It is not unusual for Americans to look at a global map and say, “Gee, Europe isn’t all that big, considering how often we talk about it.” By U.S. standards, Europe is semi-dinky, especially if you don’t include the European half of Russia in the Euro lineup. The U.S. is a bit shy of 10 […]

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At the time, we thought we were going to be fine. It was March 5, and the Covid-19 coronavirus was spreading in France, but it wasn’t where it was going to be in a few weeks. No reports of cases in the neighborhood of our little village. So we did something Just Plain Stupid. We […]

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Maybe it’s me. But I didn’t find 55 days of government-ordered Covid-19 quarantine, in our home in France, to be all that bad.

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A reader asked for information about the experience of finding and consuming the often-quite economical wines of the Languedoc region of southern France. In theory, I should be an expert, after four-plus years based among the rolling hills and vineyards in this part of Occitanie, but that would be an error. I like wine well […]

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Of all the dreamy ideals France and Paris elicit among visitors or expatriates, one joker in the deck often goes overlooked: The French predilection for taking to the streets in protest whenever they are unhappy with their government. And, just now, they are plenty unhappy with the regime of Emmanuel Macron, the country’s president. To […]

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For the fourth year running we hosted a Thanksgiving dinner in our little town in the south of France. We expanded the invitation list by two people to take it to 10, counting the hosts, and it went off pretty well. Well, it kinda had to be memorable, given that we had a turkey with […]

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If Paris has seemed like a weekend battle zone for the past year … well, it often has been. It was 52 weeks ago that a grass-roots movement erupted across many areas of France, and especially in Paris, that led to arrests, injuries and plenty of destruction, most of it aimed at police and property. […]

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And there I was, thinking maybe I was the only person in France who made it a habit to kick rocks off roads. A week or two ago, as we approached one of the entrances to the local “big” city, I looked to my left, and a woman, wearing pants, maybe 45, kicked a rock […]

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“Je suis Americain!” That was all the French the Red Buttons character knew, in the sprawling D-Day classic movie “The Longest Day” — and he repeated it to himself like a mantra as he and his fellow paratroopers were flown to Normandy on June 6, 1944. “Je suis Americain.” (I am American.) So the French […]

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It was about 1.30 p.m. when the fire equipment began arriving. As I try to reconstruct it, it began with a siren that we attributed to a health emergency in our little town among the hills. But it was not a lone rescue vehicle. Another came behind it, heralded by the sing-song European sirens. Then […]

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