Tremezzo, Italy

October 7, 2026

[NB: Previous installments in this series are here, here, and here]

During the Alpide orogeny of the Cenozoic Era, Africa and Europe collided along the Periadriatic Seam, lifting the Southern Alps from the Lombardy Basin.

Mesozoic rifting, grinding ice, and glacial retreat gouged a steep basin, and left Lake Como as an aquatic wishbone in the Italian Alps. Meltwater filled the trough after the last Ice Age a hundred centuries ago, confined by moraines left by receding glaciers.

Excavation was extensive, creating a lake more than 1,200 feet deep, with a floor about 600 feet below the surface of the sea. Lovely villages, secluded bays, stately villas, and exotic gardens grace the banks of this exquisite pond.

For centuries the Milanese, Austrians, Spanish, and French laid claim to Lake Como. In 1861, it became part of consolidated Italy.

At the end of the Second World War, Milanese fled here to escape Allied bombings. Italian manufacturers moved offices to the Grand Hotel Tremezzo, and the Villa Carlotta sheltered works of art from the Brera Academy.

The war reached Lake Como in April 1945, when Mussolini and his mistress were captured at Dongo trying to flee to Switzerland. They were put against a wall at Villa Belmonte, about a mile from where I’m writing this. Their bodies were subsequently hauled to Milan to be hung by their heels.

The day Mussolini was killed, sixteen people were buried beneath the rubble when the Hotel Bazzoni was destroyed by bombs. The last three nights, this is where we’ve stayed.

It doesn’t look like there’s been much renovation since the air raid ended. The “decor” is dated and some perks (such luxuries as towels, shampoo, soap, hot water, cool air) are limited. Overnight traffic and trash trucks sound as if bombers are still making runs.

Our accommodations were arranged by someone else, and ended up being a bit more “budget” than we’d bargained for. But the staff are nice, the coffee is excellent, the service is good, and the scenery is astounding.

Room With a View

The ride from Milan was relatively quick. Within an hour we’d reached the lake, then followed the narrow (and occasionally harrowing) road that clung to the coast till it reached the hotel.

Tremezzo is billed as “one of the most beautiful villages of Italy.” I can believe it, if only for the spectacular views.

This setting is stunning. North from our balcony Lake Como reaches its greatest width. Verdant escarpments shoot from each side of its three legs. Small boats flit like whirligigs across the water, riding the wake of commercial ferries that connect strands of hamlets that hug the shore.

The warm lake nourishes thick foliage and colorful gardens that feature a thousand species of various plants. Medieval towers and church spires poke above pastel towns and ochre villas. Sunlight glistens on gentle waves as the Grigne encases the sublime scene.

We’re not sure we’ve seen anything more beautiful, and can only imagine the magnificence when these peaks are coated in winter white. After spending time being hypnotized by the view, we decided to become a part of it.

Occupying the promontory created where the ice split to form Como’s fork, Bellagio earns its moniker as the “place between two lakes.” Perched on the prow of its peninsula, Bellagio is beautiful.

Quaint cafes line narrow cobblestone streets ascending steep hills overlooking the lake. Gorgeous as it is, it’s the most “touristy” of the places we’ve seen. It almost feels contrived, like Disney invented an Italian village.

Businesses primarily sell high-end leather, jewelry, and gelato. Most locals cater to guests, whose phones are perpetually hoisted in the air. You’d never catch me being so tacky or gauche.

Incidentally, here’s the inside of Bellagio’s San Giacomo Basilica, during a wedding we crashed:

Tremezzo sits at the mouth of the western arm opposite Bellagio. On its northern edge is Villa Carlotta, perched atop a terraced garden overlooking the lake.

The current edifice was erected in 1690, but later passed to German owners (including the family of the princess for whom it’s now named) until World War I. When Italy entered on the side of the Entente, it confiscated the villa as property of the state.

Housing a museum featuring paintings by Appiani, Migliara, and Hayez, with sculptures by Canova, Thorvaldsen, and Acquisti, the villa is a Baroque building with a neoclassical blend. It’s surrounded by a twenty acre botanical garden that’s the most robust of its kind along the lake, featuring 800 specimens imported from as far as South America and East Asia.

Farther north, across from Varenna, is the hamlet of Menaggio, where I think we may be moving. My wife has rarely been so captivated by a place.

I can’t blame her. The promenade offers enchanting vistas in every direction. Pleasant piazzas, cobblestone streets, and al fresco cafes complete the postcard.

We selected a table for two beside the lake, over a long lunch we never wanted to end. When it did, we made our way back to Tremezzo.

A Nice Reminder

I’d arranged a private boat tour around the lake. Our captain contacted me the day before and asked if we could delay departure by one hour. I was concerned we might not finish before dark, but trusted his judgment as someone who’d done this before.

We agreed to meet at a dock outside the Bazzoni. At the appointed hour, our skipper wasn’t there. He sent a text that he was at the Grand Tremezzo. We took a ten minute walk to the new location… where he also wasn’t.

After searching several docks we finally found the small boat bobbing in the water, albeit a bit annoyed at receiving vague directions rather than specific locations.

For Americans who prize precision and punctuality, this is the frustration and pleasure of Italian life. Or, rather, of life. It’s great to be easy going, unless you value detail or need something done.

With a shock of disheveled hair and a cigarette dangling from his lips, a man waved at us from the boat as he took a swig from a flask.

“Oh great,” my wife exclaimed. “He’s drinking.”

“It’s water,” I assured her as a way of reassuring myself. “But if you want to bail on this we can.” Unwilling to let me off the hook, she said nothing. We kept going.

“Are you Matteo?” I asked, assuming this was the same person with whom I made the reservation.

“I am Giorgio,” he said in his thick Italian accent.

Uh oh.

“You are John and Margarita?”

OK. He knew us, so that was encouraging. We decided to hop aboard.

I suppose we could’ve ended up like Fredo at the end of the second Godfather. But to some extent, we take that chance anytime we do anything.

Instead, Giorgio was terrific. With his knowledge, wit, and humor, he won us over immediately. The bottle of Prosecco didn’t hurt.

Like his passengers, Giorgio had been an engineer. After thirty years, he gave it up because he was unhappy with what he was doing, and realized time was something he couldn’t buy.

He now spends his summers carrying people like us around Lake Como and winters sailing others among Caribbean islands. To commute between his two “offices” he once sailed solo across the Atlantic.

From the dock we sped down the west arm of the lake, past the Villa del Balbianello where Star Wars was filmed, to the Villa la Cassinella Richard Branson bought, and around Isola Comacina —the only island in Lake Como—dotted with Roman ruins and (according to Giorgio) imported kangaroos.

The story is true, but Giorgio got the wrong island. The Australian critters were placed on Isola dei Cipressi in nearby Lake Pusiano.

This is where we opened the Prosecco. Returning toward Bellagio, we eased under the Villa Lucertola, tucked at the base of a steep slope at the edge of the lake and now owned by the Guinness family.

Legend (perhaps invented by captains giving boat tours) has it that a previous owner sympathized with the Nazis. At the end of the war, she tossed her diamond ring in the lake rather than yield it to her captors.

There’s a similar tale that replaces the Nazi sympathizer with a Brazilian woman distraught at having to sell the place. Regardless the tale, the place has since become popular with divers futilely seeking a fabled gem.

Next door is the Ponte del Diavolo, the “Devil’s Bridge” of lake lore. Built over a canyon near Lezzeno, the arched span was apparently completed in a deal with the devil.

He agreed to finish it overnight in exchange for the soul of the first to cross it. The builder and a local priest tricked the devil by sending a dog. Defeated and furious, the devil hurled himself into the river below.

As dusk descended, we approached Bellagio, passed the fork in the lake, and drifted past the lovely village of Varenna. Under enveloping darkness, Giorgio brought us back to Tremezzo, and said goodbye. But not before we exchanged numbers so we can stay in touch.

It was a pleasant surprise and a nice reminder. Sometimes no matter how apprehensive we may be, we simply need to get in the boat.

JD

Milan, Italy

October 4, 2026

[NB: Previous installments in this series are here and here]

We started our Sunday with a sunrise stroll, Mass at the Duomo, breakfast overlooking the cathedral, and reflections on something I didn’t reference in yesterday’s missive.

Under Francesco Sforza, Dominican friars began building Santa Maria delle Grazie to honor the Virgin Mary, and to be the site of the Sforza mausoleum.

Lodovico Sforza later commissioned Bramante to add the apse, a cupola, and cloister porticos that fell victim to the Second World War. These overlaid Renaissance influence on Lombard Gothic.

In the refectory the Dominican friars took their meals. On the far wall of this rectangular room, Leonardo da Vinci left the culminating work of the 15th century. It’s one of the two most famous paintings in the world. The other is also his — the Mona Lisa that hangs in the Louvre.

Hundreds of artists have painted Last Suppers. But only one created The Last Supper. Whenever that image is referenced, it’s Leonardo’s version that comes to mind.

Yesterday we had an opportunity to see it. Entry is allotted to small groups in fifteen minute increments. Like entering a gun range, we passed thru one door that had to be closed before the next could open.

We waited in this holding pen till previous visitors left the refectory. When they did, we entered the hall, and looked to our right.

Testing the patience of his patron and the prior, da Vinci took his time completing the painting we’d come to see. Leonardo apparently explained that conception is more important than execution. “Men of genius”, as Vasari said, “do most when they work least.”

Around Milan Leonardo found models for the Apostles, each remarkably individualized in the painting. But his main challenges were depicting Christ’s features and Judas’s face.

Legend has it he picked the convent’s prior as Judas, but that may be a myth. Struggling to portray Jesus, Leonardo seems to have taken the advice of a friend to leave His visage unfinished.

So sublime were the faces of James the Greater and James the Less, his friend observed, that whatever Christ da Vinci completed couldn’t be their Master.

Leonardo made a preliminary sketch of Jesus’s head, which we saw the day before in the Brera Museum. It conveys resignation of One who knows His fate, and Who must share it with those He loves. At that moment, even Christ was unable to look His apostles in the eye.

Unfortunately, The Last Supper started dying the moment it was born. Leonardo shunned fresco because wet plaster required his work to be rushed.

He instead combined tempera and oil on dry plaster, hoping the layers of oil would supply the sealing qualities of wet plaster, and that these two sets of pigments would allow him to paint at his preferred pace while retaining his work’s resilience on the wall.

It didn’t work.

The tempera he preferred resisted adherence and was prone to flake. On a dry wall between a damp refectory and a hot kitchen, that happened almost immediately. Inconceivably, friars later accelerated decay by cutting a doorway thru Christ’s feet.

We’re lucky that any of The Last Supper still survives. Restoration has persisted over the centuries (often doing more harm than good), and ongoing preservation requires small crowds and short visits.

Unsurprisingly, French Revolutionaries took a whack at it. When they invaded Milan in 1796, they used the refectory as an armory. To defile a work of Catholic art, the soldiers threw rocks at the wall, or climbed it to scratch the eyes from apostles’ faces.

A couple decades later, efforts were made to move the mural to a safer environment. But central chunks collapsed during removal, and had to be pasted back into place.

The greatest threat came in 1943, when an Allied bomb destroyed much of the convent. Miraculously, The Last Supper survived, because caretakers had stacked sandbags against and across the extent of the wall.

After centuries of suffering, the mural that has been called “the keystone of Western art” was in trouble. About fifty years ago, an extensive renovation effort was undertaken.

During two decades of meticulous effort, layers of varnish, grime, glue, filth and extraneous paint were removed to unveil what Leonardo left us. More than a quarter century after the revival was complete, the restoration retains the vivid brightness the artist intended.

About twenty people joined us for our fifteen minute viewing. Not being sardined into a space made it easier to appreciate the painting.

It wasn’t difficult. The refectory is long, narrow, and dimly lit. The painting is enormous, and feels like an extension of the room. Monks in the refectory must’ve felt as if the Last Supper was occurring while they ate.

The painting was elevated so diners could see it from the far reaches of the long hall. From a distance, the perspectival effect is even more pronounced, making it seem like the Last Supper is occurring in an annex of the refectory, with the Apostles appearing even more animated than they appear up close.

