France

Last SaLet me say it loud and clear so there’s no ambiguity:  I am sick and tired of the Yellow Vests. Saturday, January 5, was the EIGHTH time the Yellow Vests, a populist movement named for the bright yellow jackets French drivers must have in their car in case of an accident, filled the streets […]

Paris, December 3, 2018 Many people who have seen or read about the recent violent demonstrations of the “yellow vests”  in Paris have asked me:  How bad is it? Here’s my answer: I have lived in Paris for the past 47 years and have seen many demonstrations, but never anything like this.   (As an

OK, so you’ve been to Paris and seen the Eiffel Tower and the Arch of Triumph and the Seine.  Maybe you’ve hopped down south to the Riviera to check out sunny St. Tropez and Nice.  Some of you may have ventured to the Périgord with its prehistoric caves and foie gras, and to Brittany to

So the deed is done.  Prince Harry has married his beautiful, bi-racial, feminist American sweetheart and I’m here to say that I witnessed their tying the knot – even if it was on French TV with French being spoken over the English.  So terribly weird! Of course, being a sentimental type, I, like Meghan’s mother

Welcome to the Franco-American museum in the Chateau de Blérancourt (that’s yours truly in the picture above, standing at the entrance).    I’d been hearing about this museum which is a mere hour’s drive from Paris for quite some time.  Truth be told, and I don’t know why, it wasn’t on my list of priorities.

At first glance, the Maison Legeron  looks quirky, homey,  topsy turvy.   Hard to imagine that the charming, old-fashioned atelier houses the  last independent family firm that makes and supplies the exquisite handmade artificial flowers worn by top models strutting down the runways at haute couture shows (and also sold for astronomical prices in high fashion boutiques). 

I love the 5th arrondissement of Paris.   When I arrived in Paris in my early twenties, I discovered the rue Mouffetard, one of the oldest market streets in Paris. I rented a small studio with a toilet on the landing – and in spite of that inconvenience thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

Wednesday, March 21:  the sun actually came out so I wandered around the streets of Paris and marvelled at the flower displays outside shops. It was as if every owner of every flower shop in Paris suddenly decided winter was over, enough was enough,  and hauled out every single plant to put on the sidewalk.

Can you imagine being all of nineteen years old and in Paris for a week with a group of students?  Some have been to Paris before, but most have never left the United States. And from one day to the next, there they are, on the streets of one of the world’s most beautiful cities.