When I got back to my hotel in Paris it was nearly two in the morning and I was wide awake from an invigorating bicycle ride, so instead of going straight to bed I fired up my netbook to see what had transpired on VirtualTourist during my absence. It happened Read More …
When I first started writing about Paris on the now-defunct website VirtualTourist, I announced that my Paris page was going to be “ET-free” — on the grounds that VirtualTourist already had 1,178 tips on the Eiffel Tower (this was in 2006; a year later there were 82 more). I wanted Read More …
If you did a Destination Search for “Kassel” on the now-defunct website VirtualTourist (VT), you got four entries, the first two of which looked completely identical: Matches Found For “Kassel” Europe > Germany > Land Hessen > Kassel Europe > Germany > Land Hessen > Kassel Africa > Senegal > Read More …
Room number 1 in the Musée d’Orsay, the first room on the right on the ground floor, is called Ingres et l’Ingrisme. As soon as you enter you are confronted with one of his most famous paintings, La Source (The Spring). I learned from the museum’s website that Ingres started Read More …
On the first floor of the Richelieu Wing of the Louvre in Paris there are several large rooms devoted to sixteenth-century Renaissance tapestries. In 2013, I had the privilege of going through these rooms with Eddy Dijssel (formerly “brueghel” on VirtualTourist), who is a connoisseur not only of paintings but Read More …
In August of 2008 I stayed for eight nights at a two-star hotel called Hôtel des 3 Nations at the corner of rue du Château d’Eau and rue de Lancry in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. I chose this hotel because it was inexpensive and within easy walking distance of Read More …
Münster was one of two cities — the other being nearby Osnabrück — where the peace treaties were negotiated and signed to bring an end to the Thirty Years’ War that had ravaged Germany, or what is now Germany, from 1618 to 1648. The Hall of Peace in the Münster Read More …
One morning during our 2011 VirtualTourist meeting in Paris, we met in the Parc du Champ de Mars near the Eiffel Tower for a picnic. I rode over there on a Vélib’ bike from the Latin Quarter — as did another VT member, Dave Sut. (He and I and several Read More …
On my last evening in Paris in June 2006 I was walking to the Opéra Bastille, feeling somewhat sorry for myself because I had already turned in my bicycle to the rental place, and would have to leave Paris the next morning. I was walking through the Place des Vosges, 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 …