After checking out the African and European galleries at The Louvre, I walked back to the Jardin Tuileries, a large public garden located between the Louvre and Place de la Concorde. This time, I sat for a while and people watched. The Jardin Tuileries has been opened to the public since 1667. Thousands of Parisians and tourists stroll, sit, eat and relax in the Jardin Tuileries everyday. Jardin Tuileries, a...

As I walked through gallery after gallery in The Louvre in search of the European and African art collections, I couldn’t help notice that many of people ahead of me were taking photos of the artwork. Most didn’t even look at a painting long enough. They just got within camera range, snapped and moved on to the next one. Granted, with the size of The Louvre — I’m sure I...

As a former art gallery director, a visit to Paris would not have been complete without a visit to the Louvre. Yet, when I finally arrived at this world renowned museum and saw the lines, I balked. I had three days in Paris. There was no way I wanted to spend my time in an endless queue! In addition, it was an unseasonably warm April and the unrelenting afternoon sun forced several...

Golden sunlight filled the room when I woke on my first morning in Paris but as soon as I opened my eyes, I began to sneeze. It had been an unseasonably warm and everything was in bloom, someone told me later. I didn’t let that stop me. I had planned on being in Paris for only two days then head to Barcelona for a day before returning to London. But...

I was a little nervous as I walked into the terminal at the Gare du Nord. It was my first time in Paris and unlike my London trip, I was not prepared. I had not mapped my route from the terminal to my hotel. The most I’d done was an Internet search for hotels within a 15-minute radius of the terminal and booked the first one that looked acceptable. It...

Train travel is definitely a lot more popular in Europe than it is in North America, where we tend to drive or fly more. When I heard about the tunnel that was being built under the English Channel to connect Britain and France, I was fascinated. I marveled at the vision and the incredible feat of engineering it took to bring it to life and wondered what it was like...

One of the unintended benefits of traveling, for me, is discovering something new about myself or rediscovering some personal quality that time and life had made me forget. On my last trip to London, I stayed with my sister and her family. While it was a holiday for me, it wasn’t for them so I knew I’d be navigating the city on my own. It wasn’t like that on my...

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