If you arrive early for your train at Gare Montparnasse or if you have a half hour to spare upon arrival, cross the street and walk into the super modern Musée de la Poste. It is a curiosity in Montparnasse and there are some fun surprises. From the beginning of the telephone system which used to be part of the … Read More
Hélène Rodocanachi has left us in style
You might remember my mentioning Hélène Rodocanachi’s 105 th birthday in March, which she spent alone in a retirement home at the Trocadero during confinement, and again my lunch with her three weeks ago in Perros-Guirec, Brittany. She was in full intellectual form and only had some difficulties walking around the garden of her childhood house, Rochefontaine, bought by her … Read More
Marie Antoinette at the Conciergerie, last chance…
There is something positive about the transports strike in Paris, everyone is out walking and the streets are it is incredibly lively and fun to watch. I recently went to see the Marie Antoinette exhibition at the Conciergerie “Metamorphoses of an image” (until January 26), and walked on to have lunch at one of my favorite restaurants Le Hangar, across … Read More
Gerald Shea is honored by the city of Reims in a Franco American celebration
From the solemn morning ceremonies at a monument to World War I dead, to a sparkling evening in the ornate Salle des Fêtes at City Hall, the city of Reims went all out on Nov. 11, Armistice Day, to honor the Centenary of the American Memorial Hospital, a pediatric hospital founded in the ruined city in 1919 by a group … Read More
Football as a political tool at IMA
You all remember Invictus, the fabulous film directed by Clint Eastwood, which recounted Nelson Mandela’s success when South Africa won the Rugby World cup in 1995. Sport changes men’s attitudes and this is what Rachid Mekhloufi, star footballer who played with AS St Etienne tried to prove in 1958. He and Mustapha Zitouni left a successful career in France to … Read More
“The art market under the Occupation” at Mémorial de la Shoah
It is ironical that the remarkable exhibition on the collaboration between some French art experts and Nazi collectors “Le Marché de l’art sous l’occupation 1940-1944” opened the exact same day as the Bührle collection at Musée Maillol. German Swiss collector, Emil Bührle, typically profited from the extraordinary art market during the war at Hôtel Drouot and through private sales, and … Read More
In Meaux, the Great War becomes alive
Where else but in a museum celebrating the First World War and founded on 11/11/ 1211, should one go and learn about an event which shook Europe and the USA and turned the XX th century into a modern world on many levels? In Meaux, an hour east of Paris, le Musée de la Grande Guerre was built on one … Read More