France

TRAVELING SOLO [Tricks of the trade]

TRAVELING SOLO [Tricks of the trade]

I’m a woman and I travel the world. Alone. (With some occasional exceptions.) Alone, I’ve stayed in a stone cottage on top of a mountain in Tuscany, an 11th-century fort on an island off the coast of Brittany, an estancia in Argentina, and a riad in Tangier. Alone, I’ve shopped…
BOOK | Paris Views | Gail Albert Halaban

BOOK | Paris Views | Gail Albert Halaban

One of my guilty pleasures in my travels around the world is peering into the windows of homes.  Not in a creepy way, mind you.  I’m just fascinated to see the way that people live. (Think Hitchcock’s film, “Rear Window.”) New York photographer, Gail Albert Hallaban, has used this theme…
Peace for Paris

Peace for Paris

“The last time I saw Paris, her heart was warm and gay, I heard the laughter of her heart in every street café. The last time I saw Paris, her trees were dressed for spring, And lovers walked beneath those trees and birds found songs to sing.” -Oscar Hammerstein II,…
The pen is mightier than the sword

The pen is mightier than the sword

On January 7, 2015, Islamic militant gunmen killed twelve people at the Paris office of French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, presumably in response to controversial cartoons published by the magazine. Philip Gourevitch, The New Yorker: “The French cartoonist Stéphane (Charb) Charbonnier liked to say, when jihadis repeatedly threatened to silence…
Paris | Guimauves pour la Saint-Valentin

Paris | Guimauves pour la Saint-Valentin

On a quiet Sunday afternoon in Paris, I stumbled upon Meert. The windows were spilling over with delectable and beautifully packaged Valentine’s Day sweets, and I stopped momentarily to gaze through the window. That’s when I saw the marshmallows.  I love marshmallows.  These were big and fluffy and colored in…