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The Lion of Belfort

Posted onDecember 4, 2020December 14, 202022 Comments

High above the city of Belfort, in front of a steep cliff and just below the citadel, is a large sculpture, the Lion of Belfort. This Lion is 21.5 meters long and 10.7 meters high, making it quite large but no longer one of the largest sculptures in the world, Read More …

CategoriesBelfortTagsMuseums, Operas, Sculpture

Cycling in Belfort

Posted onNovember 29, 2020November 28, 20204 Comments

Optymo in Belfort is the agency that runs the city’s bus lines, as well as the bike-sharing and car-sharing systems. The name Optymo stands for optimal mobility. The Optymo system currently has 250 bikes available at thirty self-service bike stations in the city of Belfort and in several adjoining towns. Read More …

CategoriesBelfortTagsCycling

Theatre “Le Granit” in Belfort

Posted onNovember 26, 2020November 21, 20204 Comments

When I was in Belfort I couldn’t see a show at the municipal theatre Le Granit, because it was closed for the summer vacation. But I did find out a few things about it. For one thing, I learned that Le Granit is a scène nationale, meaning ‘national stage’. I Read More …

CategoriesBelfortTagsTheatre

Comedy in the House of the People

Posted onNovember 21, 2020November 19, 20203 Comments

From the local newspaper, L’Est Républicain, which I read each morning during a leisurely breakfast in the hotel garden, I learned that every summer the city of Belfort sponsors a “festival of humor” called Les Rigolomanies de Belfort, consisting of six comedy shows on six Thursday evenings in the 867-seat Read More …

CategoriesBelfortTagsTheatre

Hôtel Vauban in Belfort

Posted onNovember 19, 2020December 11, 20204 Comments

OK, I’ll admit it again. I chose this hotel because of the name. But it turned out to be a pleasant and convenient place to stay, so I can heartily recommend it even to those who are in Belfort for other reasons. After a while I asked Mme Lorange, the Read More …

CategoriesBelfortTagsVauban

To Belfort by train

Posted onNovember 17, 2020December 6, 202011 Comments

This is the bar car on the upper level of the French double-decker TGV train that runs once a day — except during coronavirus lockdowns — from Frankfurt am Main (Germany) to Marseille (France) by way of Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Strasbourg, Mulhouse, Belfort, Besançon, Chalon sur Saône, Lyon, Avignon and Aix-en-Provence. Read More …

CategoriesBelfortTagsTrain travel

Camili Books & Tea

Posted onNovember 16, 2020November 26, 202010 Comments

This English-language bookshop on Rue de la Carreterie in Avignon was founded in 1994 (or 1992, depending on which website you believe) by Wolfgang Zuckermann. He called it “Shakespeare” in the tradition of the bookshop “Shakespeare & Co.” that was started in Paris by Sylvia Beach in 1919. Wolfgang Zuckermann Read More …

CategoriesAvignonTagsBookshops

Gregorian chants in a Lutheran church in Paris

Posted onNovember 11, 2020November 10, 20207 Comments

In striking contrast to the nearby Sainte-Chapelle and Notre-Dame, the Evangelical Lutheran Church des Billettes is austere and undecorated, with bare walls and plain-glass windows. I went there one evening in the summer of 2008 to hear a concert of Gregorian chants from the 10th to 13th centuries, sung by Read More …

Categories_4th arrondissement, Le MaraisTagsConcert venues

Chamber music in the Sainte Chapelle

Posted onNovember 9, 2020November 10, 202012 Comments

This is my nomination for the world’s most beautiful concert venue, the 13th century Sainte Chapelle on the Île de la Cité in the center of Paris. On many evenings there are two one-hour concerts here, the first at 19:00 (7.00 pm) and the second at 20:30 (8.30 pm). I Read More …