The lines of the picture extend the horizontal layout of the sidewall cornices, pulling the friars of the refectory into the scene. Leonardo knew light was limited, supplied only by seasonal sun thru elevated windows, or by flickering candles when darkness fell.

He captured the dusk by illuminating the apostles on Christ’s left, who’d receive setting sunlight thru actual windows along the west wall of the refectory.

Even damaged and redone, The Last Supper is remarkable, capturing the shock of the Apostles around the calm center of Christ. The action is in their anxiety, and its reflection of ours.

The compositional choices are almost perfect. The design is naturally balanced around the figure of Christ, who occupies the center of the frame in both directions.

The Apostles are grouped in four clusters of three, in individualistic poses that distinguish each from the others. They recoil from the accusation Christ asserts. Almost reflexively, the viewer does too.

Within each group of three apostles, the emotion increases from surprise… to disbelief… to shock… to horror… in a crescendo from left to right along the table. But Jesus sits serene at the eye of the storm.

Many Medieval Last Suppers depicted Apostles as stiff and static, often with Judas on the opposite side of the table like a witness at a Senate hearing. Leonardo removes the halos, brings the Apostles to life by making them human, and puts Judas among them as an enemy within.

This painting depicts or evokes several crucial events in a single scene. Christ institutes the Eucharist and announces his betrayal. By grasping with one hand and reaching with the other, Judas confesses to everyone at the table and to all of us in the room.

Anticipating his action later that evening, Peter wields a knife behind Judas as he and John seek clarification of what Christ has said. Thomas lifts the finger that will inspect the wound of the resurrected Christ.

Leonardo packs most of the Passion into a mural he knew his educated audience would understand. The obvious omission is reference to the crucifixion itself, which perhaps explains its portrayal on the opposite wall.

With Last Suppers, Crucifixion scenes were common in monastic refectories. Santa Maria delle Grazie features an interpretation by Donato Montorfano, who must’ve felt like he was performing across the street from the Beatles.

But Montorfano got the last laugh. Unlike Leonardo’s tempera, his fresco transmitted thru time, and it has basked under almost as many eyes as its more popular counterpart. It’s the last thing we see when we leave the room.

JD

Milan, Italy

October 3, 2026

As with many cities, geography facilitated Milan’s fate. It’s always been a hinge between the Italian peninsula and transalpine Europe. This was partly due to the Romans, who moved their capital here in the late third century.

The Celts founded Milan almost six centuries before Christ. The Romans arrived a few hundred years later, conquering and expanding the settlement, and rechristening it Mediolanum for its position in the “middle of the plain”.

Under Diocletian, Maximian made Milan seat of the Western Empire. Thirty years later, Constantine came here to issue his edict giving Christians freedom to worship. Later that century, St Ambrose brought added prestige as bishop of a city that was firmly Catholic.

A Magnificent Fusion

Milan’s cathedral is the largest church in Italy, occupying what had been the central site of Roman Mediolanum, and the spot from or about which the modern city still radiates.

The Duomo is a magnificent fusion of florid Gothic, Renaissance ornament, and Baroque flair. Intricate, elaborate, solemn, and vast, the cathedral is a six century amalgamation of competing preferences and evolving styles.

It rose in the late 14th century when Gian Galeazzo Visconti started construction of the chevet. Delay intervened. When building resumed decades later, a host of sculptors ensured no speck of surface remained unadorned. Among others, Leonardo and Bramante were asked to design a cupola, which wasn’t completed till 1759.

The façade didn’t start till 1616, and wasn’t finished till Napoleon commanded its completion two centuries later. The final details were added sixty years ago, when the Duomo was finally done.

In the interim, a succession of Italian, French, and German builders crafted the white Candoglia marble into an ethereal assemblage of belfries, pinnacles, gables, and statues, including sculpted saints standing sentry atop processions of spires that sprout from the roof. Above them on the Tiburio is the gilded Madonnina, honoring the Nativity of Our Lady to whom the basilica is dedicated.

Delicate bays of counter-curved tracery, ornate rose windows glorifying the east face, and the elegance of more than a hundred pinnacles and three thousand statues offer misleading impressions of the scene inside.

Unlike the airy fragility of the external architecture, the cathedral interior is severe, imposing, heavy, and dim. Enormous columns line the nave, bounding it from two aisles on either side.

The apse stained glass is astounding. In chronological imagery from lower left to upper right, panels depict respective events of the Old Testament, the Apocalypse, and the Gospel of Christ.

The edifice is almost overwhelming, inspiring awe among even the most devout disbelievers. To capture its majesty, we orbited the structure a couple times, ascended the roof, and slowly absorbed the array of vaults, arches, sculptures, reliefs, altars, and spires that compete for space.

A Medley

Fortunately, our hotel is just off the Piazza del Duomo, so we’re easily able to explore on foot. Today we strolled past La Scala, and lamented missing last night’s opening of La Traviata.

At least where we’ve wandered, the city is remarkably clean. As are its people, who (by modern standards) are generally well-dressed.

Not that they’re formal. Most are casual. But they’re not slovenly or unkempt. We’ve seen little litter and few beggars. Unlike other European cities we’ve visited recently, we don’t notice an inordinate number of migrants, many of whom enter Europe thru Italy.

But as in Spain, Greece, or other southern gateways, many move on after they arrive, attracted to the richer welfare of wealthier states, or of countries that once colonized their homeland and offer comfort of language or family.

Regarding pick-pockets, we haven’t noticed any. But we recall Paul Newman’s reply to Robert Redford when Redford reassured him in The Sting that he hadn’t seen anyone following him: “you never do, kid.”

Central Milan is a medley of architectural styles — Gothic, neoclassical, Baroque, Novecento, and an unfortunate smattering of post-war junk. But nineteenth century Italian Art Nouveau predominates.

Behind many façades, whether sober or ornate, are hidden courtyards or peaceful gardens that provide respite from bustling narrow streets.

Directly across from our hotel balcony, the Church of San Raffaele encapsulates Milan’s architectural mix. Medieval in origin, it was reconstructed in Counter-Reformation style by Pellegrino Tibaldi, who contributed work on the Duomo in the late 16th century.

The split-level façade is of two orders: a Mannerist style of classical columns, niches, and pediments that’s heavier and more sculpted than earlier Renaissance work. The front wasn’t finished till the late 19th century, pulling influences from that period into the design.

Literature, Learning, and Art

Having seen some Churches, we checked in on the State. At the outset of the Renaissance, Gian Galeazzo Visconti consolidated most of northern Italy under his rule.

But when he died in 1402, his descendants became increasingly degenerate. Two sons… one perfidious, the other paranoid… ruled into the middle of the century. Both died without male heirs.

One left an illegitimate daughter, who’d married the condottiero Francesco Sforza. Sforza embellished the Castello Sforzesco as his seat of power and monument to himself.

On the edge of the Parco Sempione in the middle of Milan, this quadrilateral citadel of impregnable walls protected the signore from his own people and foreign foes, while offering a secure setting to patronize literature, learning, and art.

Francesco Sforza resumed the beautification of Milan. He enlarged the Piazza del Duomo into a space worthy of the majestic cathedral that had begun to be built. But the plaza took its familiar form hundreds of years later.

Small Details

On the north side of the plaza a triumphal arch provides passage to the 19th century Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, a shopping arcade beneath a glass canopy connecting the Duomo to La Scala.

The complex is a cross-shaped arcade ornamented with stucco, stairs, and frescoes. The central axis features mosaics honoring Italian capitals of Florence, Milan, Turin, and Rome.

Beneath the dome are frescoes representing America, Asia, Africa, and Europe, each of which welcomes wallets to (or warns husbands from) an array of shops, cafes, bistros, and boutiques that line the axes of this deluxe gallery.

Up the cloister is the Rinascente, which contains a larger assortment of similar stores at (somewhat) more affordable prices. It also has a rooftop bar that overlooks the Duomo, which offers a seat where a husband can write while his wife shops.

Milan has history, museums, churches, and charms. But it’s these small details that matter most.

JD

Milan, Italy

October 2, 2026

My mother, stepfather, and I rented a car, left the airport, and drove to the station to meet my brother.

Brett had spent his last college semester “studying” in London. From there, he made occasional excursions onto the continent: France, Prague, Austria… and Italy.

But his pockets were empty when he crossed the Alps. He’d reached Milan a few days before we did, and needed to fill his belly and rest his head while he waited for us to arrive.

With what little cash he had, he bought a ticket and boarded a train. It took him to Apulia on the heel of Italy. The return trip would put him in Milan about the time our flight landed.

It was a creative, even ingenious, plan. The train would provide a place for Brett to rest his head and close his eyes. But it also offered an unexpected surprise.

An Italian family joined him in his rail car. The clan was stereotypically wonderful: large, cheerful, and welcoming to the bedraggled American in their midst.

The mother (naturally) brought baskets of food, and insisted my brother join the feast. Ample calories, good company, and a few winks sustained Brett till he returned to Milan.

When he did, he made his way outside the station where we’d planned to meet. As my stepfather circled the depot seeking my brother, he was taken aback by something he saw.

“Oh, my God…”, Jerry muttered.

“What?”, my mother asked.

“Is that him?”

“Where?”, I asked, scanning the sidewalk from the back seat. “Behind that hobo?”

“Oh no”, my mother gasped. “It is the hobo!”

Scraggly, disheveled, un-showered, sleep-deprived, with a mangy duffle flung over his shoulder, Brett waved and staggered toward us like a member of Napoleon’s army stumbling out of Russia. Because he loved my mother and wanted to stay married, Jerry pulled over and let him in.

That was thirty-three years ago. I’ve not been to Milan since. I was hardly here then. All we did was land, pick up our vagrant, and make our way to other parts of Italy.

I always wondered what I’d missed in Milan. As many armies as have fought for this city, it must have something going for it. Today we returned, and started seeing what it is.

Like eating at a restaurant called “Queasy” or boarding a ship christened “Capsize”, it’s disconcerting to fly into an airport named “Bad Thoughts”. But that’s what thirty million people do each year. This morning we joined them!

Milan’s main airport took its name from Cascina Malpensa, a farmstead that once stood where our plane landed. Where the farm got its name is a mystery.

One story is that trying to cultivate such barren land was a bad idea. Another has it that it was linked to a place where travelers were regularly robbed.

Neither of these explanations is encouraging, or seem like good reasons to call an airport “Malpensa”. But having arrived safely and avoided being mugged, we let it go, and hopped a cab to the middle of Milan. While waiting for our room, we left our luggage, and went for a walk.

The Renaissance usually evokes images of Medicean Florence, republican Venice, or papal Rome. Milan often gets short shrift. That makes some sense.

With its skyscrapers, commercial bustle, and northern European efficiency, Milan is often portrayed as less relaxed, artistic, and historic than its popular rivals on the peninsula.

This is probably unfair, stemming from the city’s reputation as a modern (and historic) hub of fashion, business, and finance. With almost seven million people sprawling from its center, Milan is the fourth largest metropolitan area in western Europe, the most populous in Italy, and produces about a fifth of this country’s economic output.

From our hotel beside the Piazza del Duomo, we wandered through the swanky Galleria Vittorio Emanuele on our way to the Brera quarter, something like a Marais or Montmartre of Milan. Artsy bohemians, narrow streets, boutique shops, hidden courtyards, quaint cafes, and Milan’s most prestigious museum adorn the district.

Like many Renaissance rulers, Milan’s domestic dukes and foreign kings ornamented violence with art, an impressive collection of which is housed in the Pinacoteca di Brera.

The palazzo was built in the 17th century, initially as a Jesuit college and later as an Academy of Fine Arts founded by Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. To accommodate paintings pilfered from his Italian conquests, Napoleon converted it to a museum in the first decade of the 19th century.

A neoclassical portal provides an elegant entry to the original building of Lombard Baroque. A graceful courtyard, a perfect square bound by two-story arcades on paired columns of Tuscan stone, lends rhythm and restraint to the heavy appearance of prevailing Baroque.

Around the plaza perimeter Doric pillars lift Ionic columns along the upper loggia, soothing the transition from the busy street, and offering a refined welcome to the Brera galleries.

We initially walked into the Library, which was almost a mistake… because I didn’t want to leave. Seeing her husband luxuriating in dark paneling, wall-to-wall leather-bindings, large globes, and chandeliers dangling from soaring ceilings, my wife started nudging him to go. The museum is what they’d come to see.

