I first meet Gertrude Stein during my Pablo Picasso phase, and my Hemingway phase, and my F. Scott Fitzgerald phase and then I come across her in Bryant Park in New York and I see her resting at Père-Lachaise in Paris and I would swear I see her in a little park in Mallory Square…
Tag: France
Paris to Woodstock: Sculpture Deep and Light
Travel and art seem to go hand in hand, so today I share two very different works, in two very different places, that trigger very different emotions. Auguste Rodin’s Burghers of Calais commemorates the leaders of Calais who volunteered to be executed to spare the city of Calais during the 100 Years War between England…
Paris: This Is the End
A fitting finale for our last day in Paris is a visit to Père-Lachaise Cemetery. On the subway ride there, I begin to doubt the appropriateness of this trek. Are we squandering our time by looking to the past? Will the Senior Adventurer and the Youthful Adventurer, both on this trip, become bored or dismissive?…
More than Just Hot Dogs on Memorial Day
Remembering on this Memorial Day 2014 those who died in a battle. It’s so easy to forget how fortunate we have been. Gratitude to those who gave their lives. Think how different our lives might be if battles hadn’t gone as they did. Thanks to those who paid with their lives. —Lori Tripoli
The Ups and Downs of Mont Saint-Michel
I both love and loathe my experience at Mont Saint-Michel. I’m enamored of its history—how the Archangel Michael appeared to a priest some 700 years ago and told him to build this church in the water, how the priest equivocated right up to the point where the angel put a hole in his head, and…
Quality Time at the Eiffel Tower
Figuring that the Eiffel Tower will be a ho-hum stop on our tour of France, I buy tickets to go see it on the first night we will be in Paris. I’ve seen the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, site of the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens. I’ve seen the Statue of Liberty. Neither…
The Key West Wife
Visiting the Hemingway house in Key West, FL, the Bashful Adventurer finds his Key West wife.
Are Witch Hunts Good for Tourism?
The Bashful Adventurer visits destinations historically associated with witches and witch hunts. Have they been good for business?
What We Used to Think of Paris, and Women
Get a few glimpses of 1960s Paris—and New York—in A New Kind of Love, starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward playing, respectively, a ‘newspaper man’ and a career-gal fashion designer who meet not-so-cute on a plane headed toward France. Newman’s character, a boozing, womanizing charmer with an ironclad contract (did those ever really exist for…
The Sunny and Strategic World of Les Andelys
It was on our first stop away from Paris that I realized I didn’t remember enough about the history of France. On the Uniworld River Baroness with the Senior and the Youthful Adventurers, we awoke to sunny, pastoral town of Les Andelys, a throwback in time from the dazzles of Paris. Walking up to the…