Tag Archives: Victor Hugo

Greeting the New Year in French

We’ve never been very good at New Year’s resolutions. I’m still carrying around that five pounds I meant to lose in, um, 2012, and Norman still hasn’t cleaned out the area around his basement work bench. But this time, we … Continue reading

Posted in French language | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Lutetia, viewed by a 19th-century historian

I have a weakness – no, a fondness – no, a passion for old maps of Paris. On a visit a year or so ago, I bought three old maps from an antiquarian bookseller. During our annual New Year’s tidy-up, … Continue reading

Posted in Paris history, Paris maps | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Going, going, gone

In the 1850s, as the old Paris of narrow streets and ramshackle houses gave way to the broad boulevards and uniform apartment blocks planned by Napoleon III and carried out by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, Charles Baudelaire wrote an epitaph for the … Continue reading

Posted in Paris bookstores, Paris shops | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

A walk in the snow

No trip to Paris would be complete without at least one lengthy visit to Des Photographies, an intriguing shop in Village St. Paul in the Marais. There, with some help from Sylvain Calvier, I have found and bought some wonderful … Continue reading

Posted in Paris gardens, Paris parks | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments