With seats for 570 spectators in its main auditorium, the Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet is the smallest lyric theater in Paris. The nearby Garnier Opera seats three times as many people, and the Bastille Opera seats well over four times as many. Though the entrance to the Athénée is tucked away Read More …
In Toulouse I went on two guided walking tours on two consecutive days. Both were organized by the city tourist office. The normal cost was listed as € 9.50 per tour, but I only paid € 7.50 because of my advanced age. (Nice that they have senior discounts.) Each tour Read More …
In the early years of the French Revolution, the Girondins were an important political group in the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention. Many of the Girondins came from Bordeaux, in the department of Gironde. When the Revolution turned nasty in 1793, most of the prominent Girondins were guillotined by Read More …
When I go to art museums I am always glad to see paintings on themes that I ‘know’ because they have also been made into operas. I noticed four of these at the Musée des Beaux Arts in Bordeaux. (Have I overlooked any?) The one in my first photo is Read More …
Somehow I used to think that the cult of Joan of Arc was limited to northern France and was of little interest to the southern half of the country. After all, she lived and died in the North, and during her lifetime some parts of the South didn’t even belong Read More …
This statue of a nude woman, with the Eiffel Tower visible in the distance over her left shoulder and the Orsay Museum off to her right, is called Pomone and was created in 1910 by the French sculptor Aristide Maillol (1861-1944). It is one of eighteen Maillol sculptures that are Read More …
A little park at the Place du Bourg-de-four in Geneva is the site of a remarkable statue, not of Rousseau or Calvin or the founder of the Red Cross, but of a naked, emaciated, melancholy young woman named Clémentine. The statue was created by the Swiss sculptor Heinz Schwarz (1922-1994), Read More …
The Mirabeau Bridge across the Seine was built in the 1890s and was considered a remarkable technical achievement at the time. It connects Auteuil on the Right Bank (16th arrondissement) with Javel (15th) on the Left. The bridge was named after the Count of Mirabeau (1749-1791), a rebellious aristocrat whose Read More …
The sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) lived and worked in the Hôtel Biron in Paris for the last decade of his life. (The word Hôtel is used here in the old sense, meaning mansion.) In his will, he left the building and most of his sculptures to the French state, for 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 …