I Didn’t Expect to Find a Staircase There

The clouds hung low and baleful in the firmament as we crossed the river Saône to the Vieux Lyon, the old neighborhood that lies just to the west of the river. I looked up at the preternaturally luminous churches of St. Jean and Notre Dame, standing in stark contrast to those clouds, and wondered if […]

Sometimes I Manage to Find an Entire Country Closed For The Day

We strolled along the footbridge as the waters of the Saône swooshed by below, serenaded by the wind running its invisible bowstrings across the great twisted steel cables, sounding a low pitched hum that reverberated through the railing and into my fingertips. Across the river is the old city, and above us stands the Notre […]

A Trip Deferred

If years ago you would have told me that I would travel to 24 other countries before visiting France, I would have been dubious, not just of the overall number, but of the sequence. Somehow, however, that’s how things have worked out, and now this is country number 25, and my fifth new country to […]