The Fuggerei claims to be the world’s oldest social housing area. It was founded in 1521 by the wealthy Augsburg merchant Jakob Fugger (1459-1525) to provide housing for industrious Catholic residents of Augsburg who had become impoverished through no fault of their own. The complex consists of 67 buildings with Read More …
Barfuß means barefoot in German, but that doesn’t mean you have to take off your shoes and socks before entering the Protestant Barfüßlerkirche in Augsburg. Nor does it mean you can buy shoes here, even though some younger Germans know Barfüßler mainly as a chain of shoe stores. What it Read More …
A characteristic feature of Augsburg is the existence of two churches side by side with the same name, a fancy white one for the Catholics and a more austere yellow-brown one for the Protestants. In another part of town there are also two St. Ulrich’s churches, in the same colors. Read More …
Augsburg was the birthplace of Leopold Mozart (1719-1787). He was a composer and musician in his own right, and also the author of what was then a standard textbook on learning to play the violin. But of course he is most famous as the father, teacher, manager and slave-driver of Read More …
This theater is not on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, as I used to think, but is several blocks from there on Avenue Montaigne near the Place de l’Alma on the right bank of the Seine. This is a very wealthy district of Paris, in fact for apartment buyers Avenue Montaigne Read More …
It only rained once during the ten days I was in Paris in June 2006, and that was — you guessed it — ten minutes before show time at an open-air opera performance in the Senate Gardens, which are in the Luxembourg Gardens right behind Luxembourg Palace. A nice announcer Read More …
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 …
This large cemetery in the 20th arrondissement of Paris is popular with tourists because some famous people are buried here. If you go in at the main entrance you can get a map to help you find the graves of people like Gioacchino Rossini, Maria Callas, Édith Piaf, Jim Morrison Read More …
When I was in Reims in 2013 I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Francis Albou about the second act of the opera Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The lecture was held at the Conservatory, not the opera house, but it’s a good thing I asked at Read More …
Massy is the only suburb of Paris which has its own opera house. Admittedly the opera house does not look very prestigious from the outside. In fact, I would call it a prime example of late twentieth-century jerry-built architecture, which is sad because I’m sure the founder and his supporters Read More …