Category: THE BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY: FROM THE ETERNAL TO THE LUMINOUS
Travel Tips (2015)
Avoid visiting Rome and Paris in August as many of the residents (shopkeepers and restaurant owners) go on vacation during the month; their shops and restaurants may be closed. Be cognizant of your surroundings and belongings while at major train stations in Europe, like Termini Station in Rome or Gare de Lyon in Paris. For…
F Your Diet (France)!
Say What (French)?
Bonjour – “Hello/Good morning” Bonsoir – “Hello/Good evening” Au revoir – “Goodbye” Oui – “Yes” Non – “No” Pardon – “Excuse me” Merci – “Thank you” S’il vous plait – “Please” A bientot – “See you again soon”
FrankFART airport…
We made it as easy as possible for ourselves. The trip would be ending. We would be torn between leaving Europe and seeing our furkids again. We (Ok, I) would be unfocused melodramatic queens. All we had do after arriving at the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (Frankfurt train station) from Paris was to catch a second local…
Leave a reason to return…
Despite my misperceptions of the city, Paris still held an undeniable allure. The two and half days we had devoted to seeing the sights was nowhere near enough; it was the sheer immensity and variety of attractions of the French capital. The arrondissements (“districts”) of the City of Light, twenty in all back in 2015,…
Trompe-l’œil (“Deceive the eye”)…
The aim of the artistic technique of Trompe-l’œil is to deceive. Realistic imagery is used to create the illusion that objects exist in three dimensions. Much the same way that the romantic books and movies about Paris, the City of Light, beguiled me into an idealized image of the famous Capital.
Raison d’etre (“Reason for being”)…
We had three reasons why we chose Avignon. The First, it was on the very western edge of Provence and could perhaps offer us a different flavor of the region. For almost seventy years, 1309 – 1377, the city was the home to a succession of popes; a veritable Vatican of France. Surely, there would…
Between rocks and hard places…
The entrance to Grotte de Saint Cezare (“Cave of Saint Cezaire”) was deceptive. The nondescript beige-colored building with the undersized balcony in the middle of the woods could not possibly be the entrance to an underground network of tunnels. Maybe this was just the ticket office or the gift shop. We would still have to…
Moths to a flame…
Tuscany was replete with popular tourist attractions: the Statue of David, the Ponte Vecchio, the Duomo, the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The same could not be said of Provence; it had a unique appeal all its own. There was the scenic esplanade, the Promenade des Anglais, in Nice. Further west along the coast was the…