This is the newest and largest of the five public sites of the French National Library. It was one of the “great projects” — which included the Great Arch, the Opéra Bastille and the Pyramid of the Louvre — that were undertaken during the presidency of François Mitterrand, who was Read More …
In August 2013 I went on another guided walking tour (in French) that I found listed in the back pages of the now-defunct weekly magazine Pariscope. This was mainly a tour of the Île Saint-Louis, but since that island has no Métro stations, we met at the kiosk by the 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 …
At 9:30 on a Sunday morning a group of VirtualTourist members met here at the Café des 2 Moulins at the suggestion of Paul Smith, who used this as the starting point for a walking tour of Montmartre. Anyone who has seen the film Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain, starring Read More …
There always seems to be a festive atmosphere up on the roof of the Chaillot Theater, where people from all over the world come to look at the Eiffel Tower. This roof is often referred to as the Esplanade du Trocadéro, but its official name is le Parvis des Libertés Read More …
The meeting point for this guided walking tour (in French) was the Métro station Notre-Dame des Champs. This is a small station with only one entrance, so there was no danger of waiting at the wrong one. When I arrived, people asked me if I was the guide, which of Read More …
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 …
Blanche, meaning White, was a popular name for aristocratic ladies in the Middle Ages. There were several queens and princesses named Blanche in various centuries. No one is quite sure which of them this castle was named after, but some think it might have been Blanche de France, a daughter Read More …
This footbridge across the Seine in Paris connects the Garden of the Tuileries on the Right Bank (1st arrondissement) with the Faubourg Saint-Germain on the Left Bank (7th arrondissement), near the Orsay Museum. When I was in Paris in the 1960s there was a nondescript temporary steel footbridge at this Read More …