Castle Howard

Sunday was blustery with sunny patches.  We took the train from York to Malton, then taxied to Castle Howard. (Our original plan – the 181 bus direct from York to the estate – went bust when we realized the bus didn’t run on Sundays.) Seat of the Dukes of Norfolk, this is a grand house … Read more

Eoferwick/Jorvik/York

We are in York at the start of our Northeast England adventures.  Transport from Denver was uneventful for us, not so much for the lady-of-a-certain age who spent much of the trip stretched out in the mid-ships galley with an IV in her arm.  I envied her the stretched-out bit. She was lively, back in … Read more

Montmartre Cemetery, Seine cruise & Paris vignettes

Tuesday morning we made our way through neighborhood streets towards Montmartre. We took a tour of the Galeries Lafayette, an upmarket department store across the street from the opera house. Montmartre cemetery is a good place to hobnob with the formerly rich and famous. It is a cemetery of a certain age … and enduring … Read more

Jardin des Plantes & Notre Dame Cathedral

Reluctantly dragging ourselves away from St. Denis Cathedral, we made our way south to the Seine and the Jardin des Plantes, Paris’ botanical gardens.  The Natural History Museum and zoo are here, so the obligatory carousel was appropriately themed. The gardens were a bit disappointing – especially after the glories of the Chantilly Flower Show. … Read more

St. Denis Cathedral

We hopped the RER train again on Monday morning, this time headed for one of Paris’ northern suburbs, St. Denis, home to the very first Gothic cathedral. Our arrival station had something I’d never seen before: glass barricades separating the platform from the track. And, since we were in France, a carousel greeted us on … Read more

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