I’m glad we did. The Brera isn’t as vast, nor its collection as comprehensive, as the Uffizi or (certainly) the Louvre. But the viewing experience feels more spacious and relaxed than most renowned museums.

Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces—mostly from Lombardy and Venice—line parlors of coordinated color under high ceilings, with rooms arranged to not make you feel cramped or rushed.

Among the bounty are Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus, the haunting Discovery of the Body of St Mark by Tintoretto, Mantegna’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ, and Raphael’s Marriage of the Virgin, with perspective that pulls the viewer past the wedding and into the temple, tempting him to wonder where the last opening leads.

Under Napoleon, suppressed churches were major sources of loot. Monumental altarpieces, confiscated paintings, and other large-scale ecclesiastical art are a prominent part of the Brera haul.

It’s an impressive collection in an appealing place. But the volume is still overwhelming, especially when jet lag kicks in. As we retraced our steps thru the Brera, legs and eyelids were getting heavy. Under clear skies and a descending dusk, we returned to the hotel, where our room was ready.

That’s good. After a red-eye flight over the Atlantic, we weren’t eager to take an overnight train to Apulia.

JD

Paris, France

July 18, 2026

[NB: Previous installments are linked here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here]

France has a knack for turning military disaster into cultural triumph. The flowering of the French novel followed the cataclysms of the Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.

After the Prussian War and catastrophic Commune, Impressionism lent flourish and color to a dreary scene… and enlivened the final decades of 19th century France.

Claude Monet was among the leaders of this movement. Born in Paris and raised in Le Havre, his formative years in Normandy molded perspective and influenced his art.

In Honfleur his style was developed. The white cliffs of Étretat helped show him the light. Proximity and immediacy of open air, sea, and sky (and the advent of paint tubes that alleviated need to mix fresh colors in a studio) were essential components of Impressionist art.

Monet returned to Paris, where he befriended Renoir, Bazille, Cézanne, and Pissarro as something of a supportive circle orbiting Manet. Unlike the proletarian Renoir, Monet was from a bourgeois background, and trained his brush more on visual reality than an assumed ideal.

He remained a provincial in Paris, and sought scenes outside the city. His art stayed on the periphery, with an emphasis on nature, and how it’s actually perceived thru sensory experience. Unlike images of ancient Greece or Rome, places Monet painted could be accessed by anyone in Paris.

Setting and Star

The countryside around the capital offered an abundance of subjects. The Environs de Paris abound in rolling fields, supple hills, inviting villages, and seductive swales carved by serene streams.

These landscapes became the setting and star of many of the great Impressionist paintings. A dozen miles north of Versailles sits a bend of the Seine that initially attracted the young practitioners of the new style, and became the “Cradle of Impressionism” five years before their first exhibition at Paris.

We glided around this bend last week, and return under the bluffs on our way back to Paris. Monet captured the essence of the area with his depiction of bathers at La Grenouillère. This “frog pond” was famous to contemporary Parisians, as a drinking and partying place for various classes… a societal hodgepodge of the Second Empire.

As always, the scene became the studio. Monet and Renoir would choose a place, set their easels side-by-side, and compare interpretations of the setting they’d decided to depict. They learned from each other while expressing personal impressions of what they saw.

Painting from direct observation entailed quick encapsulation of perpetual motion. Wind moved branches and massaged leaves; waves bobbed boats that oars threatened to pull away; and human actors came and went across a shifting stage.

Impressionist painters made air breathe and water move. They did so with “fat” unmixed paint, applied in brushstrokes that were often so long, broad, and blatant that to unacquainted eyes the finished whole seemed uncouth and incomplete.

In a way, it was… and it always is. Like a Heraclitian stream, whatever we see is a unique snapshot that will never repeat. Wherever we are (or aren’t), momentary lights, sounds, objects, and observers are unique fingerprints in passing time.

No one will ever see them again. Exact replication is impossible. Yet a painter’s champ de vision conveys abiding essence through fleeting impression.

Elusive Elements

After interludes in London, Paris, Argenteuil, and Vétheuil, Normandy became a magnet for Monet. Especially after his first wife died, he portrayed nature as a fierce force.

He captured rocks and caverns carved by the ferocity of La Manche. Along the coast, the beaches, bluffs, boats, cliffs, and channel became his subjects and studio, with natural interplays of light and people that enlivened his paintings.

His scenes had previously depicted local fishermen, or the urban bourgeois brought by train as tourists from Paris. At Étretat he’d captured bobbing boats and the bourgeois lounging on the beach.

The painting that gave a name to the movement for which Monet is known was Impression, soleil levant (1872), of a sunrise in Le Havre, depicting the port under an initial tinge of dawn.

His objective was for paint to capture the elusive elements of light and air. Monet was fascinated by atmospheric fluctuations that altered viewer interpretations, or impressions, of what he saw. But it took a while till others wanted to see it.

In Paris, Monet and his colleagues had trouble gaining traction. Their fuzzy, ill-defined work struggled for acceptance and failed to find buyers. They became fed up with public refusal to accept their work.

The term “Impressionist” was initially intended as an insult (the more explicit “intransigents” was often wielded to accuse the painters of being subversive). Critics applied the label to the fuzzy, ill-defined paintings that looked like preliminary sketches devoid of detail.

Composition defied convention. Line was more haphazard, and space often less (or un-) defined. Many of the works looked slapdash, with unsmoothed strokes of tangled colors and blurred boundaries.

Contemporary critics considered the technique to be workmanlike and crude, in contrast to the elegance and order of the Classical style.

Traditional paintings were supposed to be whole unto themselves, without referring to the world beyond them. But impressionist paintings defied this impulse by incorporating light and shadows from items outside the scene (like the shades of poplars in Pissarro’s Hoarfrost).

Happy Hues

The Impressionists were a loose coalition that came of age in the vast construction zone of Second Empire Paris. After the Prussian siege and the calamity of the Commune, they exhibited together in Paris eight times between 1874 and 1886.

These showcases featured thousands of works, in conjunction with an annual showcase of paintings called the “Salon”… a great national judgement of art named for the “rooms” in the Louvre where it was originally held.

Impressionism’s refreshing color and happy hues were a bright canvas for La Belle Époque. Like much of Western Civilization, the style met its demise in the Great War, displaced in its aftermath by the disillusionment of Dadaism and the disturbance of Surrealism.

Monet continued returning to Normandy. He went back to Étretat, where he spent two years capturing alluring scenes. On one occasion, he nearly drowned when the incoming tide broke his easel and took his canvas.

He was fascinated by water, whether the reflective limpidity of ponds, or the grey and white violence of a raging sea. On the coast at Étretat (as at Rouen, Giverny and elsewhere) Monet would set up several easels, bouncing from one to the other to catch changing light at different times.

Pleasant legend assures us he did this so well that the first time Rodin saw the ocean, he exclaimed, “it’s a Monet!”

Reflective Mirror

Monet’s most celebrated works were produced at Giverny, his adopted home fifty miles down the Seine from Paris. He moved here in 1883, and started extending his garden ten years later.

Particularly this time of year, waits are long and narrow passages are clogged. But we were blessed with a private guided visit. It was like a three-dimensional tour of the owner’s most famous canvas (none of his works are here; every “Monet” at Giverny is a reproduction).

A garden is never finished, but is always evolving into something else. This made it a perfect subject for Claude Monet. The colors are never fixed, and light and shade are always in motion.

Water acts as a source of growth and reflective mirror. In 1893, excavation began on the property’s lily pond, the inspiration for which is inside the house.

The walls are covered with prints of Japanese origin. By the end of his life, Monet collected more than 230 Japanese woodblock prints. He was enthralled by their portrayal of the natural world.

Flowers are everywhere on the property. The pond is ringed by plantings that protect and enhance the floating lilies. Japanese-inspired bridges entice guests to gaze across the sublime scene.

Throughout the grounds, flowers are grouped by color and height, weaving a rich fabric distinct from the rigid order of formal French gardens. Monet organized his plantings in rectangular plots, then let them flourish with limited restraint.

No Color

Monet bought this house to care for his two sons from his first marriage, and to help support Alice Hoschedé and their six children after her art-collector husband Ernest went bankrupt and essentially abandoned his family.

Monet took them in while his first wife, Camille, was still alive. When she died, and after Ernest followed her to the grave, Monet married Alice, who remained his wife the rest of her life.

Giverny has a single street (one guess who it’s named for), featuring several cafés, a few homes, and some quaint B&Bs that look exactly as you’d expect.

The medieval Église Sainte-Radegonde anchors the far end of the road from Monet’s house. The church features a Romanesque apse from the 11th century, surrounded by Gothic additions dating up to five centuries later.

Affixed to one aisle is a plaque honoring the local dead from the First World War. Outside the west façade is a monument to those who fell in the sequel. To the north is the Giverny Churchyard, including a collective grave bearing remains of seven RAF airmen who died in Normandy two days after D-Day.

Tucked behind the church is a family tomb. Simple and modest under a sober white cross, it’s an understated contrast to the exuberant gardens at the other end of the road.

The vault holds the remains of a woman, her first husband, one of their kids, and the two sons of the man she’d later marry.

When her second husband joined her in the grave, former prime minister Georges Clemenceau reportedly pulled the cloth off the coffin, declaring that black was no color for Claude Monet.

JD

Les Andelys, France

July 17, 2026

[NB: Previous installments are linked here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here]

In the late 12th century, the Plantagenets ruled England and held half of France. Henry II started this Angevin Dynasty, and reigned thirty-five years before his son took the throne.

Richard was known for boldness long before he became Duke of Normandy, king of England, and ruler of half of what is now France. As a teenager, he crushed rebellions in Aquitaine, the duchy his mother Eleanor brought into her marriage to Henry II.

When Saladin captured Jerusalem for the Saracens, Pope Gregory VIII called the Third Crusade. Richard became known as the “Lionhearted” after his courageous escapades in the east.

He had a couple chances to capture Jerusalem. Knowing he couldn’t hold it, Richard opted for the better part of valor, and to resist reaching beyond his grasp.

On the return trip, he was captured by the Duke of Austria, in retribution for an insult in Acre. He was imprisoned for a year, partially at the behest of the French king.

Philippe Auguste had joined Richard on the journey east, yet came back sooner. As King of France, Philippe ruled a rump realm, essentially the Île de France around Paris. Much of the rest was ruled by Richard to the west, and rival duchies to the east.

To reconquer and defend territory his enemies had taken while he was on crusade, Richard constructed the imposing Château Gaillard in eighteen months. On a limestone cliff beside Les Andelys, it anchors a Medieval Maginot Line guarding the approach to Rouen from above the Seine.

Six months after the strong castle was completed, the Lion Heart succumbed to gangrene after he pulled an enemy’s arrow from beneath his neck. While rival dukes competed for Normandy after Richard’s death, Philippe Auguste took advantage. In 1204, he came from Paris, captured Gaillard, and annexed Normandy into France.

Inspired by fortress design Richard saw in the Levant, the garrison was for several centuries a contested stronghold on the chalk cliffs overlooking the Seine. Despite man-made moats and a steep precipice that inhibited invaders, the château changed hands several times during the Hundred Years’ War.

It eventually became a prison and a hive of brigands before falling to such disrepair that Henri IV ordered it demolished around 1600. As we witnessed from atop its hill above the Seine, it’s remained in ruins ever since.

The lovely village of Le Petit Andely arose while the castle was constructed. Left largely untouched by the Second World War, it’s connected by a tree-lined avenue to Grand Andelys, which suffered extensive damage from aerial bombs. A wall once separated the rival communes, which now comprise the riverside hamlet of Les Andelys.

About twenty minutes away, Michel Galmel hosted us at his regenerative farm and artisanal cider facility, explaining his family history with sustainable farming, and how they produce Calvados, jams, and juice from blends of traditional apple varietals at La Ferme des Ruelles.

For decades, in France as in the U.S., mechanization, government regulation, and targeted subsidies have supported agribusiness at the expense of small-scale operators like the Galmels.

After the Second World War, France had well over two million farms. They averaged about 15 hectares, and were worked with horses and manual labor. Today there are around a fifth as many, with the average farm about five times as large.

