This large mural in the entrance hall of the Gare de l’Est (East Station) in Paris shows soldiers in August 1914 saying goodbye to their families and boarding a train to go into battle at the beginning of the First World War. The mural was painted in 1926 by an Read More …
For many years in the 19th and 20th centuries, 18-20 boulevard Saint-Denis was the address of a publishing company called A. Taride, which specialized in “maps for cyclists and automobiles” and in guidebooks of Paris and other parts of France. My lead photo in this post is a sketch from Read More …
The Théâtre Antoine is a large Italian-style (horseshoe-shaped) theatre dating from the year 1866. In its first decades it quickly became famous for hosting the first Paris productions of controversial young foreign authors such as Ibsen, Strindberg and Tolstoï, among others. In the nineteenth century, when people were somewhat smaller Read More …
The Villlemin Garden (Jardin Villemin) is a public park in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, between the East Station (Gare de l’Est) and the Canal Saint Martin. It is named after Jean-Antoine Villemin (1827–1892), a French army physician who was the first to demonstrate that tuberculosis is an infectious disease. Read More …
The triumphal gate Porte Saint Denis is in a wide place on the Boulevard Saint-Denis, on the border between the 2nd and 10th districts (arrondissements) of Paris. In the 14th century this was the site of a gate in the wall of Charles V. The current gate was built in Read More …
In August of 2008 I stayed for eight nights at a two-star hotel called Hôtel des 3 Nations at the corner of rue du Château d’Eau and rue de Lancry in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. I chose this hotel because it was inexpensive and within easy walking distance of Read More …
For those of us who arrive by train from central or southern Germany, this “grand” two-star hotel (grand being a French word for large) is conveniently located just half a block from the Gare de l’Est, i.e. the East Station. For a single room on the fifth floor I paid Read More …
The Théâtre du Gymnase Marie Bell is one of the many theaters on the grands boulevards in Paris — and no doubt one of the oldest, having been built in the early 19th century and inaugurated in 1820. From the outside it doesn’t show its age, particularly, but inside it Read More …
In addition to their main auditorium with eight hundred seats on six different levels, the Théâtre du Gymnase Marie Bell in Paris also has a smaller hall in the basement with one hundred seats, called the Théâtre du Petit Gymnase. To get to this basement theater, you have to enter Read More …
It took me a while to realize that some of the most dreadfully over-motorized squares and circles in Paris were at places where three or four districts (arrondissements) come together. The Arch of Triumph, for instance, is at the place where the 8th, 16th and 17th arrondissements come together. The Read More …