Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Unusual Ways of Grenoble II



 These are the hangers found at the pool. As we've mentioned before, you remove your shoes prior to entering the change room area and place them in one of these before proceeding into a small cubicle to finish changing. After exiting on the pool side, hang your hanger with clothes into a locker of your choice with 1€ to secure taking the bracket key with you.













This one stumped us for a while....a birds house of sorts was our guess. Turns out that this is a pigeon contraceptive dovecote - a humane way of controlling the pigeon population in Grenoble. I believe 4 of these dovecotes are set within parks of Grenoble. All are on stilts, 2 meters above the ground making it inaccessible to cats or humans (unless you have a ladder) and designed that other birds (like peregrine falcons) can't easily attack. Housing between 200 - 400 pigeons, these dovecotes provide a place to nest and lay eggs. To gain their trust so they continue to use the dovecote as a home, the birds are allow to raised one set of chicks per year. Subsequent clutches though are manually shaken preventing the formation of an embryo, a simple method of limiting the number of pigeons born.






An inconspicuous drinking fountain! Just wind the handle on top to pump the water out :) This one is nicely placed at one of the paths at the bottom of the Bastille.





We have dubbed this guy the pigeon man. His routine takes him into and around Jardin de Ville where the pigeons flock to him waiting to be fed. Then he disappears with his black cat following closely behind.






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