Operas by Giuseppe Verdi
During his long career, Giuseppe Verdi composed twenty-six operas — or twenty-eight, depending what you count as what. The following list is the 28-opera version, with the year of the Read More …
Tag: Victor Hugo
Museum of the Sewers (Les Égouts)
The Museum of the Sewers is one of the few places in Paris that was not closed down by the coronavirus pandemic — but only because it was already closed Read More …
Guided walking tour of Saint-Germain-des-Prés
In July 2014 I took a guided walking tour (in French) of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter of Paris. We met at the exit of the Métro station Mabillon, because this is Read More …
Le Paris de Mitterrand
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 Read More …
Birth house of Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
Victor Hugo was born in Besançon for the same reason that the poet Paul Verlaine was born in Metz. Their fathers were military officers who happened to be stationed in 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 …
In the footsteps (or wagon ruts) of Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo’s first visit to Liège was in 1840, when he was thirty-eight years old. He was travelling by stagecoach, known in French as a diligence, and was on his Read More …
Salomé in the opera tent
The Théâtre Royal de Liège, home of the Royal Opera of the Wallonia, was closed for several years to be reconstructed and enlarged. When I was there in 2011, I Read More …
Rodin Museum in Paris
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 Read More …
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 …