What's on my mind
From Nice the bus took us along the coastal highway, so we got several views of the seaside. Bypassing Cannes and Monaco, we arrived at the city of Menton, which is on the Italian border, right on the ocean. Our hotel, the Napoleon, overlooked the pedestrian esplanade, a beach and a marina. The link gives a live… Continue reading Menton and Valbonne
Our bus tour passed via the Camargue along the Mediterranean coast and stopped at Nice. We took in some of the sights. Due to the short time we spent here we did not climb these steps to see the remnants of the old chateau overlooking the city. The hillside marked a definite boundary at least for me. Most… Continue reading Nice
At the International Congress on Photosynthesis in Montpellier in August of 1995, my wife and I were among about 2000 attendees, and one day we all packed into a fleet of buses and went to the Manade Jaques Bon in the Camargue country, south of Arles. The link shows a map of the property. We were divided… Continue reading Return to the Camargue
In 1995, at a meeting of an international congress on photosynthesis at Montpellier in southern France, my colleague George Lorimer recommended Nimes to me as a place to visit. It took over ten years for me to act on his advice, when our tour bus took us there. Along the way, we stopped to look… Continue reading A Visit to the Pont du Gard and Nimes
As you may have guessed, our group was not paid for singing. Instead, the director had to arrange for the schedule and depended on financing by the members of the group. In this post I continue the story of our tour (see Singing in Spain and Interlude in Collioure). Our next stop was Arles, where… Continue reading Arles and l’Étang des Aulnes
Our singing tour (see Singing in Spain) left Sitges and Barcelona and crossed into France, stopping at Collioure, which our tour guide called "a quaint French fishing village...dominated by the Royal Castle, the former summer residence of the Kings of Aragon and favorite haunt of Fauvist artists Matisse and Derain." It was picturesque, but foggy conditions… Continue reading Interlude in Collioure
This post is the first of several about a vacation we took ten years ago. The Chamber Singers of the University at Albany, an auditioned à capella chorus directed by David Griggs-Janower, were scheduled to go on a tour of Spain and France in 2007. Not enough students could go, so David recruited a few additional singers and groupies to fill… Continue reading Singing in Spain
This post is about our experience with the French health system. We have not stayed in France longer than three weeks at a time, give or take a couple of days. So we cannot talk about long term interaction with the French medical system. Wonderful as it is, being in France does not protect you from colds,… Continue reading Getting Medical Care in France
How can we win next time? I do not need to go over the long list of Trump's transgressions. I take it for granted that he should never have been nominated by the Republicans, and should never have been elected. I recall however, that when Reagan was elected, and GW Bush later, they won despite sticking… Continue reading How We Democrats Can Win
We have friends who live in Louviers, not far from Rouen, whom we have known for almost twenty years and whom we visit every time we come to Paris. On our last Sunday, they and their children came to see us. Their teenage girl wore a stars-and-stripes theme blouse in honor of our visit, We all headed… Continue reading Musée Grévin et La Tour Eiffel
