Gary Lee Kraut
Gary Lee Kraut is the editor of France Revisited and an award-winning travel writer. As a long-time specialist on travel and touring in France, he has become the go-to contact for individual travelers and travel agents seeking personalized travel advice and customized tours in Paris and throughout France. See the About the Editor tab at the top of this page for his complete bio.
France Revisited’s Early Autumn Newsletter
Autumn was slow in coming to France this year, but it has finally arrived and with it a shift in our approach to enjoying life in Paris and travels in France as sunset creeps toward teatime. This newletter contains links to articles as well as information about exhibitions, books and tastings.
Benoît Castel: Bread, Brunch, Pastries in Eastern Paris
Brunch at Benoît Castel Ménilmontant, a pastry shop and bakery in the 20th arrondissement, is an ideal place to begin weekend wandering in the increasingly gentrified neighborhoods of eastern Paris. We came for the bread, we stayed for the brunch, and only later did we taste the heart of Benoît Castel’s trade, the pastries.
Paris Street Talk: Chadors, Communists, Cannibals
Some call it a no-go zone full of potential Islamist terrorists. Others pretend that the neighborhood is just one big hipster playground. What's really going on at the eastern end of Jean-Pierre Timbaud? Here, in a two-part illustrated vignette, is what two American travelers discover as they explore eastern Paris after brunch one Sunday afternoon.
Paris Street Talk: The Wall of 3 Crowns
Having survived an encounter with chadors, communists and cannibals in part 1 of this two-part vignette, two American visitors in eastern Paris encounter a graffer, a gardener, a homeless shelter and cheerful graffiti beyond the Wall of 3 Crowns. But first they have to get past the dog.
Green Paris: Smoking Is Out, Sparkling Water Is In
While Paris is test banning smoking in some of its parks and gardens, a new garden, Jardin Truillot, has been opened in the city's least green and most densely populated arrondissement.
In the Spirit of Normandy: Calvados Cocktails
Getting into the spirit of Normandy with the history of the apple brandy calvados, the rise of the calvados cocktail, encounters with top bartenders Colin Field and Marc Jean, and the Calvados Nouvelle Vogue International Trophies competition in Normandy. Includes four calvados cocktail recipes.
A Montmartre Treasure Hunt: Been There, Not Done That
The Montmartre Museum is just 300 yards from Sacré Coeur and Place du Tertre yet it feels well off the beaten track. As it should since this is a connoisseur’s museum with a quiet garden café. An end your Montmartre treasure hunt.
Napoleon, Neanderthals and Successful Businessmen
Two temporary exhibitions in Paris are of special interest to those who sit in their office late at night trying to understand the real or imagined dominance or superiority of some men over others: Napoleon Strategist at the Army Museum and Neanderthal, the Exhibit, at the Museum of Man.
ABMC WWI Museum Opens at Chateau-Thierry’s American Monument
History has never been America’s strong point, and our grasp of our own role in the First World War is no exception. We need more context and basic information than other combatants of the Great War in order to begin to understand its significance. Thanks to the new little museum at the foot of the American Monument above Chateau-Thierry, context and information are now readily available on a daytrip or more from Paris.