Diner et Musée

The night before we saw the remnants of Richard’s fortress and the workings of Galmel’s farm, we visited a château that’s still intact.

Downstream from Les Andelys, at Duclair beside the Seine, Jehan du Fay du Tailly started building in 1530, on the foundations of a 13th-century house.

Reflecting Italian Renaissance influences that are unusual in this area, the structure remained unfinished at Tailly’s death. A couple Louis XIII style pavilions were appended by descendants the following century, with additional yellow-brick wings the one after that.

Constructed in three phases in as many centuries, the main edifice anchors extensive grounds that include a greenhouse, a Greco-Roman orangery now under renovation, English-style gardens, and exotic arboreal specimens that include a giant sequoia.

The château had assumed its current form by the French Revolution, which somehow left it largely untouched. Even the seigniorial coats of arms survived unscathed. The Taillis family wasn’t so lucky. Ruined by the Revolution, they sold the estate.

The history of the house was murky after the Quièveremont-Borde family bought it in 1807. In the next century it was rediscovered by the wrong people, when the Germans used it as an army hospital in the Second World War, after which the château was slowly abandoned.

The Navarro family bought it thirty years ago, and have devoted their lives to restoring it. They treated us to cocktails on the lawn and a six-course meal in the central rooms of the main building.

Among ground-floor rooms we didn’t see are a music room and a Chinese theater for private receptions. Above these are a chapel, lounge, and several eighteenth century bedrooms.

In a stone-walled stable beside the castle, the August ‘44 Museum houses artifacts of soldiers who fought and died in the Normandy campaign, and collections the family has gathered for thirty years from across Europe.

Aside from owning this estate, Nicolas Navarro is an amateur (that’s a compliment) historian who’s passionately preserved the collection, much of which he and his father compiled personally. The elder Navarro met us atop the steps, and graciously welcomed us to his unique exhibit.

Separate rooms are devoted to Allies and Germans, featuring mannequins wearing actual uniforms under helmets riddled with bullet holes.

The patriarch began gathering paraphernalia decades ago, and Nicolas grabbed the baton as a teenager. The museum is filled with dog tags, pocket knives, goggles, gas canisters, even the wing of a British Lancaster bomber. Navarro says he still finds empty cartridges that add to his hoard.

Façade Face-Off

Upstream from Les Andelys, about mid-way between Paris and Rouen, sits the village of Vernon. Like many French towns, its concentration of shops, grocers, boulangeries, and cafés makes this town of 25,000 feel larger than it is.

As with almost everywhere else in this area, architectural dichotomy betrays damage from the war. But in Vernon, the positioning of prominent buildings reflects the civic rivalry with France’s historic religion.

The Belle Époque Hôtel de Ville confronts the eleventh century Collegiate Church of Nôtre-Dame in a façade face-off in the city center. To assert secular supremacy, the late-19th century anti-Catholic mayor insisted that City Hall’s spire exceed the height of the church’s twin towers.

Apparently, it rose the exact same distance, implying an equality that’s remained elusive since and before the French Revolution.

As it always will.

JD

Caudebec-en-Caux, France

July 16, 2026

[NB: Previous installments are linked here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here]

We took the Seine as far as it will go. Upstream from Honfleur, we sailed under the suspension bridge at Tancarville, thru the last in a series of a half dozen locks, and into the Tancarville Canal that escorted us to Le Havre.

Residents of Honfleur have a condescending contempt for Le Havre, which they consider an industrial heap that lacks soul. From what we saw, they may have a point.

After centuries of Viking invaders and English ransackers sailing up the Seine, in 1517 Francois I founded Le Havre as a defensive port and (as its name attests) a commercial harbor.

Apparently, with the coastal suburb of Saint-Adresse (made famous by Claude Monet, who grew up in Le Havre) it held some appeal before the Second World War. Poet Casimir Delavigne said that “after Constantinople, there is nothing so beautiful”. We’ll have to take his word for it.

After the British (unnecessarily) bombed Le Havre to oblivion during the Battle of Normandy, the city was subjected to Communist politicians, awful architecture, and bland urban “planning”. Many French called it the ugliest city in the world, with critics decrying it as “Stalingrad-on-the-Sea”.

Our fleeting glances affirmed the gist of that description, if not the severity. But such a superficial assessment is probably unfair. Our only impressions were as passengers shuttling from the port, thru an industrial section of town, to other points further afield. One was across the estuary at Honfleur.

To reach it we crossed the Pont de Normandie, which spans the Seine estuary upstream from Le Havre. When finished in 1995, this artistic structure was the world’s longest cable-stayed bridge. Reflecting the subsequent shift in global influence, it’s since been surpassed by seven in China, and one each in Russia and Japan.

Before it was built, travelers transiting from Le Havre to Honfleur boarded ferries, or drove an extra twenty miles to cross the span at Tancarville. Even then, the trip would be worth it.

Founded at least a thousand years ago, Honfleur flourished as a transfer point at the mouth of the Seine, mostly for people and products flowing between Rouen, Paris, and ports across the channel.

Its port profited during the Hundred Years’ War and boomed till the foreign blockades on Revolutionary France. Displaced by the deep water option across the estuary at Le Havre, Honfleur declined in maritime importance after Napoleon.

Adorned with an armada of masts and embraced by colorful structures of timber frames and slate façades, the inner harbor is lovely. Its beauty was admired and depicted by Boudin, Monet, and other Impressionists. And by us.

Tsunami on the Seine

After a couple nights at the mouth of the Seine, we reversed our bow and returned upstream.

Before the Revolution, about two hundred islands clogged the Seine between Le Havre and Rouen. Napoleon cleared them a decade later, easing passage and making river transit more reliable.

But the sea periodically pushed the Seine back into France, reversing its flow and flooding its banks. Four times a year, especially during powerful lunar pulls of Spring tides, the channel is thrust into the estuary. Sandbars at the shallow mouth inhibit flow, allowing a wall of water to build behind them.

The Seine narrows sharply just upstream from its mouth, creating a funnel that forces a small tsunami toward Rouen.

First recorded in the 9th century Latin chronicles of the Abbey of Saint-Wandrille, the phenomenon was easily observed at Caudebec-en-Caux, a Norman village founded near several streams that fed the Seine.

The French refer to this tidal bore as le mascaret, which was mitigated by postwar dredging, damming, and diversion of the river. But its historical force could be fierce, occasionally destroying modern vessels and previously slowing Viking advances.

Le mascaret is now rare on the Seine. But it’s found elsewhere, including the largest bore in the world up the Qiantang in China, the second largest at the mouth of the Severn in England, and the powerful “Pororoca”, which pushes the Atlantic hundreds of miles up the Amazon.

The most destructive wave to overwhelm Caudebec (“cold spring” in Viking vernacular) came from the east. The advancing Germans took the town in 1940, using incendiary bombs to keep the locals from leaving. Docks were destroyed, bridges burned, and most of the buildings reduced to rubble.

As in many cities in Europe, post-war rebuilding was aesthetically uninspiring. In most cases, it was for lack of funds. In some, it was for an over-abundance of architectural arrogance. In Caudebec, it was a bit of both.

Post-war inhabitants were afflicted with edifices of such people-repelling dreariness that they referred to them as “the barracks”. For their yellow tones and curved shapes, they’re more innocuously known as “banana” architecture.

But what survived aerial bombers and postwar rebuilders is worth seeing.

The turn of the 19th century Hotel de Ville… a classy Norman traditional cloaked in exposed brick and stone… is one of the them. As is the 12th century “House of the Knights Templar”, which is now a boutique exhibitionary that sells locally made ceramics and knives.

There’s no evidence the Templars ever used this place, but it’s a rare example of Romanesque civil architecture in Normandy.

As in many French villages, the most obvious gem is the main church. Henri IV called the 15th century Notre-Dame de Caudebec-en-Caux “the most beautiful chapel in the realm”.

He had a point.

Built on the ruins of a Merovingian abbey, the church is a masterpiece of Flamboyant Gothic. The western façade is a magnum opus of laced stone. Its portals boast three hundred apostles, saints, and scenes that inspired or frightened Medieval parishioners.

Atop it all is a magnificent openwork bell tower sculpted to resemble a papal tiara (regrettably scaffolded while we were there, its parapets and turrets are ostensibly marvelous). Mary’s Magnificat is carved in Gothic letters within the balustrade, and spiral stairways wind delicately toward the gates of Heaven.

Inside, massive pillars support the roof, shield the aisles, and define the nave. Elaborate tracery supplements and sustains 16th century stained glass.

Crafted in French and Dutch Renaissance workshops… many under the direction of Dutch glassmaker Arnold van Nijmegen…the pristine panes were spared by meticulous removal and storage during the Second World War.

Most Beautiful Ruins

Medieval Normandy was a kingdom of monks. Their ruins dot the region from Paris to the sea. Like a strand of pearls, several were commercially connected… with the winding Seine serving as a string.

Many rose from this river valley, accessible to its abundant fauna, flora, and fertile land. Vikings admired the bounty, and did what came naturally when something was appealing: They took it, raiding the hapless abbeys as they sailed upstream.

Among those they plundered and torched was the seventh century Jumieges abbey founded by St Philibert. The year after his invasion of England, William the Conqueror consecrated a replacement, which was reputedly larger than any Western building since Constantine.

Its Romanesque style was mostly frowned upon in the Île de France. But its sturdy construction and powerful aesthetic found favor among rugged Normans descended from Vikings.

Jumieges was a Medieval sanctuary of faith, food, shelter, and learning. It endured Huguenot looters during the Wars of Religion, and finally succumbed to the French Revolution.

As part of its aggressive antagonism toward the Church, the National Constituent Assembly suppressed the Benedictine monks at Jumieges, seized the property, sent its library to Rouen, and used the structure as a stone quarry for its fine cut masonry.

The surviving façade and towers preserve the virile form of Romanesque design. Behind and under them were eighty foot walls, composite arches, wood-beamed ceilings, and a Gothic choir.

Gardens surrounded a frescoed sixteenth century cloister and an eighteenth century dorm that accommodated the monks.

Around this proliferation of what Hugo called “the most beautiful ruins in France.” are rolling fields and farms filled with cattle, corn, wheat, and sugar beets.

Our shadows lengthened as we left the ruins and afternoon receded. After the short trip back to our boat, we gathered round a more active altar.

We joined other congregants in our usual pews. The priest took his place upon his altar. Within minutes, he began tolling cubes on the base of glasses, and called the faithful to evening prayers.

JD

Arromanches-les-Bains, France

July 15, 2026

Under a grey canopy of low clouds, relentless waves lash the shore.

There are certain horrors few of us can imagine: Antietam….Verdun… The Holodomor… The Terror… The Cultural Revolution… The Khmer Rouge.

The Second World War produced a litany of nightmares: Stalingrad… Okinawa… Iwo Jima… Monte Cassino… Dresden… Dachau… Tokyo…Nagasaki… Nanking.

And Normandy.

On a clear day, the cliffs of Dover can be seen from France. From Picardy, Norman boats crossed the channel to conquer England. Down the coast, beneath bluffs overlooking the beaches, are bodies of boys who came from Britain on Higgins boats.

They came clutching crosses, counting rosary beads, and kissing faded photos of pretty girls. When they hit the beach they gave their lives to fate, the future… and to us.

Departure

When I was in Maine last fall learning to build a house, we were repeatedly reminded that intersections, boundaries, and joints are where problems occur. The English Channel has historically been such a seam.

The coastline of mainland France stretches a couple thousand miles. Along La Manche, the thread is well-worn. On three occasions, it was ripped apart: the Norman Invasion of England, the British and French evacuation from Dunkirk, and on D-Day.

Saint-Valery-sur-Somme was the final point of departure for the fleet of William of Normandy. Storms forced him to change plans and move up the coast.

His ships had initially assembled at Dives-sur-Mer in Normandy, but were blown off course and sought shelter outside their home region. After waiting out the weather at Saint-Valery, William crossed the channel and conquered England.

He claimed that Edward the Confessor had promised him the throne. When Harold Godwinson was instead picked to be England’s king, William decided to annul that decision. He did so at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

Retreat

If northern France was a point of departure for the eleventh century Normans, it featured arrival and retreat during the Second World War.

