Wimbledon

This is actually a funny picture. Everytime I look at it I start smiling. Mainly this is because of the title Wimbledon. If you have a closer look at the image you might already guess that this photo wasn’t taken at the All England Club in Wimbledon. Instead the image was taken at the Chateau de Villandry in France. This palace is surrounded by a beautiful garden. Actually the garden is probably the main tourist attraction of the whole site.

1/320, f/8, ISO 200, 21 mm, Lumix DMC-GX8

In one of the quieter areas of the garden there’s this beautifully green tennis court and it’s so ready for Boris Becker to win the Championships again. I truly love the freshness of the lush greenery even in the background. Have a look at the neatly planted trees surrounding the court.

I’ve been visiting Villandry during a stay in the Loire valley. On our weeklong trip we’ve been seeing a lot of castles and palaces along our way. It’s truly like being in a movie about Richard the Lionheart. It’s looking exactly as you would expect it. Crenelations, walls, towers and moats surround these castles, and there are many of them. If you’re interested in the Middle Ages go and see this region.

Whenever I see this image not only the Wimbledon Championships and Richard the Lionheart come to my mind but there’s also a movie with one of the scenes taking place around a (clay) tennis court amidst an overgrown garden and beside an abandoned swimming pool. The movie A Good Year is about a British investment broker who inherits his uncle’s chateau in the Provence and fondly remembers his childhood when playing tennis and swimming in the pool back then. I always enjoy the innocent flashbacks during the film when the old chateau, the garden, the court, the pool and the vineyard where still busy places in the extravagant life of his uncle.

It’s funny how a single image always evokes the same associations, feelings and ideas. It’s similar to a certain smell that generates a whole cosmos of very specific and detailed emotions or memories.