Maritime Museum in Paris
On August 11, 1858, the emperor Napoléon III arrived in Brest in his uncle’s boat, the Canot de l’empereur, rowed by twenty oarsmen, with a golden Neptune on the front Read More …
Tag: Victor Hugo
Hugoffenbach
In Paris back in 2011 I saw an insightful theatrical revue about the Second Empire, the eighteen-year period from 1852 to 1870 when Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte ruled France as Emperor Napoléon Read More …
Guided walking tour of Montparnasse
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 Read More …
The Bièvre River in Paris
If you go snooping around the western half of the 13th arrondissement (and adjoining sections of the 5th) in Paris you will find numerous references to a river called the Read More …
Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims
The first French king to be crowned in the Reims Cathedral was Louis VIII in 1223. The twenty-fifth and last was Charles X in 1825. Charles’s predecessor Louis XVIII and Read More …
Guided walking tour from Palais Royal
In May 2013 I took a guided walking tour of the Palais Royal area in the 1st and 2nd arrondissements of Paris. The guide turned out to be a man Read More …
Austerlitz Bridge in Paris
The Austerlitz Bridge is a stone bridge with five arches. It was originally built from 1801 to 1805, but it was widened and strengthened twice during the nineteenth century. The Read More …
The Samaritaine in Paris
Although I have never been a big fan of department stores (as a child I had a particular aversion to Marshall Field’s in Evanston, which I associated with stinky perfume Read More …
Richelieu-Louvois Library
The Richelieu-Louvois Library is one of four Paris locations of the National Library of France, which in French is called the Bibliothèque nationale de France, abbreviated BnF. The other three Paris Read More …
Parc des Buttes-Chaumont
This park is on a hill in the north-east corner of Paris, in the 19th arrondissement. It is the third largest park in Paris, after Tuileries and Villette, and it Read More …