The French are often ridiculed as cowardly cheese-eaters or wine-sipping surrenderers. But mockery is easy from the comfort of hindsight in countries unscarred by the ravages of war.

The First World War took an astounding toll on France. Between soldiers and civilians, almost two million Frenchmen were killed. Almost every village has a monument to the dead. After the war, birthrates collapsed as the Lost generation was unavailable to sire its successor.

Barely two decades after such devastation and carnage, it’s no wonder few wanted to fight, or that resources were lacking for those who did. For a while, it appeared direct conflict might be avoided.

Through late 1939 and early 1940, western Europe waged a “phony war.” The French and British dug in against a German attack that didn’t come.

Until it did.

The Wehrmacht rolled thru Holland and Belgium on May 10, and the Allies came north to counter. But the attack was something of a feint. The main thrust came further south, as a Blitzkrieg thru the poorly defended Ardennes. The British Expeditionary Force withdrew to Dunkirk for possible evacuation.

Dunkirk is as far north as the French coast goes. Nestled against the Belgian border, it’s the industrial hub of Le Nord. Le Plat Pays was once French coal country, but is now a bit of a rust belt. It was British territory in the 17th century, when Charles II sold the city to Louis XIV.

Almost three centuries later, the Germans surrounded it, forcing 340,000 British and French soldiers to evacuate. The nature of the aquatic retreat turned a humiliating defeat into an inspirational achievement.

Operation Dynamo was quickly devised for civilian vessels to transport tens of thousands of troops. Tensions rose between the British and French, who felt abandoned by their English “allies”.

German bombs had crippled the port, and beaches were too shallow for large ships to approach the coast. Conditions were dire.

An armada of small civilian vessels was quickly assembled to carry trapped soldiers to larger ships off-shore. But most men were retrieved from a flimsy breakwater known as the “East Mole”, that was never meant to serve as a dock.

Because it extended into deep water on either side, bigger boats could berth, picking up a greater number of passengers in shorter time. Low clouds also helped, keeping the Luftwaffe from attacking men lined up on the beaches.

French soldiers secured the perimeter, preventing Nazi advance and letting 340,000 men escape. Dunkirk fell a few days later. The rest of France followed that month, and succumbed to Occupation.

Les années noires of occupation, collaboration, and resistance lasted four years. It was finally relieved by a convoy crossing the channel from the other direction.

Arrival

If Dunkirk was the largest maritime evacuation in history, Normandy received the biggest amphibious invasion.

At Dieppe in 1942, the Allied raid was a disaster. Most of the invading force was lost. The rest were hauled to captivity.

Tentative planning for an amphibious assault had started in 1941, focused on the narrowest crossing at Calais, or in Normandy to the west.

Normandy was further from England, but less fortified, with firmer beaches, and with less clay to inhibit the landing of troops. It seemed the best spot to form a second front against Germans already entangled in the east.

To reach the beach, Operation Overlord needed 6,000 assault and landing craft, which had to be designed and built in short order. Planes and parachutes were also needed, to bring the troops that came from the air.

Others came amphibiously to scale cliffs. Waves would wreck the boats, and cast invaders away from the coast. The Germans laid hidden mines and other obstacles along the shore.

Everything depended on the weather. Well, almost everything. On June 3, embarkation began despite an ominous outlook. Most soldiers assumed it was yet another exercise.

Under inclement conditions, the invasion was delayed. For two days troops sat bored on the English coast, awaiting excitement they hoped never came. But for a brief window the forecast shifted, and Operation Overlord was on.

Gliders and parachutes preceded the boats. Expectations were that 70% of the pilots wouldn’t survive.

Off-shore, an armada steamed south, carrying thousands of men who’d given friends in Britain farewell letters to family they never expected to see again.

Waves lifted landing craft six or seven feet. Sea-sickness was rife. On the boats, helmets became vomitoria that were washed with sea water before returning to heads.

By 5:30, the French coast came to view. The first wave surprised the Germans, who expected an attack yet weren’t sure where it would be. But their batteries erupted when the naval assault started.

Chaos

General Eisenhower prepared two speeches before the defining moment of the war in France. One celebrated success; the other offered his resignation. On the morning of June 6, 1944, he had no idea which one he’d need to use.

Along the shore, dunes surround wide beaches, guarded by looming cliffs still littered with German pillboxes, bunkers, and gun emplacements. These were part of the Nazi defensive network that defended its overextended grasp on “Fortress Europe”.

In the overnight hours of June 5-6, American and British paratroopers dropped behind German lines, to help disable defenses and distract guns aimed over the sea.

The landings occurred the next morning, with Allied troops attacking five beaches beneath German guns atop commanding bluffs. With a favorable moon on the wane, 150,000 men, 2,000 ships, 4,000 landing craft, and 10,000 warplanes assaulted the shore.

The Americans formed the initial wave. British and Canadians came an hour later. Bad as the beaches were, sea sick soldiers were eager to get off the boats.

For the moment.

The beach was chaos. Bullets flew like insects in a swap. Some soldiers never made it to shore, their craft exploding on underwater mines.

Upon arrival, the Americans got the worst of it. The Air Force heavy bombers were supposed to provide cover. They never did.

On most beaches, German resistance was relentless. On others, they surrendered relatively quick.

Omaha Beach was particularly brutal. Along thirty miles of coast between Utah and Gold Beaches, Omaha was the only stretch where heavy equipment could land. The Germans knew this, and put a thousand gunmen atop the bluff.

The sea was rough and defenses stiff. Soldiers described so many bodies on the beach that men could walk across them without touching sand.

Battalions of men littered the shore, many with heads missing or limbs gone. Countless corpses bobbed in the water, recaptured by the channel they’d just crossed.

After taking the beaches, Allied armies established makeshift harbors to funnel supplies, vehicles, and reinforcements to sustain the move inland.

The Battle of the Bridgehead established space for the onslaught Overlord had opened. The Germans slowed the Allied advance. But within a week, Charles De Gaulle was in Bayeux.

Hedges

The worst storm in half a century struck the channel. The newly erected docks were damaged and supplies stalled. But quick action relieved the disruption.

After the Americans took Cherbourg, the British and Canadians targeted Caen. Over 2,000 bombers dropped high explosives, history’s heaviest air attack in support of ground forces.

Caen was reduced to rubble. The city was christened “The Crucible”. Half of it was destroyed. Several thousand residents became casualties.

Bloody fighting on the road to Paris devolved into “hedge warfare” amid the bocages normands… areas of dense hedges that cover much of Normandy.

By the end of August, Allied forces crippled the Germans, who surrendered France. But the Nazis planned to destroy Paris as they fell to defeat.

Demolition charges had been placed in the Opera, La Madeleine, and the Luxembourg. Trucks filled with explosives were sent around the city.

A communist uprising was also imminent, so Eisenhower diverted to Paris some of the troops headed from Normandy to Germany. Almost three months after the landings, city was saved.

Endless Jewels

As with the Great War cemeteries in eastern France, the rows of crosses that cover these cliffs reflect the courage and sacrifice of millions of men who freed France. Like veterans who are reluctant to discuss their experiences at war, the sand and surf give little hint of the horrors they saw.

The French suffered too. Preliminary bombings killed more than 15,000 civilians, with another 20,000 dying during the invasion. The fighting to break into France from the beaches was among the most brutal of the war.

The fight for France didn’t end on the beaches. That’s where it started.

Forty-four hundred Allied lives were lost on Normandy Beaches. Fighting in the hedgerows claimed almost twenty times as many. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost in the months it took to reach Paris.

All Allied veterans who fought in France during World War II are eligible for the Légion d’honneur, the highest honor that country awards.

Tourisme de mémoire is an expression that pays homage to those who sacrificed, and ensures their survival in collective memory. Few places are as worthy of the label as the windswept shore of northern France.

On D-Day 150,000 troops came ashore, and gained footholds on five beaches. For those who were there, it was either the longest day of their lives… or the last.

For us it was among the most moving. We spent it at Pointe du Hoc, Omaha Beach, and Arromanches, where artificial ports were built to enable the incursion after the landing at Gold Beach.

Two and a half million Allied troops came thru this town, which was liberated by the British. Off-shore, remnants of the breakwaters still exist.

After lunch, we spent an hour at the American cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, overlooking the east end of Omaha Beach.

Like endless jewels on grass cloth, ninety-three hundred crosses cover the ground, of which more than three hundred surmount souls known only to God. Among the buried, the average age is 24.

Fought within living memory, the Second World War was the worst calamity in human history.

But below the bluffs that bear the dead, the waves continue their eternal assault.

JD

Rouen, France

July 13, 2026

[NB: Previous installments are linked here, here, here, here, here, here, and here]

Three centuries after Clovis founded France, the Carolingian Renaissance was a fleeting flicker in a dark age. Between the North Sea and the Mediterranean, from the Atlantic to the Elbe, Charlemagne consolidated a kingdom.

Papal coronation affirmed his rule, emboldened the Church, and created a Holy Roman Empire that lasted till Napoleon snuffed it out.

Charlemagne was strong glue. But when he died, he left his empire to his son, whose children were less reliable adhesives. Within a generation, their fighting frittered their patrimony to pieces.

The Vikings were pleased to pick them up. For decades they’d raided the coasts and rivers of northern France.

During the ninth and tenth centuries they launched forty-seven attacks, many featuring hundreds of vessels with fearsome warriors at the oars.

They ravaged land, raped women, murdered men, and burned cities. Paris and Tours were repeatedly pillaged.

In 840, a Norse expedition sacked Rouen, beginning the subjugation of a region that would bear their name. Within the next half century, Beauvais, Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Bayeux (among many others) suffered a similar fate.

The onslaught was so severe that a prayer was added to the Mass beseeching God to “deliver us from the Norsemen”. Medieval kings were generally much weaker than modern presidents, and offered little protection from Viking invaders.

Because of this scourge, most construction during this time was of defensive fortifications, with few resources for ecclesiastical structures. These châteaux shielded serfs in exchange for labor, fostering the feudal system in northern France.

In 885, the raiders returned to Rouen before sailing up the Seine to plunder Paris. We came the other direction, floating down the Seine from the City of Light.

Lived-In Look

Camille Pissarro called Rouen “the most splendid landscape a painter could ever dream of.” Known as the place where Joan of Arc was killed and Flaubert was born, homages to each are everywhere.

With magnificent churches, Medieval architecture, impressive museums, and the great clock over an arch carved in Paschal themes, Rouen offers ample attractions for tourists.

But it’s also a real city… Normandy’s administrative capital and commercial hub, and the leading grain exporter in Western Europe.

Hugo called Rouen “the city of a hundred spires”. We’ll have to take his word for it; most were razed by the Second World War. Yet more than thirty survived that intensive onslaught.

The Luftwaffe bombed bridges from above. Central Rouen burned for two days because the invading Germans kept French resistors from fighting the flames.

Four years later, the Allies dropped the bombs. Anticipating D-Day, they wanted to keep German guns from reaching the beaches. After the landing, bombing resumed, to oust German resistance on the road to Paris.

Though the Second World War wrecked most of Rouen, what it spared remains lovely. Cobblestone streets, half-timbered homes, and spectacular churches like St Maclou and St Ouen entice guests while preserving a “lived-in” look.

France reserves Sunday for families, so most shops were closed while we were in Rouen. That’s OK. Sidewalks brimmed, cafés bustled, and the Beaux-Arts museum offered a permanent exhibition featuring the likes of Velasquez, Caravaggio, Delacroix, Poussin, Rubens, and an entire wing of Impressionists, including one of Monet’s thirty paintings of Rouen Cathedral.

Through the ravages of war the cathedral (barely) survived. Its transept portals, Tour de Beurre, and west facade that fascinated Monet all epitomize “Flamboyant Gothic”, the final, most sophisticated phase of that distinctive style.

With those at Sens, Chartres, Amiens, and Reims, this masterpiece in Rouen is among the five great Gothic cathedrals that encircle Paris as spiritual statements making political points.

France is filled with these structures, many of which replaced modest predecessors. They started sprouting in 12th century. Construction slowed during the Hundred Years’ War, and reaccelerated after the Black Death.

Occasionally, new churches rose out of necessity, after fire or decay destroyed their predecessors. But usually the impetus was religious fervor, power politics, and local pride.

