The Paris Traveler

….and now you do again! It’s like a magical ferris wheel doing a disappearing and reappearing act these past few years! The big wheel as many call it was built for the millennium celebrations in 1999 and was suppose to stay at the Place de la Concorde for only a year. That one year turned into two and was cause for much controversy when the owner Marcel Campion refused a judge’s order to have the wheel taken down.
When the wheel was finally dismantled, many celebrated and many were disappointed. No surprise, Parisians have done this with almost all its famous …read more

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This year’s Tour de France was once again clouded with suspicion on which cyclists were using their own natural power and strength to continue the grueling journey throughout France, and which were steeped in artificial agents to help propel them ahead of everyone else.
When Alexandre Vinoukourov and his team were ousted, and then the next day Michael Rasmussen’s team got rid of him, and finally when Christian Moreni and his teammates left in much the same way all because of doping; I was beginning to wonder if anyone would be left to ride up and down the Champs-Elysées! No need …read more

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Clara over at Tips of All Sorts has five great video clips about Kim Peek who is better know as “Rain Man” depicted by Dustin Hoffman in the awarding winning film by the same name.
It’s part of a fascinating documentary about the man, who some say is, “the world’s greatest savant.” Since the influence of computers and search engines in our daily lives, Peek has also become known as “a living Google”! All I can say is we sat around and watched the videos in awe.
I know, this is a blog about Paris, but so what. From time to time …read more

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Should I admit that age is creeping up on me, or do I just say that with my busy schedule, I can no longer remember every little detail of things that happen in my life? I’ll take the latter! In any case, I really couldn’t tell you how I came upon photographs by Ann Forcier, but I’m delighted that I did!
There are thousands of photographs of her travels throughout Europe where she captures the beauty and the essence of many of the cities that she’s photographed.
The lighting, the angles, the contrasts, the attention to details, and the subjects that she chooses …read more

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Friends of mine who live in this area of Paris have been wondering why I haven’t written about all the great little restaurants, bars, boutiques, art galaries and street life that goes on in the Marais. 
What can I say, I’ve been meaning to, but there is so much to write about that it’s hard to know just where to begin.  It is, however, an area that must be experienced while visiting Paris, like the Place de Vosges, the Picasso Museum, and so much more. 
Ever since the 19th century the Marais and especially the Rue de Rosiers was known as a neighborhood belonging to the Jewish community. The northern part of …read more

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Funny how synchronicity works in our lives. I just finished reading Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky a little over a week ago, then a few days later we were invited for cocktails on a French destroyer, after that we invited two French fighter pilots, Sylvain and Jean-François, over for dinner, and today a friend sent me this video clip.
I know this took place on the 4th of July, but it’s well worth showing at any …read more

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Just a few more days left to enjoy an evening of jazz at the foot of the Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre. Tonight Rhoda Scott’s Hammond organ will fill the air. The ever versatile Scott gives a blend of traditional jazz classics, French tunes, as well as Negro spirituals and Gospel from her impressive repertoire.
Tomorrow evening Lemmy Constantine and his group will perform his Manouche music. When asked to define what style he plays, Constantine says, “I tell them to imagine Frank Sinatra meeting Django Reinhardt…..Manouche music is to jazz what punk was to rock. Rebel music.”
Friday is the finale and what …read more

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Funny how things change, yet they remain the same….sort of. I was going down memory lane with friends and we got on the subject of some great old hangouts on the Rue Saint Jacques; Le Who’s Bar, Polly Maggoo, and Le Cloître. I’m talking late 60’s, early 70’s when there was a whole movement going on throughout France at that time, and Paris in particular.
We were young and we would sit all night milking a glass of cheap red wine, chain-smoking Gauloises or rolling our own cigarettes with cheap tobacco and talk about how our generation of hippies and free love …read more

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I really can’t understand what all the hype is about owning a Louis Vuitton bag! Personally, I prefer Lancel. Perhaps it’s nostagic memories of my first Lancel leather purse more than twenty years ago bought for me by one of my French admirers. Or perhaps it has more to do with the fact that although the price was high, the quality of that bag and all the others I have owned since then have lasted throughout the years.
Lancel began in 1876, but it wasn’t until the early 1900’s that the company began to cater to women’s handbags and accessories, and not until 1976, …read more

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The last time the Ballet National de Cuba was in Paris was nearly ten years ago. This year two ballets are being presented from their repertoire at the Grand Palais, Giselle and Don Quixote. Coincidentally the Ballet de l’Opéra performed the same two ballets this season! Is this a showdown of sorts?
If you ask Hayna Gutierrez Vergara one of the prima ballerinas who dances the lead role in Giselle, it is not. The interpretation of dance, according to Vergara, is completely different that a comparison cannot be made. The Opéra National de Paris and the Ballet National de Cuba, she …read more

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