For several years I’d had a vague standing invitation to visit friends at their vacation home in Dinard, in Brittany, and now the invitation was clearly attached to a specific spring weekend: “Come on Friday if you’re available.” I immediately accepted. I looked forward to a relaxing weekend with the couple, the seaside strolls, the good food and drink (they were gastronomes), the change of scenery away from Paris. “Bring a good book,” they said as a promise of rain and lack of plans and to let me know that I shouldn’t expect to be entertained. Which was fine with me, though instead of a book ..read more

Call it Art & Sport, the Cultural Olympiad, surfing on the Olympic spirit, jumping on the Olympic bandwagon, or simply sports sells—whatever it is, France is set to break the world record for the number of sports-related exhibitions showing in a single year. The curators of France have sports on the brain. I imagine hundreds of them gathering in a post-Covid funk at a convention at the Louvre two or three years back, trying to come up with ways to attract visitors to their museums. Suddenly, a specialist in, say, 18th-century stockings, a graduate of the class of 2008 at the Institut Natio ..read more

Photo above: Bob Murphy and Brank Bilich, veterans of the 82nd Airborne watching a parachute drop, 1993. Cover photo (cropped) of Ian Patrick’s D-Day Portraits: Héros Anonymes – Anonymous Heroes. © Ian Patrick. On the triple occasion of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, an exhibition of Ian Patrick’s portraits of Normandy veterans at the Army Museum at the Invalides in Paris, and the publication of the expanded second edition of D-Day Portraits: Héros Anonymes – Anonymous Heroes, his collection of portraits and first-hand accounts of veterans of the Invasion of Normandy who have returned over the ..read more

Just steps away from the heart of Lyon on the left bank of the Rhône River, in Lyon’s university district, lies a tree-lined courtyard surrounded by a compound built in the late 19th century to train doctors and pharmacists for French defense forces. The address is 14 Avenue Berthelot. Built to prepare medical personnel for the trauma of war, it became a site where occupying German forces planned, instilled and caused trauma and death during the Second World War. The compound served as home to the Gestapo in Lyon from June 1943 until 26 May 1944, when Allied bombing in preparation for the libe ..read more

Just steps away from the heart of Lyon on the left bank of the Rhône River, in Lyon’s university district, lies a tree-lined courtyard surrounded by a compound built in the late 19th century to train doctors and pharmacists for French defense forces. The address is 14 Avenue Berthelot. Built to prepare medical personnel for the trauma of war, it became a site where occupying German forces planned, instilled and caused trauma and death during the Second World War. The compound served as home to the Gestapo in Lyon from June 1943 until 26 May 1944, when Allied bombing in preparation for the libe ..read more

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