Many are stops along pilgrimage routes, and require prominence to beckon from a distance. The bishops obviously recognized this, and wanted more dramatic, impressive, imposing cathedrals to proclaim their authority to approaching pilgrims.

Kings and merchants also favored large cathedrals to enhance stature, promote commerce, and provide a place to honor the Blessed Virgin or patron saints. As with modern desires to erect gaudy stadiums or tall skyscrapers, large churches connoted community prosperity and civic pride.

Erected by local lords, clergy, peasants, and guilds who expected to expire before the structures were complete, these monuments were generational gifts. Builders bequeathed these heirlooms to their grandchildren… and to us.

Height and Depth

Rouen is as far up the Seine ocean-going vessels can reach. Its proximity to Paris makes it a main harbor for foreign commerce shipping to and from France.

It’s also an important port for vessels carrying foreign passengers. Among them were those that brought the Vikings into France.

Within a century of capturing Normandy, the Norse became enthusiastic Christians. Abbeys and monasteries blossomed as precursors to the marvelous monuments the Middle Ages.

The “Gothic” appellation was applied much later, as an Enlightenment insult. With their affinity for “Reason” and disdain for religion, these critics equated Medieval architecture with the barbarism of Germanic Goths that overran Rome.

After a multi-century cultural void afflicted the Western Empire, Romanesque buildings bequeathed their form to the High Middle Ages, which often added flying buttresses to alleviate the structural burden on exterior walls. This let ceilings soar, windows multiply, and light pour in.

As we’ve seen at Reims and Chartres, these buildings exude mathematical order and geometric coherence. The Medieval Church considered God the Universal Architect, and science the means to decipher His design. Like sunlight bouncing off a lake, geometry was His reflection.

Twice the size of Nôtre-Dame de Paris, Rouen Cathedral features three asymmetrical towers, all built in different architectural styles. A cast iron spire added in 1876 made the structure the tallest building in the world (Cologne took the title four years later).

But the cathedral is known less for its height than its depth. Monet painted it three dozen times, to capture elusive light as it danced through different hours, weather, and seasons.

But he never once stepped inside. The structure unnerved the artist: “I had a night filled with nightmares: the cathedral was falling down on me.”

The church houses the heart of Richard the Lionheart and of several Norman dukes… including Rollo the Viking, who made Rouen the capital of the kingdom he conquered.

Nôtre-Dame de Rouen features the verticality, permanence, and iconography common to all great cathedrals. During the Revolution and Second World War, its permanence seemed precarious.

The Revolution stripped much of its statuary, and Allied bombing destroyed parts of the structure. Fires and lightning strikes have also done damage, after which the church was rebuilt, reflecting an institution that outlasts any of its stones.

Washed Clean

Where Rouen Cathedral reaches for the sky, the Église Sainte-Jeanne-d’Arc stoops toward the earth. Located in the Place du Vieux Marche where Joan of Arc was martyred, this ghastly heap would’ve appalled La Pucelle. It’s bad enough St Joan was killed in Rouen. Must the city “honor” her with such an awful edifice?

Joan wouldn’t have recognized this church as Catholic, especially in the sacred shadow of the grand cathedral that reflected her faith. The structure was built in 1979, and looks like a metallic tee-pee (supposed to resemble a flame - get it?) atop a concrete pyre.

Sixteenth century stained glass somewhat redeems this architectural insult. But for her service to France and the Faith, Joan of Arc deserves better.

Joan of Arc is to any city in France what Bobby Jones is to every golf course in Georgia. They all claim her. But only Orléans, Chinon, Domrémy and Reims can make a case that rivals Rouen’s.

France was reeling after the defeat at Agincourt. In the heat of the Hundred Years’ war, it was essentially a rump realm when Rouen fell to Henry V.

The next few years, every battle went England’s way. Then Joan arrived, and saved France. But she had some help.

When she was 13, St Michael appeared, imploring her to honor God and follow his law. Soon, Saints Margaret and Catherine also paid visits.

They eventually told Joan to find Charles VII, and help him claim his crown as King of France. This entailed inspiring his soldiers, and perhaps leading them in battle.

She’d been chosen by God, whose messengers told her to complete the task within a year. She did. At Orléans, she broke a six month English siege, repelled the enemy, freed the city, and rode to Tours to urge Charles to be coronated at Reims.

Timid as ever, Charles dithered two more months, during which Joan won more victories along the Loire. After ten days of pleading, she finally convinced him to go. Charles went to Reims and received his crown.

Within a year Joan was captured the at Compiègne by the Burgundians, who sold her to the English. Bishop Cauchon, who’d collaborated with the English and lost his see when the French recaptured it, had a score to settle with Joan of Arc. He was also promised the bishopric of Rouen for bringing her here.

She was taken to the Château de Rouen, where she was held for three months during her “trial”. Denied council, the 19 year-old peasant girl faced interrogation from about sixty ecclesiastics determined to prove her a heretic or a sorceress.

But Joan wouldn’t renounce her angelic voices. For months, she refused to relent. Five days after she reluctantly signed an abjuration she couldn’t read, she retracted, and went to the stake. Tied to it, on May 30, 1431, Joan was burned in the Place de Vieux Marche in the middle of Rouen.

Twenty-five years later (570 years ago last week), in the cathedral of this city, its bishop reversed the verdict, and proclaimed Joan free of infamy and “washed clean”.

Joan the Maid turned the tide of the Hundred Years’ War. Within two decades, the English would be evicted from France (excepting Calais, which they lost a century later).

Almost 500 years after she gave her life rather than renounce her Faith, Joan of Arc was made a saint.

JD

Versailles, France

July 12, 2026

[NB: Previous installments are linked here, here, here, here, here, and here]

The Seine was a sewer. Effluents of tanneries, butchers, and human excrement flowed into the river.

This wasn’t unusual. Most cities were filled with filth. That’s why nobles and kings fled to the country, which was filled with fauna.

Louis XIII went to Versailles, where he built a hunting lodge twenty miles from Paris. But his successor turned his papa into a piker.

Palace in Paradise

Louis XIV hated Paris. From an early age when he and his mother fled the Fronde, the young Royal despised his capital.

Amid political intrigue that risked his crown, the Sun King decided to skip town. He went west, and settled at the modest lodge his father left him. Fearing betrayal within his Court, Louis plied courtiers with luxury to buy their obedience.

The “lodge” sat on a rising slope within a rich woodland. Andre Lenôtre saw art’s potential to turn the site into a garden of the gods. As the main beneficiary, the King gave his gardener free rein.

Louis Le Vau and Hardouin-Mansart pioneered French neoclassicism in the architecture of Versailles. The construction and expansion of service wings on the forecourts and of the classical garden façade are their signature contributions to the royal estate.

In the gardens, Lenôtre imposed geometric order on a haggard wilderness. Like a seventeenth century data center, the Châteaux at Versailles consumed more water than the city of Paris.

Because the palace sits on a dry plateau, rivers were diverted to nourish gardens, fill ponds, and feed fountains. Most was pulled from the Seine into elevated reservoirs, then guided by gravity into fountains servants activated sequentially as the king walked by.

To supply deficiencies gravity couldn’t accommodate, a pumphouse was built at Bougival. The impressive Machine de Marly was an array of fourteen waterwheels on the Île de Bernaches along the Seine, pumping additional flow to ensure sufficient storage. The gravity-fed system is essentially the same today, pumping recirculated water from its drainage at the Grand Canal to replenish the ponds.

Aqueducts filled baths that washed the women who graced Versailles. Within this Elysium, the king’s second wife got her own shack when the Grand Trianon became a retreat for Mme. de Maintenon.

While Lenôtre massaged the landscape, Le Vau and Mansart erected a palace in paradise. The small hunting lodge erupted into a riot of apartments, galleries, dance halls, reception rooms, and administrative offices.

Under Louis XIV, as Church succumbed to state, architecture subjugated religion to royalty, and expressed state power over sacred devotion.

The size of the Court grew as the estate expanded (the property would encompass territory ten times greater than the grounds today). It included about 600 hangers-on when Louis XIV came to Versailles, but increased more than twenty-fold at the height of his reign.

Tough to Absorb

Versailles is impressive, but it isn’t elegant. Le Vau’s Vaux-le-Vicomte, by which Versailles was inspired, is more intimate and harmonious.

Many parts of the palace are appealing, but the whole is haphazard. The chapel is stunning, tho’ the over-the-top ornamentation must’ve distracted from prayer.

The château can be tough to absorb. Rooms queue sequentially, requiring passage thru several to reach the one you want. Many are smaller than we’d expect in such a vast building.

The Galerie des Glaces is an obvious exception. It covers the extent of the garden front, and astonished guests with tapestries, sculpture, fine furnishings, and the great mirrors that gave the hall its familiar name.

The ceiling is a masterpiece. Le Brun elevated it with paintings symbolizing the martial triumphs of Louis’s reign, some of which never occurred.

As Lenôtre was unleashed on the landscape, Le Brun had license to adorn Versailles’s interior with visual art. Like the palace, his contributions are more impressive by their profusion than their excellence.

A flood of Baroque ornamentation tends to drown the classical essence of each piece. But collectively, the two dozen frescos over the Grand Gallery and in the adjacent Halls of War and Peace are inspiring exaltations of the king who defined his time.

The château inspired imitation around Europe. At Vienna, Dresden, Stockholm, and St. Petersburg, rival princes wanted similar palaces of their own. Even Washington, DC was planned by a Frenchman, with long avenues, grand boulevards, and geometric design that emulated the new village at Versailles.

This pleasure dome had a political purpose. It was large and appealing enough to house the nobility of France, and to intimidate representatives from other realms.

Away from the ancient power their own estates provided, these dukes and princes became subservient to the king rather than his rivals. And the sovereign provided an assembly line of food, wine, music, and ladies to keep ministers under his thumb.

As should’ve been expected, the expense, arrogance, and optics of this bacchanalic indulgence was a recipe for revolution. Fortunately for the Sun King, popular temper took a century to boil.

The Chute

I was last in Versailles at the turn of the century. That was during Spring, when temperatures were cooler and crowds thinner.

Nôtre-Dame, Sacré-Cœur, the Louvre, and Eiffel Tower are the most popular sites in Paris. Versailles is on their heels, welcoming almost eight million annual visitors.

I think all of them were with us in the Hall of Mirrors. Subways in Tokyo have more space. After a private tour of the king’s rooms, a public viewing of the Queen’s quarters, and funneling thru State apartments like herds of buffalo in a Dakota canyon, we decided to escape the chute and go outside.

Under the monarchy, the exquisite park was open to the public. Fortunately for us, it still is.

The gardens of Versailles encapsulate the essence of style from late-seventeenth century France. The scale overwhelms, reminding guests where (and with whom) real power resided.

A Different Pit

Many walls at Versailles were honeycombed with corridors to prevent servants being seen as they served their masters. In 1789, those passages became fleeting lifelines when an unruly mob sought Marie Antoinette.

Across the realm, the earth had been stingy, with weak harvests yielding meager output. Centuries of government imperialism and royal extravagance had wrecked the currency and emptied coffers. Hunger and tempers began to rise.

Peasants packed into Paris, filling Medieval streets and alleys to live in filthy, violent, overcrowded slums. On the Rive Droit, districts like the Cours des Miracles became seedbeds of resentment and revolt.

Finance Minister Jacques Necker faced the impossible task of balancing the state budget. The nobility resisted incurring taxes to fill the hole, so the king dug a different pit.

He convened the Estates General at Versailles. This body hadn’t met since the early 17th century. Louis XVI would regret calling them now. The Third Estate decided they wanted more change than Louis was willing to make.

To get it, they created the first National Assembly, which met an indoor tennis court in the palace of Versailles. Attendees pledged not to dissolve till France had a new constitution.

Louis had other ideas. He tried to disband the Assembly on July 12, 1789. Camille Desmoulins climbed a table and urged Parisians to take action.

They did. Two days later, they stormed the Bastille. Royal officers were killed and the governor’s head was paraded on a pike. Only seven prisoners were freed from the fortress.

But the real prize was the ammunition stored inside, and the realization that Royal authority wasn’t invincible. The French Revolution was underway.

Three months later, working class women led a mob from Paris to Versailles to confront the king. To reach her husband’s chamber, Marie Antoinette fled thru the secret passages within the palace.

