There’s no greater sign of your acculturation in Paris than seizing the right moment to râler (grouse, gripe, grumble) during an in-store complaint, while avoiding the emotional pitfalls and using the proper vocabulary.  … you’ve looked in many stores for a new armchair and finally select one from BHV Marais, the department store located across the street from City Hall. You choose the fabric and the color. It’s Oct 22. Delivery is promised in handwriting by the mannerly floor section manager: Délai : +/- 19 Janvier 2024 ou AVANT ! LE PLUS TOT POSSIBLE !! – [Delivery] Date: +/- 19 January ..read more

Visitors on the Eternal Notre-Dame virtual reality tour take an extensive tour of the cathedral during its construction, including this view over the city circa 1260. Extract image © Orange/Emissive/Amaclio Productions. On the one hand, I have a natural aversion to recommending virtual reality tours for travelers. After all, we travel to be someplace, not virtually but actually. On the other hand, virtual reality tours, in addition to being entertaining, can be informative and insightful when there’s a historical or otherwise important unseen component to complement and enhance a visit to the ..read more

Travelers beware: If planning to travel to France in search of your fantasy French lover with all the right oh-la-la moves, you might first want to read a report released this week indicating that the French aren’t as into sex as they used to be. France, it appears, is in the midst of a “sexual recession.” Or is it a depression given that the decline in sexuality activity has been going on for nearly two decades now? The country’s major opinion polling company Ifop (Institut français d’opinion publique) leads off the summary of its recent findings by stating: “The proportion of French who’ve h ..read more

Perched on a promontory overlooking the Dordogne Valley, the Gardens of Marqueyssac form a singular sight which lends itself to multiple strolls. This photo reportage by Ava Kabouchy and Gary Lee Kraut explores the mood, botany, quirks, activities and enchantment of Marqueyssac through eight remarkable strolls. Soon after moving to Dordogne in early 2023, Ava Kabouchy found herself intrigued by the Gardens of Marqueyssac, first as a visitor in awe of the clifftop estate, then as a photographer wishing to capture the impressive array of topiaries, the subtle shades of green, the long alleys, th ..read more

Hervé Huet pulls out his pocketknife and slices open the vacuum pack of headcheese that he’s brought to share with the group this Tuesday morning at the bar counter of Le Vaudésir. He arrived first because he’s the group’s president. Les Joyeux Mâchonneurs du Vaudésir, they’re called, more or less meaning the merry morning pig-and-innards-eaters of Vaudésir. Each Tuesday the little gathering elbows up to the arc of the old zinc counter of this 125-year-old bistro between 10:15-11:55AM to share food, drink, company and good humor before proceeding with their day, either separately or, as in tod ..read more

Culinary sleuths Richard and Judy Fritz set out on a deliciously intriguing culinary adventure in Paris as they followed in the footsteps of a little-known restaurant guide written in the 1980s by renown economist Bela Balassa, leading to their discovery of six notable and enduring restaurants to consider for your own culinary adventures. I could have used numerous sources to guide my selection of restaurants in Paris when visiting this past spring—the Michelin Guide, the New York Times, reliable bloggers, returning friends, or this very website—but as an economist I chose to follow in the cul ..read more

Image above: Logo of the French Foreign Legion. Officially, there are no Americans in the French Foreign Legion—la Légion Etrangère—that legendary volunteer combat assault group comprised of 9000 men from 150 countries, each man with a past more mysterious, more shadowy, more enigmatic than the next. Americans aren’t typically allowed to fight under the flag of another country. So no Americans—officially. Yet among the legionnaires, there are some men with distinctly American accents who are said to be from Micronesia. So said General Alain Lardet, commander of the Foreign Legion, when I inqui ..read more

Photo above: Festivities by the fountain at the Maison d’Izieu, summer 1943. © Maison d’Izieu, collection succession Sabine Zlatin. Relatively well known in France but little beyond its borders, the history of the home for Jewish child refugees that operated in the pre-Alpine village of Izieu from May 1943 to April 1944 provides a remarkable glimpse of migration, childhood and caregiving under perilous conditions. It’s a story—history—that can resonate well beyond France, beyond an interest in the period of the Second World War, and beyond one religious group. It is a story of humanity and inh ..read more

In the vineyards overlooking Epernay, capital of the world’s most famous sparkling wine region. Photo Ville d’Epernay. Let’s talk about your Champagne education. No, not the neighborly kind offered at your local wine shop. Nor the delightful kind that you can get on a wine bar tour with me in Paris. I’m talking about the well-advised independent kind that a curious traveler—you—can get by visiting the vine-growing area and production zone of the world’s most famous sparkling wine. Yes, I’m talking about your Champagne daytrip or overnight. For most destinations in the Champagne wine region you ..read more

In the early 1990s, I lived in a cavernous stone manor in the village of Logonna-Daoulas in Brittany, just across from the tiny but popular pub and across the parking lot from the less popular church. Each morning I drove into the city of Brest to teach at an English immersion school. Even the Brestois called Brest an “ugly” city, demolished in WWII and then rebuilt quickly, sitting like a blemish on the nose of France that juts into the Atlantic. But the Breton countryside outside the city is a lovely drive through undulating gray-green fields steeped in mist and rain. Potato fields. Miles an ..read more