French Army Museum in the Invalides
After my glorious military career of one year, nine months and thirteen days as a draftee in the American Army (including fifty-one weeks in Vietnam), I am not exactly what Read More …
Category: Paris
Musée des plans-reliefs
On the top floor of one wing of Les Invalides in Paris there is an unusual museum showing twenty-eight large relief-map models that were made starting in the seventeen century, Read More …
Don Pasquale at the Opéra Garnier
Donizetti’s Don Pasquale is a funny opera that is full of lovely music and also serves as a timely reminder to all us older men that we shouldn’t get any Read More …
L’Avare at the Odéon
My only disappointment with Molière’s L’Avare (The Miser) was that it doesn’t include a maid. In all the other Molière plays I have seen or read, there is a clever maid Read More …
Center for Fashion and Design at Les Docks
On the left bank of the Seine, between the Austerlitz railway station and the François Mitterrand Library, there is a huge building made of reinforced concrete which was built in Read More …
Indicateur d’Itineraires
Here’s a Blast from the Past for you: an electric “Indicator of Itineraries” such as used to be found in about half of the Paris Métro stations. I came across Read More …
The Loft of the Goncourts
In France there is a prestigious literary prize called the Le prix Goncourt, which is awarded each December to the author of “the best and most imaginative prose work of Read More …
Verdi’s Troubadour at the Opéra Bastille
This audience at the Opéra Bastille in Paris turned out to be highly enthusiastic, rewarding all four of the lead singers in Verdi’s Troubadour with bravos and prolonged applause after Read More …
Guided walking tour from Palais Royal
In May 2013 I took a guided walking tour of the Palais Royal area in the 1st and 2nd arrondissements of Paris. The guide turned out to be a man Read More …
Louvre: Hall Napoléon
When the Pyramid at the Louvre was being built in the 1980s, they also built a large underground exposition space called the Hall Napoléon, which is now used for temporary Read More …