Posts in Category: France
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St. Pierre & Miquelon
When I told people I was going to France by taking a ferry from Newfoundland they looked at me like I had lost my mind. But I was in fact quite sane. Although most people don’t know it, the islands of St. Pierre & Miquelon, only a few kilometres off the coast of Newfoundland, are […]
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Versailles – A Few Useful Tips for a Winter Visit
Visiting Versailles – isn’t that on every person’s bucket list? It certainly was for my daughter Lenore and I when we made our way out from Paris on a rainy morning in February, 2016. While we couldn’t avoid the crowds inside the palace even in the off season, we still had a very good visit […]
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Pantheon Paris – France’s National Mausoleum
The Pantheon Paris embodies the many changes that the nation has undergone during its illustrious history. Add to that the fact that many of the greatest Frenchmen and Frenchwomen are entombed here and you know why it is a must-visit site for the citizens of France. I’ve been staying in the Latin Quarter during my […]
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Orangerie – An Alternative to Musee D’Orsay
It’s an overcast and drizzly February day in Paris. In other words, a perfect day for visiting one of Paris’ great art museums, but it won’t be the Louvre or the Musée D’Orsay. Even at this time of year they will be thronged and the experience would not be a pleasant one. Yes the art […]
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Montparnasse Cemetery – A Visit by the Maritime Explorer
Paris has many cemeteries, but three are generally reckoned to be genuine tourist destinations. In spring 2015 I stayed in an apartment overlooking Montmartre Cemetery and wrote this post about my visit. Later I visited Pere Lachaise Cemetery with guide David Burke and wrote this post. Early this spring of 2016 I returned to Paris […]
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Cluny Museum – Paris’ Medieval Marvel
In a previous post I explained why I chose to stay in the Latin Quarter on my most recent visit to Paris. I also described a walking trip around the Latin Quarter and stopping at the exterior of the Cluny Museum, Paris’ museum dedicated to the Medieval period. This morning I’m headed back to visit the […]
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Latin Quarter Paris – A Walking Tour
Whenever I go to Paris I like to try to stay in a different district each time to get a better feel for the city – the whole is greater than the sum of the parts you might say. Last spring it was Montmartre which I wrote about extensively at the time. This winter, it’s the […]
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Charles de Gaulle Airport Nightmare
I’m in hell at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Here’s why and how. It’s been two weeks since we got back from Croatia and already I’m antsy. November in Nova Scotia is usually grey, rainy and depressing – this year is no exception. I’d like to squeeze one more trip in before Christmas, but […]
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Liberation Tours – My Choice For Canadian Military Tours
This is a link to the last in a series of twenty-seven articles I wrote describing a tour I took in April and May 2015 with Liberation Tours out of tiny Georgina. Ontario. The trip not only met the expectations of myself, my wife Alison and my sisters Anne and Kaye, but exceeded it by […]