When I was in Belfort I couldn’t see a show at the municipal theatre Le Granit, because it was closed for the summer vacation. But I did find out a few things about it. For one thing, I learned that Le Granit is a scène nationale, meaning ‘national stage’. I Read More …
From the local newspaper, L’Est Républicain, which I read each morning during a leisurely breakfast in the hotel garden, I learned that every summer the city of Belfort sponsors a “festival of humor” called Les Rigolomanies de Belfort, consisting of six comedy shows on six Thursday evenings in the 867-seat Read More …
OK, I’ll admit it again. I chose this hotel because of the name. But it turned out to be a pleasant and convenient place to stay, so I can heartily recommend it even to those who are in Belfort for other reasons. After a while I asked Mme Lorange, the Read More …
This is the bar car on the upper level of the French double-decker TGV train that runs once a day — except during coronavirus lockdowns — from Frankfurt am Main (Germany) to Marseille (France) by way of Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Strasbourg, Mulhouse, Belfort, Besançon, Chalon sur Saône, Lyon, Avignon and Aix-en-Provence. Read More …
In striking contrast to the nearby Sainte-Chapelle and Notre-Dame, the Evangelical Lutheran Church des Billettes is austere and undecorated, with bare walls and plain-glass windows. I went there one evening in the summer of 2008 to hear a concert of Gregorian chants from the 10th to 13th centuries, sung by Read More …
This is my nomination for the world’s most beautiful concert venue, the 13th century Sainte Chapelle on the Île de la Cité in the center of Paris. On many evenings there are two one-hour concerts here, the first at 19:00 (7.00 pm) and the second at 20:30 (8.30 pm). I Read More …
When I first saw the announcement for this concert in 2008, I must admit I was a bit suspicious. It said in large letters: “HOMMAGE à MARIA CALLAS” followed in smaller letters by the name of a soprano I had never heard of, who was said to be “from La Read More …
When I was a child, I loved the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, so I was confident I would also like the one in Paris — and I do. The one in Paris is officially called the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie, with sciences in the plural Read More …
You might easily mistake this inconspicuous stairway for the entrance to an underground parking garage — which, in fact, is what it was originally meant to be. Here where the ancient Romans lived, worked and bathed from the first to the fourth centuries AD, here where tens of thousands of Read More …
In earlier years I was puzzled by the name of this building, since I knew the word concierge only as a person who sat at the entrance to an apartment building to keep track of who went in and out. But in medieval times the Concierge was a high government Read More …