It didn’t work. The Royal family was imprisoned in Paris. Within four years, the king and queen would both be killed.

After furniture was confiscated, royal fleur-de-lys removed, and all art removed to the Louvre, Versailles was relatively quiet. After the restoration, Louis XVIII considered reviving it as a royal residence. Louis-Philippe made it a museum, which would also serve as stage for grand ceremonies.

Like a Guillotine

Eight decades after the Revolution, beneath the hagiographic frescoes in the Galerie des Glacé, Prussians would humiliate the defeated French, only to be subjected 48 years later to a revanche that imposed a fleeting “peace” on a weary world.

In the last year of the First World War, German guns bombed Paris. Fortunately, they missed the Louvre, which was an intended target. But they hit Saint-Gervais church during Good Friday service, and frayed nerves around the city. Otherwise, these explosions around Paris didn’t affect the war. Yet they encouraged France to harden the peace.

After losing Alsace and Lorraine in the Prussian War, the French were in a foul mood. The First World War made them destructively vindictive.

The process that produced the Treaty of Versailles became more about punishment than peace. The whole world would feel the lash.

Unlike when the Congress of Vienna included the defeated French as part of the settlement, delegates at Versailles didn’t invite the hated Germans until terms were announced.

The treaty was actually finalized at the Quai d’Orsay. Memories of the Prussian War and the Commune prompted Clemenceau to shift to Versailles for fear of uprising should Germans enter Paris.

But the notion of humbling Germans who’d humiliated France there half a century earlier was doubtless a major motivation.

The Germans didn’t come to the conference simply to receive conditions for peace. They were invited to Versailles to be vanquished - to unequivocally accept the accusation that they alone caused the war.

The terms of the treaty would wreck the country. It was less an armistice than a forced capitulation. It was something the Germans couldn’t sign. But under the circumstances, they had no choice.

The Galerie des Glaces was ornamented with a horseshoe table, before which, “like a guillotine”, sat a small table to receive German signatures. Twenty-one years later, at Compiègne where Foch signed the Armistice, Hitler would ostensibly dance a jig on the Versailles decree.

Foch himself saw it coming. He prophetically declared Versailles “not a peace, but a twenty year truce… The next time, the Germans will make no mistake. They will break through into northern France and seize the channel ports”.

In coming days we’ll move down the Seine and twenty-five years into the future, to see somber proof that Foch was right.

JD

Paris, France

July 11, 2026

[NB: Previous installments are linked here, here, here, here, and here]

Now we know why Napoleon invaded Russia. He was seeking a way to escape the heat. As I write, under a rising sun along the Seine, a cool breeze comforts Paris.

But morning air can be misleading. Yesterday’s temperatures tickled triple digits, pulling pedestrians into the shade, and making us appreciate that our lodgings offer chilled air.

We arrived Wednesday by rail from Reims, and settled into the Hotel Lutetia. My mother, brother, sister-in-law, and niece landed that morning. After several flight delays, our son and our niece’s fiancé joined us for dinner at Les Deux Magots.

After spending Thursday exploring some of the refurbished city, we spent Friday morning in the Marais.

Much as I admire Haussmann’s handiwork, I’m glad he missed the Marais. Straddling the Third and Fourth Arrondissements, this former “marsh” preserves the narrow streets, architectural styles, and Royal imprint that preceded the Empires.

The Rue St Antoine was a Roman road above the surrounding swamp. Philippe-Auguste drained the mire, paving the way to what became one of the more eclectic parts of Paris, and provided us a place to spend part of our day.

Trendy today, Le Marais had fallen on tough times at the turn of the 20th century, when city leaders considered razing it. Among the only blessings of World War I was that its expense (and its tendency to turn laborers into sacrificial lambs) stopped vast avenues from slicing this district.

Before the Sun King decamped to Versailles, Henri IV had created the Place des Vosges, and made the Marais a chic part of the city. But when Louis left, his sycophants followed. Their Marais mansions were subdivided into working class flats.

Since the 13th century, the Marais has also been the Jewish quarter of Paris. Because usury was prohibited for Christians, the king often encouraged Jews to lend money and get rich.

When popular resentment inevitably arose against this accumulation of wealth, the crown would squeeze the Jews like a soaked sponge, often expelling the victims to sop up their wealth. This cynical pattern of admission, exploitation, and expropriation would repeat for centuries.

After the Great War, Le Corbusier wanted to destroy the dilapidated Marais, replacing it with a district of 60-story skyscrapers, surrounded by “green spaces” laced with wide highways.

Minister of Culture André Malraux averted this vandalism with his eponymous 1962 law designed to protect traditional architecture, favor renovation over destruction, and preserve the identity and charm of old Paris.

The city was spared an unforgivable disfigurement. But not every wound can be avoided.

Urban Renewal

Like many of us, I tend to prefer what I know, and to resist change. Many of the cultural heirlooms I admire… be it Gothic cathedrals, Mozart’s music, or Shakespeare’s plays… were considered radical or wasteful in their day.

Most Parisians were appalled when Louis-Napoleon renovated their city. Swaths of buildings were demolished and vast neighborhoods ripped apart.

Residents were pushed out, some to settle on or beneath the Butte of Montmartre, where resentment simmered. After the Haussmann’s overhaul and the horrific siege and starvation of the Franco-Prussian war, many of these radicals had had enough.

They took to the new streets the Second Empire provided, laying down barricades and taking up arms. The Commune was the greatest revolt since the Revolution, and finally ended with fierce fighting at Père Lachaise cemetery, where its last leaders were placed against a wall.

A romantic nostalgia for Vieux Paris was created that lamented the replacement of the old city with a rigidly ordered modern (and sanitized) capital. Opposition was noted, but mostly ignored. The transformation of Paris would rank among the few urban renewals retrospect applauds.

After the Prussian conquest and Paris Commune, innovation revived under the Third Republic, and festivities flourished during la Belle Époque.

But after enduring desperate siege and humiliating defeat, the French retained an understandable disillusion. After being vanquished at Versailles, Paris had gone to war with itself… and with the rest of France. After the fighting stopped, life resumed with typical French flair.

Engineering Stunt

The first Impressionist exposition was held immediately after the Commune collapsed, reflecting an innate efflorescence after debilitating trauma. The Exposition Universelleof 1889 became an opportunity to boast of French accomplishments in the century since the Revolution.

Gustavo Eiffel led an engineering company known for building bridges. His firm was chosen to construct a centerpiece for the exposition.

He used the occasion to exalt iron as a construction material. The latticework of metal and pylons curving inward to meet at the center somewhat resemble a span turned on its side.

Eiffel’s tower was the tallest structure in the world. But it wasn’t supposed to stay. It was built as something of an engineering stunt, to make a statement by boasting what modern technology and French intelligence could accomplish.

That was good. Because much of Paris hated this “abomination”, what one writer called a “hollowed-out candlestick”. Another thought it resembled an “odious black factory chimney” casting its shadow across the city.

Guy de Maupassant used to dine in the tower because it was the only place in Paris from which he couldn’t see it. Even Eiffel called the impractical steeple a “three-hundred meter flagpole”.

Its main function has been to attract tourists and provide an emblem of Paris. It also became a radio transmitter, which was reason enough for the structure to stick around.

Visual Pollution

I can see how people could acclimate to the Eiffel Tower. But no one should get used to the Centre Pompidou, a multi-colored eyesore erected in 1971.

Among the many loathsome tendencies of modern architecture is the impulse to “turn the inside outside”, and display pipes, ducts, and escalators on the exterior so the interior receive maximum space.

This also expresses a desire to showcase the industrial mechanisms that make a building work. The pipe colors at Centre Pompidou represent the specific function each conveyance serves: blue for circulating air, white for subsurface ventilation, yellow for electricity, green for water, and red for people.

The effect is of a technicolor oil refinery that visually pollutes the elegant mansions of the nearby Marais. Locals were appalled… as they should’ve been.

Its sole merit is the great view, which is similar to that from the towers at Nôtre-Dame (with the added benefit of seeing the cathedral). It also is blessed by the advantage Maupassant ascribed to the Eiffel Tower: when you’re in it, you can’t see it.

As with much modern junk, the Centre Pompidou was wearing out mere decades after it was built. Predictably, its designer said that was proof of its “success”. In a way, he was right, much as Thomas Jefferson commended the drab buildings in Williamsburg for their susceptibility to fire.

Fortunately, aside from eyesores like the Opera Bastille, the Bibliothèque Nationale, Institut du Monde Arabe, and Musée du Quai Branly, the provocative urge Centre Pompidou represented wasn’t too contagious. Despite several infections, central Paris remains mostly immune from awful architecture.

Hate Crimes

Instead, the disease spread to the western periphery, to the modernist playpen at La Défense. Anchoring the area is La Grande Arche de la Défense, a horrid cube resembling an air conditioning unit that terminates Le Grand Axe connecting the Louvre, Champs Élysées, and Arc de Triomphe.

It should’ve stopped there.

Le Grande Arch “welcomes” us to a sterile village of hideous structures and banal towers of glass, concrete, and steel… a financial, commercial, and “entertainment” hub soulless enough to be a suburb of Houston.

As in Northern Virginia across from DC, skyscrapers assemble at La Défense to escape height restrictions in the capital. Unfortunately, one exception didn’t make it out of Paris. Like the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey, La Tour Montparmasse is hate crime looming over the south of the city.

At the east end of Le Grand Axe, IM Pei vandalized the Louvre with his glass pyramid in the Cours Napoleon, which is akin to spraying whipped cream atop a glass of Margaux.

Three smaller offspring surround the main monstrosity, which also protrudes like a core drill bit into the entrance hall below.

The ostensible intent of this transparent wart was to offer easier access to the museum. But as with much of what Pei built, it was mostly a monument to the architect’s ego.

Like Bostonians when Pei afflicted their city with architectural abscesses decades earlier, Parisians were justifiably horrified.

Some were disturbed by connotations of death associated with pyramids. Most simply acknowledged the “innovation” as ugly and out of place. As usual, it was mostly tourists who thought it was cool.

Paying Respects

In fairness, many of the Grand Projet have been uplifting and useful, notably the TGV rail network, the Musée D’Orsay, and the Channel Tunnel.

A couple decades after the Eiffel Tower went up, cast iron made an appearance in the luminous glass-roofed Grand Palais, the Petit Palais across the street, and exquisite Pont Alexandre III that connects these Beaux-Arts edifices to the Left Bank.

Each of these were built during the Exposition of 1900, from which the greatest monument is underground. Distinctive Art Deco iron works grace many entrances to Le Metro, one of the most extensive subways in the world. The first line started at l’Étoile; now fourteen flow under the city.

But the main artery thru, to, and from Paris has always been the Seine. At the Île de la Cité, thé river splits around the island. On the parvis facing the cathedral, a pavement plaque marks “Point Zéro”, the spot from which all places in France are measured from Paris.

An oblivious crowd walked upon it, oblivious to the geographic benchmark beneath their feet. Most were also unaware of the holy relic inside the church. I’d not gone inside Nôtre-Dame since before the fire.

My son had never been. Before paying respects to literary luminaries at the shrine to St Genevieve that became the Panthéon, we decided he needed to see Nôtre-Dame.

Remembering it was Friday affirmed our choice. We waited about half an hour in searing heat. When we finally entered the nave, throngs filled the church.

But the back chapel was relatively empty. Almost everyone walked past, unaware of (or indifferent to) what was positioned on the altar. My son and I quietly entered a pew, took to our knees, and prayed to Christ before the Crown of Thorns.

JD

Paris, France

July 10, 2026

[NB: Previous installments are linked here, here, here, and here]

In a world drowning in disunity, it’s comforting to find a sense of order - a consistency of style leavened with variety in detail.

We appreciate trees lining streets like soldiers in formation, shielding pedestrians from summer sun and passing cars. Grand boulevards blending with cobblestone streets and hillside steps. Façades on buildings tastefully tall, that exude symmetry to exalt beauty. Low-slung bridges crossing the Seine, linking quais and quartiers that remain distinct on both banks, adorned with emblems and statuary exalting heroes that glorified France. Dozens of neighborhood churches and museums, any of which would be reason enough to visit most American cities, are almost afterthoughts amid the abundance.

