Author: Grubb

And that’s all she got, my regards, since we roamed the Monte Carlo casino before it was open for gambling.  The Beaux Arts cathedral of high stakes betting was featured in Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel, “Casino Royale.”  It wasn’t in the eponymous movie, but it turned up in another Bond film, “Never Say Never…

Sunday we left late morning to catch a bus to the Chagall museum.  On exhibit were large canvases of Old Testament scenes.  With Chagall there are usually spirits flying around his canvases, so with my graveyard visitations from Paris still fresh in my mind I think I was more open to his angel-inflected Biblical paintings.   Then there…

Saturday morning on our way to catch the bullet train to Antibes we passed people bundled up in jackets and parkas.  The temperature was in the mid-sixties.  Come on folks, toughen up!  Unless…unless the news, which we’ve been blithely ignoring, had reported another variation on weather weirdness with a cold front moving in.  Frost hits the French Riviera! When…

I caught a slight bug on our last day in Paris, but if there’s any place to recover from a cold I can’t think of any better than Nice.  Nothing like a little salubrious sea air along with a night’s sleep not suffering from jet lag.   This morning we took a bus into the hills and…

When we travel we rarely have the time, or the inclination, to read, or watch, the news.  We map our daily destination, choose our mode of transport, luck on a good café for coffee, and then explore museums, historical sites, markets, parks, neighborhoods, interesting monuments, fascinating architecture, and then, after sampling the local fare, if we…

Georges Méliès’ grave is one I should have visited when we were at the Pere Lachaise cemetery.  I’ve always thought that the imaginative silent films he made at the turn-of-the-century were extraordinary.  When most of the other filmmakers at that time were shooting rudimentary slices-of-life, Méliès was already experimenting with special effects.  Based on a Jules Verne story,…

On Tuesday we started the day off by taking the metro to the Gare Lazare neighborhood.  I’ve always liked the lyrical sound of those words coupled—Gare Lazare—reminding me of a similar train station where the Lumiere Brothers shot some of the world’s first film footage in 1895. We had tickets for a 12:15 visit to the…

Ella’s already detailed our walk to Montmartre.  Let me add that it was another fine day weather-wise.  So far in our stay we haven’t had to use umbrellas.  If there are clouds, they vanish by mid-day.  The temperature has been in the low sixties which, for me, is great for strolling around.   The forecourt below the steps of the…

We began our day by transferring from one metro line to another to get across the Seine to the Invalides stop  a few blocks from the Rodin museum. The Beaux Arts building, formally the Hôtel Biron, was purchased by Rodin at the turn of the century.  He turned the ground floor into studios and later donated it…

The only ticketed item we had in store for us this Saturday (9:30 AM) was the Cluny Medieval Museum on the Left Bank.  (The Left Bank named for the side of the Seine you’re on in the direction the river is flowing.)  And, mirabile dictu,  we were on time!  It was too early for the crowds to start showing…

Friday we took the train to Versailles.  We joined the passengers getting out at the final stop to take the short walk up a tree-lined street that led to the parking lot outside the palace.   Gold-tipped gates were the first clue that we were approaching the Sun King’s domain.  Inside the gates, the palatial spread of…

After following countless Sortie signs leading us down endless corridors lined with casino-style shopping outlets, we escaped the monumental confines of the Louvre and had a café brunch of eggs Florentine before heading into the Tuileries park… …along with a stream of people half of whom, in my opinion, should have been in school.  Green metal…

It was a quick metro ride from where we’re staying to the Louvre.  It was easy finding the entrance to the museum—just follow the swarming humanity.  The Louvre is laid out like a large limestone palace enclosing a large courtyard.  I expected touring this monstrosity to be taxing when it came to attention span because there’s too much…

Sunny Paris in the mid-sixties is quite spectacular.  No one seems to be eating indoors if they can help it.  People are splayed out over the grass in the parks, sitting on the benches along canal walkways, meandering among the pigeons in the squares.   We are staying in an Airbnb on the Fauberg Saint Martin in the…