Mumm’s the word
As I have mentioned elsewhere, after checking into a new hotel in a new city (or a new neighborhood) I like to take a walk around the block and see Read More …
Category: France
Foujita’s chapel in Reims
Continuing on my walk around the block from my hotel, or rather my Résidence Hôtelière, I soon came upon the Chapelle Notre Dame de la Paix (Chapel of Our Lady Read More …
Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims
The first French king to be crowned in the Reims Cathedral was Louis VIII in 1223. The twenty-fifth and last was Charles X in 1825. Charles’s predecessor Louis XVIII and Read More …
A journey to Reims
The characters in Rossini’s opera Il viaggio a Reims never do get to Reims, and for a few minutes I thought I wasn’t going to get there either, because my Read More …
The Surrender Museum in Reims
The date usually given for the end of World War II is either May 8 or May 9, 1945, shortly before or shortly after midnight, which is when the German Read More …
Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo in Reims
The Reims Opera House was originally called the Grand Théâtre when it was first built in 1873. It was severely damaged in World War I. After several years delay it Read More …
A talk by Francis Albou
When I was in Reims in 2013 I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Francis Albou about the second act of the opera Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Read More …
Rainy-day boat trip in Strasbourg
As in Amsterdam, an interesting rainy-day activity in Strasbourg is to take a boat trip around the city. I call it a rainy-day activity because when the weather is nice Read More …
TGV to Strasbourg
They had a brass band on platform 4 of the Gare de l’Est (East Station) in Paris on the morning of June 10, 2007, to give us all a big Read More …
The Secrets of Chocolate
It’s an easy one-hour bicycle ride from Strasbourg to the museum “The Secrets of Chocolate” in Geispolsheim. There you can learn all about the history of chocolate and how it Read More …