France

Paris – Something Borrowed and Something Blue

5-8 September 2018

“Something Borrowed” 

Place des Vosges, 1989

I revisited my travel article “Marais Embodies Paris At Its Best” published by The Boston Herald in 1990. I loved this area then and I still love it. From the article I borrow:

“If culture equals the sum of a city’s social behavior and artistic expression, then Paris has it in bucketfuls. Exploring Paris is like examining your first formidable city tourist map. Everything is spread before you, pleading to be seen and savored.

One quarter beckoning visitors to stroll its streets and enjoy their richness is Le Marais. Escape into a time warp, uninterrupted by modern glass and steel ‑ a quarter dominated by Place des Vosges. (more…)

By Pat, ago

The Somme – Fighting The Great War

8 April 2017

It would be hard to choose the most brutal war, the most dehumanizing war, the most wasteful war. Perhaps Belgium should have the right to declare it. The Great War, World War Two, the Napoleonic wars, were savagely acted out on its flat, soggy soil. The farmland over which I watch the dairy cows graze, the white cherry trees blossom, and the plethora of blooming flowers is known as the Battleground of Europe. This idyll is deceiving.

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly”


Every town and village has a monument. Enter a battlefield area, a killing zone, you will find cemetery after cemetery: here the Commonwealth, there a Canadian, around the corner graves of Australians, two miles on silent stones bear witness to the slaughter of Germans, South Africans, Americans, New Zealanders who came here from Gallipoli, Czechoslovakians, Polish, and Belgian. “The War to end all wars” ultimately would involve five continents and thirty-two countries, each loosing thousands of lives. “In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row….” (more…)

By Pat, ago

Verdun – Fighting The Great War

Men who fought here called it ”The Meat-Grindr.”  6 April 2017

I drive the Western Front. Names of towns and their historic significance batter me: Passchendaele, Ieper, Lille, Vimy, Peronne. VERDUN! 

“They shall not pass.” 

This is the infamous Argonne; it breaths the words of Erich Maria Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front.” It is quiet, but the serenity is deceiving. This soil has probably seen more mayhem and death than anywhere in the world. The men who fought here called it “The Meat-Grinder.”  (more…)

By Pat, ago