Since electing its first Socialist mayor in 2001, the city of Paris has made considerable progress in re-allocating public space: widening sidewalks, narrowing streets, creating bus and bicycle lanes and reducing the space devoted to cars. But the problem is so widespread that numerous streets in Paris still have grotesquely Read More …
In the spring of 2019 I was invited to a book-signing in a Paris bookshop, because I had once ordered a book online from the publishing house Editions Alexandrines, so I was on their mailing list. The book in question was Le Paris de Mitterrand by Michèle Cotta, the 30th Read More …
For years I was mildly puzzled about who Saint Germain was, but only mildly. Now that I have finally looked him up, it turns out he was born around the year 496 and was Bishop of Paris from 555 until his death in 576. According to a poet called Venantius Read More …
In July 2014 I took a guided walking tour (in French) of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter of Paris. We met at the exit of the Métro station Mabillon, because this is a small station with only one exit, so there was no danger of anyone picking the wrong one. Our guide Read More …
Rue Jacob is a fashionable street in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter of Paris, with a number of art galleries and such, but it is actually not very pleasant because of the narrow sidewalks and the parked cars on both sides of the street. As nearly everywhere in Paris, the car drivers Read More …
It was Maillol himself who first broached the idea that his model Dina Vierny should open an art gallery after his death. In her words: “Maillol had always dreamed of a gallery for me. The trouble was, I did not see myself as a business person, not at all.” After Read More …
Since the name of this theater means ‘Theatre of the Old Pigeon-House’, I used to think the theater building was just that, an old pigeon-house (dovecote) that somebody decided to re-purpose after a sharp decline in the demand for pigeon meat. Considering the size of the theatre, I thought it Read More …
The painter Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) had an apartment, studio and garden in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter of the sixth arrondissement in Paris for the last five-and-a-half years of his life, while he was working on the decoration of a chapel at the nearby church of Saint-Suplice. Delacroix was a prolific artist Read More …