Today’s blog marks the beginning of a series on the Nazi Occupation of France during World War Two. We’ll talk about how the Germans took France by storm and recount the personal stories of several French people still alive in 2023. When I first met Mr. René Avril, I found a kind and gentle man—mostly deaf and blind—who’d lived a …
In June, we learned that France boasts its share of castles. Some sources say forty-five thousand exist, eleven classified as historical monuments. That means if I wrote a blog a day on each one, it would take me a staggering 123 years to include them all! But don’t worry; I won’t subject you to the next ten years of blogs …
Over the last months, we’ve talked about King Louis XIV of France—the Palace of Versailles, his excesses, and the divine rights of the king. Yet these characteristics of the monarchy were not exclusive to Louis XIV, nor was the Palace of Versailles the only extravagant royal residence. More than forty thousand castles exist throughout France, some of which have appeared …
Have you ever visited a historical site that stirred your heart and left an indelible effect on your life? Several places have done that for me, but I confess a particular sympathy toward the Waldensian Valleys of the Cottian Alps in the Savoy region between France and Italy. Today, I continue the series I began on April 4th, 2023 about …
The average tourist visiting Rome may not know, heading north from the Forum to the Pantheon, that they have just walked past one of this century’s most fascinating archaeological finds. My husband and I would have missed it if it hadn’t been for good friends who’d visited Rome the year before we did. The ancient site is the Mamertine Prison, …
In September 1910, the Irish writer and Nobel Prize-winning author George Bernard Shaw took an open boat, manned by ten men on five oars to Skellig Michael, an island seven miles offshore from the Irish coast. In a letter to a friend, he said of the “pinnacled… caverned, minareted” island, “They landed me on the most fantastic and impossible rock …
Have you ever visited a place that so staggered you that it had an indelible effect on your life? Some veterans and their families experience overwhelming tears when they visit the Pearl Harbor National Memorial in Waikiki, Hawaii. Others feel that same emotional tug on their hearts when they see the 911 Memorial and Museum. Many who tour Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, …
As I sit at my computer in a warm house this January wintery morning, I look out my window at the white, pillowy snow that accumulates, blanketing our neighborhood with more than eight inches of snow and still mounting. The snowstorm transports me to another era when tremendous cold and miserable snowstorms impede the progress of a regiment of men …
Our family decorates the house for Christmas each year on the day after Thanksgiving. It’s become a tradition. Carols play in the background while a fury of activity ensues. Everyday household décor is removed and replaced by candles, garlands, snow globes, and poinsettias. We rearrange the furniture in the family room to set up the Christmas tree in front of …
In 2007, our family visited New York City during Spring Break to enjoy the sights and attend a few Broadway shows. The trip held many fun and fascinating moments, but the most moving for me was touring Ellis Island. The former immigration station had received and processed my Hungarian grandparents in the early 1920s, and as I walked the same …