Our trip is now coming to an end. Tomorrow we take the Chunnel train to London where we’ll fly home from Heathrow airport on Thursday. So, it was especially nice to be sent off by our friends, Laurent and Quitterie, with a dinner at their house in Levallois-Perret, a suburb of Paris. They have a … Continue reading →

Saturday was a shopping day for us. First, we took the 3A tram to its terminus and walked the open-air market that seems to be a permanent installation on the Cours de Vincennes, full of produce, cheeses, seafood, meats and clothing stalls. Then we took the Metro from the Nation station to the Bon Marche … Continue reading →

Leaving the Veteran’s Chapel, we stepped back out into the main courtyard of Les Invalides where the Army Museum has arrayed its impressive collection of 60 classical French bronze cannons and a dozen mortars and howitzers along the outer edge of the courtyard, as you can see in this photograph: Turning around and looking up … Continue reading →

When we visited the Basque region a couple weeks ago, I noted that that part of modern-day France had been an independent kingdom called Navarre until 1620 when it was merged into the kingdom of France. The merger of the two kingdoms was the result of the death in 1589 of French King Henry III … Continue reading →

Today we returned to the Louvre to visit the museum (free passes, thanks to our exchange hosts, Frédérique and Virginie!). Here’s the “new” main entrance (through the big glass pyramid) in the Cour Napoléon, opened in 1989, with the Denon wing of the Louvre in the background. Looking further to the right, you can see … Continue reading →

Apparently, a front passed through Paris on Tuesday and the weather turned delightfully cool, enough so that we donned our long pants, packed away when we left Denmark a month ago. Paris is a very cultured place, but sometimes, you just need to get away from all the art and beautiful buildings. So, Tuesday was … Continue reading →

The Musée du Louvre, the most famous art museum in the world, sits at the east end of Tuileries Garden inside what was, until the French Revolution, the Palais du Louvre, the Louvre Palace. The Louvre Palace was built and modified over the centuries and in 1564 its open western courtyard was enclosed by the … Continue reading →

The Musée de l’Orangerie is one of the few museums in Paris that’s open on Mondays and since it has a collection of Impressionist (and Post-Impressionist) paintings, we decided to start the day there. L’Orangerie began life in the 1850s as a large greenhouse. It is located in the southwest corner of the Tuileries Garden, … Continue reading →

The Road Not Taken Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claimBecause it was grassy and wanted … Continue reading →

We noticed at the Musée d’Orsay, that the crowds thinned in the afternoon, so we thought we’d delay the start of our planned return to the Île de le Cité today, hoping to take an uncrowded tour of the Notre-Dame Cathedral (the Palais de Justice is also on the island). No such luck. When we … Continue reading →

The other day, walking down the nearby Rue de la Croix-Nivert, we passed the Restaurant Jadis, but it wasn’t open at the time. We looked at the notice on the door and thought that €29 for the menu du jour at a good restaurant might be nice, so we filed it away for future reference. … Continue reading →

So far in Paris, we’ve been using the subway or walking, but yesterday we decided to try taking the tram and the train to visit the Musée d’Orsay which sits, appropriately, on the Left Bank (in French, the “Rive Gauche”) of the Seine River, the haunt of many of the great bohemian artists, writers and … Continue reading →

In law school, I took a course on comparative law that included the study of the French Civil Law system which differs from the English-based Common Law system we have adopted in most of the United States. I say “most” of the United States because Louisiana – originally settled by the French – follows the … Continue reading →

At the Jardins du Trocodéro we asked someone to take our picture – as all tourists do – with the Tour Eiffel, the Eiffel Tower, in the background: As with the Arc de Triomphe, we visited the Eiffel Tower about 6 years ago and made it all the way to the top; we didn’t have … Continue reading →

The apartment we’re staying in is right next to a metro subway station and a bus stop, so getting around Paris should be pretty easy while we’re here. We started the day by buying week-long passes for the metro transit system and then took the #12 subway to Concorde station which is at the eastern … Continue reading →

Before we leave to start exploring Paris, here’s a look at where we’re staying. Yesterday, when we arrived, I posted pictures of the Eiffel Tower, taken from the terrace of the apartment (which is on the top floor of the building); here’s another one… …and, turning slightly to my right, here’s a picture of the … Continue reading →

The 3-hour train ride on the TGV from Bordeaux to Paris was uneventful. Oddly, at €65 ($85) each, First Class tickets were cheaper than coach, not that there was really that much difference in the seating, anyway. We arrived in rain and took a cab to our new accommodations, Frédérique’s and Virginie’s 12th floor apartment … Continue reading →

In our 3 weeks in and around Bordeaux, we managed to cover nearly 1,200 miles. Here’s a map of our travels in the Gironde department, the red markers being our two homes during the stay: And here’s a bigger map of showing our travels throughout Aquitaine: Our visit to this area exemplifies why we love … Continue reading →

You might recall that when we were in the Basque region of France about 10 days ago, we stayed over night in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, the last stop on the Way of St. James, the pilgrimage trail, before it crosses the Pyrenees enroute to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Well, Saint-Émilion is also on the pilgrims’ trail … Continue reading →

One thing we wanted to make sure to see before leaving Bordeaux was the nearby medieval village of Saint-Émilion, located in the center of a famous wine region of the Gironde. Supposedly, the village is named after a hermit from Brittany known as Émilion – some say he was a monk – that arrived and … Continue reading →

When we travel abroad, I always try to learn a little of the local language. People are a lot friendlier when you at least make the effort to communicate in their native tongue. My method is to buy a phrase book and learn the essentials: hello, goodbye; please, thank you; yes, no; excuse me; one, … Continue reading →

About 30 miles east of the city of Bergerac, high up on a limestone cliff face, is the most amazing and well-preserved medieval castle we have seen anywhere in our travels, the Château de Beynac. The castle was built in the 12th century A.D. and its chapel (that’s it to the left of the castle) … Continue reading →

We awoke early Monday in order to make the 2-hour drive to Thénac to visit Plum Village for the 9:00 a.m. Dharma talk given weekly by Vietnamese Zen-Master Thích Nhất Hạnh. Plum Village is a monastery for Buddhist monks and nuns and a practice center for lay practitioners of Mindfulness. It was founded in 1982 … Continue reading →

The French National Day, “Bastille Day” to English-speakers, is celebrated on July 14th in much the same way as we celebrate our own Independence Day in the USA on July 4th – with parades and fireworks. The biggest Bastille Day celebration is in Paris (we were there as a family several years ago on Bastille … Continue reading →