Paris this is the FIRST time I happened to enjoy a blue sky (sometimes with sparse clouds wich made it even more enchanting) for the whole stay, that's three days in a row! Enjoy.




Sunday, June 14, 2009

Details details details

Disneyland Paris nevese ceases to surprise me. Look at the intricated work I found right after the entrance, to the left of Town Square, just right in front of the restrooms. Simly amazing.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Candy galore

There no Sunday morning stroll on Main Street U.S.A. without a visit to the Candy Palace to grab some candies to survive the walk to Sleeping Beauty's Castles. Those of you who follow this blog since its launch will probably remember my fond love for this store on Disneyland Paris' Main Street and my concerns when I first heard it was going to be refurbished slighly more than a year ago. My friend at "Sparkling Castle" blog visited the new shop a few months after its reopening and said quite good things about it, yet I was scared. Well, now I saw with my own very eyes and can fully agree with him! The color scheme is ligher and fluffier without being corny and cheesy. The ceiling now features a wallaper looking like a pink and white striped tent wich looks really fresh and elegant at the same time. And now, for you to enjoy, some of my pictures of this place. Too bad you can't smell the vanilla fudge perfume pervading this place...







Monday, May 25, 2009

Back from Disneyland, ready to post

Less than a week ago, I was enjoying my time at the Disneyland Resort Paris, where I spent four full magical days. That basically means one hugely good thing for this blog: I have tons of new pictures to share with you! Everything was magic as usual there but the biggest surprise was the weather wich, for the first time in my experience of Disneyland Paris, was incredibly mild and pleasant, with clear blue skies dotted by innocent clouds, a sparkling breeze and that cuddling warmth it just makes you feel happy to be alive. So... Ready, set, go!

You should all now bu now I really love Main Street U.S.A. and always start my visit with a nice and quiet stroll, taking my time to listen to the music, watch the beautiful buildings and wonder at those beautiful little details. Like this sign on the Main Street Transport Deposit...



...or these intricated wood swirls gracing the waiting area in front of the restrooms...


And what about the American flag framed by the colums of the Emporium?


or the entrance to the Liberty Arcade?


Oh by the way, I live here...


and that's where I usually have my cup of coffee in the morning (sigh!)

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Time for some window sightseeing

First, please all welcome Isabel Girão and John Rozum, Town Square Photography's new followers. Thanks Isabel and John: hope to keep up to your expectations!
Let then move to this post's subject: the wonderful windows of Main Stree U.S.A.! One of the most underrated yet most delightful features of Main Street U.S.A., the windows of Main Street feature wondeful designs and shapes and incredibly detailed decorations. The rushing-to-nowhere kind of guests will probably not even realise there's actually something to enjoy not at eye-level, so let's just have pity of them and move on :-) Instead, take-your-time kind of guests, like we are, will grab some rice crispies treats at the candy store then raise their eyes and not only enjoy the incredibly detailed designs but also learn something new about the people who made this park a reality.

Like Michael Eisner and Frank Wells who joined the company in 1984 (just the perfect time to translate with ease in turn-of-the-century Main Street)...


...or Robert Fitzpatrick, chairman of the Euro Disney Resort until 1993, well known for his famous reply to French intellectuals speaking out against american colonisation of the French culture ("We didn’t come in and say O.K., we’re going to put a beret and a baguette on Mickey Mouse. We are who we are) wich backfired in almost no time in titles on the newspaper saying Americans see French as the lousiest stereotype".



One apologie: sometimes my English is fine, sometimes it just sucks. This time sucked. Please have mercy of it today. Mamma mia!

Monday, March 02, 2009

Good Ol' Main Street

Having a look at these pictures of mine taken on my 2002 holiday is so weird... They do look older and a little less carefully planned as the ones I took in the following years. You all know Main Street USA is my favorite land and I have tons and tons of pictures of its wonderful buildings. Nevertheless each time I take a picture of just one of them I always discover new things: take this pictures for instance: look at the details, and at the face painted on te brickwall. Wonderful.

Ten years after the crowds turned to nonexistant to quite obnoxious while the sky is still tuned to parisian grey!


Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Main Street Anaheim

So I finally made it: after so many years visiting "the prettiest copy of them all", always wondering what the original was like, I finally happened to look at th 50 years old castle, wander through the narrow streets of New Orleans Square and take a stroll on Main Street. My rate? This park is a gem, a true work of art, full of warmth, kindness, delicaties. Nothing is overstated, nothing screamed, everything, every building rather than stating its presence first say hello, then kindly introduce itself. Take for example, Main Street U.S.A.

Compared to the Disneyland Paris version, the building here are less decorated, less higher (at least they seem to), less flamboyant in colors. Some would say the only difference is a tighter budget, I would say it's much more. Disneyland's Main Street is still a town street, less urban, much more close to an ideal, to a dreamed place, slightly smaller than reality, weirdly easier to grab. Don't know if it was all made on purpose or if it was the a genius ingenuity that had it made this way... still Disneyland Main Street U.S.A. has a heart no other Main Street has.

Take a stroll, judge by yourself... and don't forget to grab an ice cream with you!





Friday, August 10, 2007

The best candy shop in town!

You already know how much I like the Boardwalk Candy Palace (Disneyland Paris): besides the delicious fudges -on my last day I always buy at least three of them so when I'm back home I can still enjoy the good-ol-times flavours of Main Street U.S.A.- and wide variety of cookies and candies, the shop has always been one of the most charming of all Disneyland, so when I heard for the first time they were renovating it completely, I was a little concerned: well, I was wrong.
They managed to do a wonderful retheming and I'm proud to say it's even better than before. Don't believe me? Take a look at my pictures, then!









Friday, August 03, 2007

Details: star-spangled banner flags

Maybe only a few will notice, especially if you live in the United States and are mainly used to Disneyland's and Magic Kingdom's Main Street's, but these pictures capture one of those little details, those kinetic props, somenthing that has been missing for more than a decade: star-spangled banner flags are back.



In 1992, in order to reinforce the sense of displacement while helping guests from all over Europe to fully understand what Main Street U.S.A. was about, imagineers decided to take advantage of the huge constant winds blowing over Marne-la-Vallée and put on top of most of the buildings of Main Street the famous star-spangled banners flags: that way, just looking around and above, even the most sidetrackable guest would have understood that Main Street was about the United States somewhen in the past: dont't forget that European Audiences don't have the same knowledge and emotional bound to american victorian turn-of-the-century architecture that American audiences have, so imagineers had to remember that when designing the formerly called Euro Disneyland.



Then, the so-called cultural Chernobyl. In a desperate (and quite late in my opinion) effort to soften the critics, most of the signs and props candidly stating their proud americaness, were swiftly put away and forgotten in an oubliette of Sleeping Beauty Castle waiting for the dust to settle and for better times to come.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Main Street U.S.A. Paris Panoramic Shots


Main Street East Side


Main Street West Side


Main Street Crossroads

My favorite land of all Disneylands is Disneyland Paris' Main Street U.S.A.
The vibrant colors, the elaborate decorations of the buildings, the right balance between nostalgia and enthusiasm about the future... in my own opion it's basically what Disney is all about.
My endless love for Main Street once pushed me to take this panoramic shot of both sides of Main Street, Disneyland Paris. The effect is kind of whimsical, though quite close to the real thing and it give a good impression of the rich details disneyland paris' main street is blessed by.

Beware: these panoramic shots are quite heavy, so downloads can be quite long!