At No. 38 Rue du Pain in the town of Saint-Germain-en-Laye is situated the town’s tourist office. It is a narrow, upright building, no different from any others on the long and narrow street. However, upstairs on the first floor is a two-room museum: the Debussy Museum. Entry to the museum is free which […]
The mere name – Impressionist Island – Ile des Impressionnists – makes one think ‘art’. Makes one think ‘Monet … Manet … Pissarro … Paris, City of Light … Paris City of Art …’ If you have never been to this island, then I saw much recommend that you do go there. And why not […]
For just € 7 ($ 8.20 / £6.25) for an adult you will have a most interesting time visiting the Galeries d’Anatomie Comparée et de Paléontologie (Paleontology Museum) in Paris’s Jardin des Plantes. There are more than 2500 fossils of which 650 are complete skeletons and 1000 are specimens preserved in fluid. Not all of […]
There is no fee for a walk around Paris’s Jardin des Plantes, and I assure you that you will pass a few most pleasant hours there. Just walking around, admiring the flowers, and the statues too, and you can always stop at one of the many open-air cafes for a snack or a nice Parisian […]
Fifty-five kilometres (34 miles) south-east from Paris is the chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte. The mere name sounds exquisite. I have twice visited the chateau, and once its park. My last visit which was on Tuesday, July 18 this year (2017), happened to be the hottest day of this summer, so I skipped the park. Believe me, […]
On July 16 and 17 – Sunday and Monday – this year of 2017, France commemorates what was, for the French, the most horrendous episode of WW2. But only after the war had been, had ended, and they thought back to the years from June 1940 to August 1944 when Nazi Germany occupied France, in […]
Do you want to spend a really interesting couple of hours in a Paris museum? Of course, you would! Therefore, Paris’s Musée de la Préfecture de Police – the Police Museum – is the place for you. The museum in Paris’s 5th arrondissement (district) looks quite antisocial when standing in front of No. 4 rue […]
A young man and woman, both in their early twenties, and both partially clothed, started to make love, lying on the ground in front of the townhall of the town of Cherbourg. It was 8 o’clock in the morning of Sunday, June 25. It being a Sunday there were still few people about. However those […]
The law on prostitution is ambiguous here in France. A woman can take payment for sex, but no other person is to benefit from it. In other words, pimping is illegal. So too is a brothel. So too is paying a woman for sex. In other words, a man caught paying a woman […]
This year – Thursday, August 31, 2017 – it will be remembered worldwide that on that day in 1997, twenty years into the past, a Mercedes S280, bearing the number plate 688 LTV 75, smashed into one of the pillars supporting the overpass of a Paris tunnel, the Pont Alma underpass. Nothing unusual about […]
All hell has broken out in London, yet, Paris this morning of Sunday, June 4, 2017, is a haven of peace. Probably the way Jesus of Nazareth envisaged a Christian day of rest should be. I walked around Paris’s beautiful Montsouris Park this morning. Lots of couples out in the park with their small children. […]
Is there anything more French than the guillotine, you may well ask? As a true crime writer resident in France, I’ve written about this head-chopping apparatus which was first put to work in 1792 and last put to work in 1981, four years after capital punishment had been abolished by a parliamentary vote (1977). […]
You need not hang your head in shame because you have never heard of this artist: Jacques Truphémus. I have not, not until I went to, or rather returned to the Caillebotte Property in the town of Yerres, 23 kms (14 miles) south-east of Paris. The Caillebotte Property, once the family home of the […]
I love zoos. Therefore, I often go walk around in Paris’s two zoos – Vincennes Zoo and the Jardin des Plantes Zoo. I even have an annual pass for the Vincennes one. You can read what I wrote about the Vincennes Zoo here The Jardin des Plantes Zoo is different. It is smaller. Very much […]
The next time you walk in a park in Paris – the Tuileries, Luxembourg, Montsouris, Jardin des Plantes whichever – you will come to realise how polite the French are. They would not want you to walk on the lawn, or pick the flowers, for example, but they will tell you so in a most […]
