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.
La Rochelle: A Winter Wanderbout in an Old Port Town, Part I: Night
I am not a seafaring man. My ancestors took several billions of years to evolve from the deep; I see no reason to go back. But give me a safe old port town on a misty evening, even on a cold winter’s night like this, and I’ll wander about for hours as if looking for chance.
The Electrician
The back table by the kitchen at Kasaphani, Paris’s premier Greek Cypriot restaurant, is reserved for family and friends. Tony, the oldest of the...
Writing without gloves
On a cold Paris winter day, as the ice thickens on Canal Saint Martin, the writer takes off his gloves to work.
Benjamin Franklin, a Philadelphian Who Lived the American Dream in Paris, Then Went Home
Shortly after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin accepted a mission from the Continental Congress to seeking an alliance with...
Christmas in Paris is but a memory
It's the rare Paris winter in recent years when Canal Saint Martin freezes over. But abandoning Christmas trees on the street (or in this case the canal) is a post-holiday tradition in Paris.
It may be January but it’s still Paris
A rare view of ice on Canal Saint-Martin.
Winter sky over gray rooftop.
Part III: The American Versailles. Not Impressed Yet? Try This!
Versailles, for all its reflection of historical French grandeur, authority, nobility, art, craftsmanship, and etiquette, is also a reflection of American power. Versailles may well be the French monument that most symbolizes American power, after the Statue of Liberty that is.
A Night at Hotel Saint Paul Rive Gauche: Infidelity on Rue Monsieur le Prince
All travel carries a scent of infidelity. The eye wanders, the senses get curious, the smile invites foreign conversations, and at night you grope...
Part II: Louis XIV’s Versailles. Purgatory and Heaven, War and Peace, Mirrors and Fountains
I’m not sure when my transformation from dread of Versailles to curiosity occurred—while listening to our guide, while visiting the Little Theater, while strolling...