The Faubourg Saint-Antoine is a Paris neighborhood that begins at Place de la Bastille (first photo) and stretches about 2 km eastward to Place de la Nation. The word Faubourg means “outside the walls”, now usually translated as “suburb”. In the Middle Ages this neighborhood was in fact outside the Read More …
Despite the bird droppings and the blue war-paint, this bust at 56 Boulevard Beaumarchais in Paris is still recognizable as a likeness of Clotilde de Vaux (1815-1846), an aspiring young writer who had published a few poems and stories and was working on her first novel when she died of 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 …
The composer Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) is best known today for his one serious opera, Tales of Hoffmann, which he composed shortly before his death, based on the life and writings of the German author and composer E.T.A. Hoffmann. But actually Tales of Hoffmann was only one of 102 works for Read More …