Skytrees: Montmartre By Nightfall
Skytrees: Visions of time and place found by looking up through trees at an angle of more than 45 degrees. Here are some prime examples of skytrees in Paris and a recommendable restaurant entered at nightfall in Montmartre.
A Man’s Home May Not Be His Chateau: From Versailles to Vincennes
Château can be lazily translated as castle, but a traveler in France soon learns that there are many types of chateaux and not all are castles.
Winter Benches, Paris
There’s a special atmosphere to the gardens and parks of Paris in winter, before the leaves appear on the trees and block the view.
Brandon...
Four French lessons I learned in February
March 6, 2011. Here are four French lessons that I learned in February on the Riviera and in Alsace.
1. Carnival in Nice
Nice’s Carnival, the...
The Gardens of Versailles in Winter
I’ve been to the palace and gardens of Versailles dozens of times but never on such a quiet, empty afternoon as this.
It was a...
Menton Revisited
Feb. 25, 2011 – Last weekend I returned to Menton, the town on the French Riviera just over the border from Italy, on the occasion of its annual Lemon Festival. I'd last been to Menton 15 years ago when I'd written about it for my guidebook to France.
Egypt and the Opera
Feb. 14, 2011. With the winds of change blowing across North Africa and the Middle East it’s only natural to notice a slight breeze...
Montmartre By Day, Egypt By Night
We’ve seen a lot of images from Egypt of late as cameramen and photographers have sought the best angles to show crowds, revolt, politics,...
What if Jack LaLanne’s parents had stayed in France?
The way Jack LaLanne talked about health and fitness on TV reminds me the way that some farmers and organic wine producers in France talk about their products. I wonder: if Jack LaLanne's parent had never emigrated from Oloron Sainte Marie in the Atlantic Pyrenees region of southwest France he might have become famous for producing organic goat cheese... and maybe lived longer.