Categories_1st arrondissement, Île de la CitéTagsConcert venues

Opera arias at Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre

Posted onNovember 7, 2020November 7, 20205 Comments

When I first saw the announcement for this concert in 2008, I must admit I was a bit suspicious. It said in large letters: “HOMMAGE à MARIA CALLAS” followed in smaller letters by the name of a soprano I had never heard of, who was said to be “from La Read More …

Categories_5th arrondissement, Latin QuarterTagsConcert venues

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The afternoon of 9/11

The afternoon of 9/11

My office in 2001 was on the fifth floor of a six-story building in the unfashionable Gallus quarter of Frankfurt. At around three in the afternoon (German time) on a Tuesday my colleague from the next office came in and told me she had just received a strange phone call Read More ...

Mitterrand and the Panthéon

Mitterrand and the Panthéon

Every time I ride past the Panthéon in Paris I am reminded of a man I met in Berkeley, California when I was living there in 1967. I was working at that time as News Director of a non-commercial radio station. In the mornings I always walked to work, and one Read More ...

Conversation and more B2

Conversation and more B2

The photos in this post are by a professional photographer, Rolf Oeser, who happens to be a long-time participant in one of my English courses at the Frankfurt Adult Education Center (VHS). Rolf’s photos appear nearly every day in the Frankfurter Rundschau, one of the city’s three daily newspapers. He Read More ...

The square of Gavroche’s elephant

The square of Gavroche’s elephant

There is a persistent urban legend about American tourists going to the Place de la Bastille in Paris and feeling cheated when they discover that the Bastille Fortress isn’t even there any more. Perhaps this has really happened at one time or another, but I think most tourists from all Read More ...

The Bridge of Aspiration

The Bridge of Aspiration

Floral Street might at first look like an ordinary London street, with older brick buildings on one side and a newer stone building on the other, until you look up and notice that two of the buildings are joined by an unusual construction that stretches across the street like a Read More ...

Françoise d’Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon

Françoise d’Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon

She was born in jail, where her father was a prisoner and her mother was a jail keeper’s daughter. To make matters worse, her father was a Huguenot (Protestant) and her mother was a Catholic, in a century when these religious differences were taken very seriously. Although her grandfather was Read More ...

Mozart’s operas

Mozart’s operas

Here’s my list of the operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), including a few that were never completed or are sometimes listed as something else. As on my Verdi list, I have listed the opera titles in different colors: Red means I have seen the opera at least once in Read More ...

Operas by Giuseppe Verdi

Operas by Giuseppe Verdi

During his long career, Giuseppe Verdi composed twenty-six operas — or twenty-eight, depending what you count as what. The following list is the 28-opera version, with the year of the world premiere in parentheses after each title. I have listed the opera titles in different colors: Red means I have Read More ...

Händel as an opera composer

Händel as an opera composer

The Händel House in Halle has an interesting exhibit on “Händel, composer of opera” where visitors can sit and watch Georg Friedrich Händel (as a sort of Monty-Python-style figure) come in, sit down at the cembalo and explain some of his operas. The spectators can push buttons to choose which Read More ...

Tito’s Glasses in Osnabrück

Tito’s Glasses in Osnabrück

After arriving at Osnabrück station, checking in to my hotel and picking up my rental bike, I rode over to the tourist information office and asked for a calendar of events, to see if anything special was happening that evening. It turned out that something very special was happening. The Read More ...

Arrival in Tân Ba 1964

Arrival in Tân Ba 1964

From October 1964 to March 1965 I was the lowest ranking member of a five-man American “advisory team” stationed in a small Vietnamese village called Tân Ba on the bank of the Dong Nai River. At night we could see the lights of Biên Hòa air base across the river Read More ...

Vélib’ 2020

Vélib’ 2020

In January 2020 I was proud of myself for getting organized and booking some travel well in advance, including two trips to Paris — trains, hotels and operas — for April and July. For the April visit, I reserved a room at a hotel on the Boulevard Magenta, in the Read More ...

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