Across the street from the Louvre, the Palais Royal, its court of honor and garden, and their surroundings are a stunning microcosm of culture in Paris: its history a background for its present, its present a dialogue with its past, its future clearly in need of change, but gently, please.
Those words are often attributed to U.S. General John Pershing when, on July 4, 1917, having arrived in France with the American Expeditionary Force upon the U.S. entrance into WWI, he visited Lafayette’s tomb at Picpus Cemetery in Paris. They were actually spoken by Pershing’s aide, Colonel Charles E. Stanton, but no matter, the Americans had indeed arrived to pay homage to the French hero of the American Revolution.
France Revisited is thrilled to announce the release of our first travel music video, She Walked Along the River (The T-Shirt Song). The song (Rated-R) was inspired by a ride along the Seine and a part of Canal Saint-Martin that I took on a Canauxrama boat in the company of young filmmaker Thibault Perois.
Paris’s compact beauty, regularly spaced parks and gardens, and romantic stretch of river make this one of the world’s most beloved walking cities. Now strap on a pair of running shoes and you’ll find that those same elements add up to a great jogging city as well.
Large swaths of the city can be viewed in a street-and-sidewalk run. In 30 to 60 minutes of footing or jogging, as the French call it (emphasis on the ting and the ging), you can cover half a guidebook’s worth of major sites.
The French electorate doesn’t necessarily vote according to its relative wealth, yet relative wealth is a pretty good indicator of voting strength, particularly in Paris and more dramatically in its surrounding region. There, generally speaking, flourishing professionals, and international business mark the west and southwest suburbs while working class, welfare recipients, and immigrants define the east and north suburbs. The result of this east-west wealth gap is clearly echoed in the ballot box.
