Category: Travels
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Passports 7: Last Thoughts on Listening to “Bohemian Rhapsody” in Pere La Chaise Cemetery
I find Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody to be a sad song of life, mistakes, loss and death. Freddie Mercury was a beautiful man who died too young. His vocals are pure and haunting: Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? When you wander Paris and take time to look, really look around, you find…
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Passports 6: The Quiet Skulls Beneath Paris
A small quiet square, Place Denfert-Rochereau, in the 14th Arrondissement of Paris looks like so many such places. Beautiful and expensive apartments line the streets that radiate out from the plaza. Small gardens and vest-pocket parks abound. The locals and tourists hurry along…heading into the Metro or hailing a taxi, catching a bus…or simply strolling…
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Passports 5: A Blog Worthy Bathroom
I try to post as few pictures of bathrooms as possible. I have high standards for my blog site and even I will not pander to the demands of the general population regarding bathrooms. I do make exceptions, however, when I feel that there is socially redeeming value to a bathroom. Of course, my own…
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Low Tide at Mont Saint-Michel
There was a time when you needed to watch the rising sea water if you found yourself on the Mount of St. Michael. The abbey and village were situated on the tidal flats of the second largest bay in the world, off the coast of Brittany. You would cross to the abbey during low tide,…
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Passports 3: Passing Through the Fields of Death
We left Paris on a crisp bright May morning. This was the only day-long excursion we booked in advance. We were going to visit Mont St. Michele in Brittany. The trip would take us four hours one way, in a northwest direction to this 850 year old Abbey mountain. Our route took us through the…
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The Lock Bridges of Paris
Many have called Paris the “City of Lovers”. The Seine River is like the Aorta of Paris. It carries the life-blood of the city past and under some of the most important buildings and architecture this sublimely beautiful city possesses. It’s color is that of some shade of green, not unpleasant, that defies description. By…
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Passports I: East and West of the Sun
The great city of New York was behind us…and the sun was setting in the west. We flew into the approaching darkness of night. As I was planning this blog series, I was sitting on the American Airlines 767 trans-oceanic super jet propelled airplane. My problem, right from the ‘get go’ (God, I hate that…
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Sunday Rock
It was raining as I drove along the western edge of the Adirondack Park recently. It was around the time when my thoughts turned to how much weight the Yankee pitcher, C. C. Sabathia, had lost during the off-season. Or, perhaps I was reflecting on Colbert replacing Letterman on the Late Show. More than likely, however,…
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The Rivers of my Life: Episode 1–The Charles
The river rolls on, like a sad lover’s song. But is it the beginning or the end? [Lyrics taken from an educational film I used to show my students when I taught Earth & Space Science in the 1970’s] Flowing water has always held a fascination with me. I grew up with the great Susquehanna…
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The Bubble Man of Montreal
He was a dream-maker, a writer of love letters and a magician in a black frock coat; he played out his act in the square in front of the Basilique of Notre-Dame in Montreal. He was like a pilgrim doing his penance, with the Basilique keeping watch on his movements. The man appeared, without seeming…
