Travels around the world.

Paris is wonderful , whether you spend months there or just a few hours. Recently, we've been going in to the city on our way home for just a few hours and dinner. We spend a night near the airport on our way home from Normandy. Once we turn in the car and check into the hotel, we take the train in to Paris and walk around for a few hours. This time we decided to revisit the Mont-Martre area. The train from the airport stops at Gare du Nord and from there Mont Martre is a nice walk. First we stopped for a drink at this sidewalk café. Then we walked on up the hill till we could see Sacré Coeur. I took this one for our daughter-in-law, who works for Lindt. It was a little warm, so we rode the funicular up to the church. There was a long line to get inside, but it's the exterior of this church that is so impressive.  The view from below the church is always fun. Here you can see (right to left) the Panthéon, St. Eustache, Notre Dame, Centre...

We're back home in Duluth, now. We were supposed to return our car clean, so we took it to a car-wash on our way back to Paris. This one is not far from our village. Wherever we went in this car we were stared at. We finally realized it was our red license plate, which is unusual. We leased this car, which I guess is why it has a red license plate.  While you are at the car wash, you might as well also wash your comforters or whatever you have that's too big for your home washer. They have two big washers with an 8 and 18 kilo capacity, and one dryer.  And then while you are waiting, why not enjoy a pizza? The sign says that on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday you can buy one and get one free. Here is a close-up of the menu of pizzas. Being a huge cheese-lover, I would have to go for the 4-cheese one (Mozzarella, Goat cheese, Blue and Camembert). Some of the other choices are Chicken, potatoes, bacon, cream; Ground beef, potatoes, o...

I’ve enjoyed reading the saga of the Vialhe family, written by Claude Michelet(1). It follows the lives of a fictitious farm family in a small village in France from about 1900 through the 1980’s. The stories are well-written and the characters likeable and interesting.  I think the first book of the series is the only book I’ve ever read 3 times. I read it twice in French and once in English. So I wanted to visit the part of France where these books are set. I had discovered that the fictional village of Saint-Libéral was based on Perpezac-le-Blanc in Corrèze. This is the village where the author’s parents-in-law lived. He uses the real names of all the other towns around this one, so the other town names in the area were familiar to me. Then I also discovered that the town only a few kilometers away, Saint Robert was the one used for the setting of the TV mini-series based on these books. When we travel, I usually pick out the places I want to visit and Jim finds hotels where we...