Around the edges of Paris there are at least fifty-six intersections whose names begin with Porte, meaning Gate. Seventeen of these, including the Porte de Versailles, were the main gates in a defensive wall that was built around Paris from 1841 to 1844. This wall was the largest and last Read More …
The Petite Ceinture de Paris (Small Belt of Paris) is a 32 kilometer double-tracked railway that was built from 1852 to 1869, encircling Paris just inside the current boundaries of the city. Its original purpose was to transfer freight between the various railroad lines coming into Paris from different directions, Read More …
Somehow I thought Hampstead would be a great distance from the center of London, but it turns out to be only an eleven-minute ride on the Northern Line from the underground station King’s Cross St. Pancras, with stops at Euston, Camden Town, Chalk Farm and Belsize Park. By this time Read More …
It’s only a short walk from the town of Belfort to the top of the citadel, and the climb is not very challenging even for someone of my advanced age. But for those with mobility issues, or those travelling with small children, or those who arrive in the middle of Read More …
This is a handy little booklet that I still carry around in my jacket pocket or the outer pocket of my camera bag, along with my mobile phone. Although the same information is accessible both ways, I often find it quicker and easier to use the booklet, rather than the Read More …
This railway station was built in 1913 as the main station of the then-booming industrial city of Barmen, which had not yet been incorporated into the city of Wuppertal. The station had a large and elaborate entrance hall (on the right in the photo) with several ticket counters and extensive Read More …
In German there is an expression ‘über die Wupper gehen’ (= ‘to go over the Wupper’), meaning to die, like going over the Jordan or the Styx in other cultures and epochs. No one knows for sure why the Wupper was chosen for this expression, rather than some better-known German Read More …
As a cyclist I seldom use the Métro in Paris, but in recent years I have had occasion to take line # 4 several times, mainly going to and from my hotel with my luggage or, once, going to the theatre in a torrential rainstorm. The trains on this line Read More …
In the spring of 2014 there was a brief flurry of media stories claiming that the new mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, had ordered a speed limit of 30 km/h (= 18.6 miles per hour) on all the streets of the city, excepting expressways. In one blow this would have Read More …
Wildbad has had a railway line since 1869, when the Enz Valley Railway was built to bring the rich and the powerful up from Pforzheim to the Wildbad spa. In the 1990s the German ex-monopolist railway DB wanted to shut this line down, but then it was leased by the Read More …