A Day in Chartres
If you’re looking for a nice escape from the crowds and chaos of Paris, consider heading to the small city of Chartres for a day or two. Situated 60 miles (96 km) southwest of Paris, just an hour’s train ride from the...
If you’re looking for a nice escape from the crowds and chaos of Paris, consider heading to the small city of Chartres for a day or two. Situated 60 miles (96 km) southwest of Paris, just an hour’s train ride from the...
We had a day to spare on a recent trip to Marseilles . The B'n' B we were staying at recommended a visit to Cassis (French pronunciation:kasi). We took a local train there, about 40 minutes journey from Marseilles. The town is situated...
Paris may be famous for its architecture and many ornate historic sculptures scattered around the city but one of the more modern sculptures that is 50/50 with people is Le Pouce de César in the business district of La Defense. It...
This popular: these are the crowds on a weekday afternoon in early August. With tickets for the elevators to the top sold out well in advance and long lines for walk-up tickets, the Tower has certainly lost none of its popularity. We went to look near...
Like so many of the great parks, Paris' Parc des Buttes Chaumont, seems to be at one with nature, or even to be nature itself. But while this park is beautiful, and a favorite of Paris families in the northeastern part of the city, it has a...
Did you know those thousands of tourists in Paris who take photos of the Eiffel Tower illuminated at night and then share these images with their friends on social media are breaking the law? Hard to comprehend, but apparently that's the...
Taken with 18x telephoto lens from the top of the Arc de Triomphe, this shot squeezes in a lot of familiar Paris, with even more suggested here and there in the middle. There's a corner of the Louvre, the dome of Invalides, Notre Dame at...
I'm not sure if we were too early or too late, but seeing all these empty chairs and tables lined up outside a cafe along the Champs Elysees in Paris was a most unusual sight I thought. Normally when you see pictures of cafes in Paris ...
For reasons I can’t completely explain, the great cemeteries of Paris are among the city’s major tourist attractions. There is the amazing statuary to be seen, yes. There are the graves of the rich and famous, certainly. There is the...
With Halloween coming in two days, it seemed like the moment for this twilight picture of Mont-Saint-Michel, France, seemingly under attack by hordes of birds. Actually, there's nothing really sinister about it; they're just the usual...
The Petit Palais, and its neighbor the Grand Palais, were built to house exhibits at the 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris. Since then it has housed the city's Fine Arts Museum (that's city as opposed to national...). This year it hosted a...
The Abbey and Monastery Mont-Saint-Michel is, really, two places: the historic religious structures at the top of the island mountain, and the town below that supported it in ancient times and today. The town featured in Part 1; this time we're...
I’ve tried staying in other neighborhoods, but I know now it’s hopeless. The only place I feel at home in Paris is in the closest possible proximity to my first home there in Montmartre, on rue Tholozé, in 1966 ....
The Island and Village Everyone told us that Mont-Saint-Michel is “special,” even friends who knew how many old churches and quaint villages we’ve been to, even those who usually are concerned with long drives for...
Where Gumbo was, as Jonathan L, with help from Lynn Milar recognized, was behind an abandoned station on an abandoned rail line—the Petite Ceinture—that once girdled Paris, connecting its rail stations and freight yards, and providing both...