But the greatest monument in Paris is the city itself. There’s no other like it. It’s the suave sister its urban siblings long to be. But reconstructive surgery was required to evoke their envy.

Ramshackle City

At the time of Philippe Auguste in the late twelfth century, Paris was a city of wooden shacks and muddy streets. Its original Roman name, Lutetia, was an apt appellation (“marsh” sounds much better when translated into Latin).

Philippe, appalled by the offal and filth that marred “roads” along the Seine, ordered all paths paved with stone. During his reign Notre-Dame’s façade was finished, and the Louvre was built as a fortress guarding the Seine.

All this helped… but not much. Under Philippe Auguste, Paris became permanent capital of France. But much of the city remained ramshackle. For several centuries, plague, war, and religious turmoil kept it mired in dilapidated chaos.

Even the arrival of the Renaissance focused affluence and art more along the Loire than beside the Seine. While Valois chateaux rose between Blois and Tours, Paris bided its time.

At the turn of the 17th century, the Bourbons began beautifying the city. The Protestant Henri IV decided Paris was worth a Mass, and became Catholic to be crowned king.

During his reign the Pont Neuf and Grande Galerie du Louvre were completed. But his greatest bequest was the Place des Vosges, the former jousting ground that graces the Marais. Tall privacy walls and large wooden doors shield exquisite mansions, museums, and corporate headquarters on the other side.

Venus from a Cesspool

Despite decamping to Versailles, the Sun King continued making improvements to Paris that his grandfather began. The Place Vendôme was his most significant development.

Started by the architect-developer Jules Hardouin Mansart in 1686 as a for-profit townhouse ploy, the project began to wobble. Louis XIV was importuned to rescue it by putting the royal mint and other offices along the site.

At first, Mansart had erected only the building façades… as a Potemkin gimmick to entice buyers. When the scheme failed, they were torn down and the plaza was redesigned in 1699 to the familiar octagon it is today.

The Place des Victoires was a more successful private venture, a 127-foot-diameter circular plaza, also by Mansart, focused on an equestrian statue of the king.

But the main problem persisted. The Royal purse couldn’t sustain both Versailles and the city. So Parisians suffered cramped streets, filthy slums, awful sanitation, and inhuman housing for much of the populace.

But like Venus from a cesspool, beauty occasionally popped its head above the mire. The marvelous dome and complex of Les Invalides rose in 1671 as a soldiers’ hospital and home in a rural quarter on the Left Bank.

Across the river about the same time, Lenôtre laid out the Champs-Élysées. The boulevard became an elaborate entrance to Paris and a formal approach to a Tuileries Palace that rarely saw the Royals.

Touristy and a bit tacky today, when it opened the avenue was essentially a grand, expansive road through the woods. Development around it would mostly wait till after the Revolution.

As trees were depleted in the 17th century, virtually all new buildings were combinations of dressed stone, brick, or stucco. In 1667, the crown attempted to place height restrictions on Parisian houses, limiting them to five stories plus an attic. These caps were loosely enforced and often ignored.

Pebble in a Pond

The beautification (and sanitation) of Paris would wait till after the wreckage of the Revolution, and of a few that followed in the next half century.

The re-design was (literally) the surface achievement of the Second Empire. Emperor Louis Napoleon styled himself a “second Augustus”, envying how the first one made Rome “a city of marble.” With Haussmann as his prefect, he “ripped open the belly of Paris”.

During the operation, the entire abdomen was removed. The patient was in rough shape. For three centuries the population of Paris had exploded, with hordes of unskilled workers drawn from the stingy soil of a harsh countryside to the Medieval maze of Parisian streets.

The Seine had become the city’s main sewer. Streets were a fetid stew of pestilence, trash, and excremental deposits from hundreds of horses and thousands of men. Tenants piled into dilapidated structures that rose up to six stories above the street, with residents’ wealth declining inversely with distance from the ground.

Like a pebble in a pond, the new Paris radiated outward from the Arc de Triomphe. The number of avenues extending from l’Étoile rose from five to twelve.

Their names recall famous Frenchmen and Napoleon’s victories. The two exceptions are the Champs Élysées and the Avenue de la Grande Armée that extend each direction from under the arch.

Haussmann oversaw destruction of about 20,000 buildings lodging more than 100,000 people, particularly along the narrow streets in the center of the city. The outlines of demolished structures and streets remain marked on the Parvis de Notre-Dame, the open plaza in front of the cathedral.

Some argue that the tight Medieval maze made Paris tough for authorities to control, prompting the emperor to open it up to crack down. Perhaps.

But sanitation was terrible, with trash, human waste, and animal excrement ubiquitous, flowing thru streets to streams, and into the septic system known as the Seine.

At mid-century fewer than 5% of the city’s dwellings had running water, none of it clean. It came from wells that fermented fatal diseases. Cholera outbreaks were common, and became more likely as crowding continued. Some alleys retain the camber that once carried sewage down their center.

Haussmann tapped springs from the Champagne region as sources of clean water, and appointed Eugene Belgrand to expand a subterranean sewer system for Paris. He harnessed the hydraulic power of waste and rainwater to propel flow thru his expanding network of underground pipes.

Horizontal Sutures

At the surface, Haussmann’s grand boulevards served as horizontal sutures after reconstructive surgery, with unifying apartment blocks featuring friezes and balconies as horizontal seams.

Adorning these immeubles haussmanniens, a couple stories below the Mansard roofs, transition lines of cast-iron verandas and decorative friezes are civilizing influences, using geometry to accentuate urban order thru architectural unity.

Immeubles can’t be taller than seven stories. The cut-stone façade is their distinctive feature. All floors and windows are set at the same level, giving the buildings an appealing cohesion that helps stitch the urban fabric.

Entrances are often double doors between shops or businesses on the ground level. These establishments usually have high ceilings and a narrow mezzanine corresponding to a second floor.

Parisian buildings exude decorum. Aside from monumental government or religious structures, they don’t strive to awe the bourgeois with bold statements. They’re unified by elegance and understatement, with diversity reserved for storefronts on the ground floor. Other than the occasional flair enlivening the entrance, Parisian edifices tend to be dignified backdrops to activity on the street.

Most of these streets, and particularly the grand boulevards, are also deliberately assembled. Even wide avenues convey the intimate sense of cozy corridors. Most Parisian streets predate the automobile, many by centuries. Some, like the Rue St Denis or roads to Montmartre, were once country lanes leading out of Paris.

But the city has done an admirable job accommodating the car. Parisian boulevards are pieced together in an elegant way, allowing motor traffic, parking, and pedestrians to share the corridor in an amenable manner.

Even the widest roads, which are usually garish and revolting in the United States, are pleasant thoroughfares in the heart of Paris. This is because of conscious coordination among constituent parts.

Small medians typically line each side, hosting series of identical trees formally planted at equal spacing and standard height. These form an emphatic line along the street, making it look less wide than it actually is, while also separating side (local) lanes with parallel parking from the main flow of traffic, and offering shade and a psychological shield to pedestrians.

Streets are very ordered, with disciplined architecture featuring rusticated neoclassicism, with arched doorways and cut stone incised into a uniform array of outer walls. The ensemble is bound by beautiful buildings of appropriate height, with façades fronting the edge of the sidewalk, and often anchored at either end by a terminating vista of an iconic edifice.

Paris reminds us that appealing urban places are contingent on the ability to shape space with public buildings. In its plazas, parks, avenues, alleys, and promenades, Paris does this.

Shops, bars, and bistros line sidewalks and surround plazas, with waitresses, patrons, and pedestrians flowing in and out of adjacent buildings. This scene is common all over Paris.

In this city, as in much of Europe, people congregate because the setting is inherently appealing. Concerts, games, and gimmicks aren’t needed to attract them to town.

Geometry, Proportion, and Scale

The French place greater emphasis on geometry, proportion, and scale than their English-speaking counterparts. They employ these elements to infuse order and unity into public spaces. This is particularly evident in their parks.

With some notable exceptions, such as the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont on the east side of the city, most Parisian parks retain the Baroque formality of Lenôtre. Unlike informal “green spaces” in England and America, Parisian parks respect their purpose to present a peaceful part of a civilized place, not to pretend to be wilderness in the middle of a city.

Urban greenery is necessarily formal. Parisians understand this, and don’t use parks as palettes to replicate the rural. Like Parisian streets, the city’s gardens are layered. Just like the people they were designed to please.

But no place is perfect. Like any of them, Paris makes mistakes. Tomorrow we’ll take a look at some of the few things it’s done wrong.

JD

Verdun, France

July 8, 2026

[NB: Previous installments are linked here, here, and here]

“But here in this graveyard that’s still No Man’s Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man,
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.”

- Eric Bogle, “The Green Fields of France” (1976)

Every village in France has a monument to the dead… morts pour la patrie. About a million and a half French soldiers went to early graves between the Guns of August and the Treaty of Versailles.

This death toll exceeds what America suffered in the War Between the States and both World Wars… combined. Of eight million men France mobilized during the Great War, almost six million became casualties.

Traversing the green fields of northeastern France, the traveler can’t imagine that beneath sunflowers swaying under gentle breezes were pestilential pits resembling waiting rooms in Hell.

The ruts were deep enough to stand, but precluded their captives seeing over the top. Drudgery, disease, lice, fleas, flies, rats, excrement, flooding, and filth were the daily lot for millions of young men who’d barely escaped being boys. Many others never would.

With much of the front below sea level, trench depth assured soldiers’ shoes (assuming they had any) were always in mud. Water oozed from the walls. For more than half the year it fell from the sky.

Excepting seasons when it froze, bailing the seepage was a full-time job. During battle, emptying the trench wasn’t possible.

Even without rain (which was often relentless and torrential), the pits became open sewers that submerged torsos enduring enemy fire.

Along the front, battlefield mud was almost alive, with an insatiable appetite that consumed any man, machine, weapon, or horse that had the misfortune to step or fall into the hungry mire. Accounts relay that whatever did rarely got out.

The typical British, French, and German soldiers weighed less than 150 pounds. The average American may have contained 10-20 more.

But they wore, carried, or bore clothes, packs, and guns that could add another 100 pounds of soaked gear thru mud up to their knees and water over their waist. Trench foot joined shell shock as maladies indelibly linked to the First World War.

Ubiquitous Death

Incoming artillery often arrived in a deluge akin to drops of rain in a summer storm. Some might’ve welcomed the barrage of bullets, to provide eternal release from this abhorrent existence.

When fighting occurred, the troughs became muddy medical units and makeshift morgues. Stacked corpses reinforced sodden walls that otherwise caved at the slightest touch. As they became desensitized to ubiquitous death, soldiers used dead bodies as stepping stones, supporting props, or temporary tables within the trench.

This nightmarish existence persisted for years amid armed conflict at a scale no soldiers had ever endured. Artillery barrages were relentless in persistence and scope, with many shells emitting the yellow pall of poison gas.

The carnage was unfathomable. France suffered almost 300,000 casualties in the two-week massacre known as the Battle of the Marne, including about ten percent of her officers. And this was a French victory… still referred to in France as the “Miracle on the Marne” for how it was “won”.

In the first five months of fighting, France mourned three quarters as many dead as the Britain buried during the entire Second World War. Almost 30,000 Frenchmen fell on the first day of the Battle of the Frontiers.

It got worse. The British army suffered 60,000 casualties (20,000 dead) on the first day along the Somme… a battle that lasted four more months. That single offensive would claim more than a million casualties.

Numb Disbelief

We spent the day in and around the village of Verdun. Few places are as simultaneously solemn, harrowing, lovely, and revolting.

Between the first Battle of the Marne and Ludendorff’s last assault before the Americans arrived, Verdun joined Ypres as the sites of the only German offensives on the Western Front. The focus of fighting was the fortress of Douaumont on the right bank of the Meuse.

Verdun was the longest battle in modern history, and among the deadliest of all time. Vegetation has reconquered what was once a moonscape of mud, masonry, and human remains in which whole companies were buried alive.

Four hundred thousand Frenchmen were killed or wounded at Verdun, of which about 160,000 went under the earth. At Verdun, forty times more lives were lost in the battle than lived in the town.

The tower and crosses of the Douaumont ossuary guard the remains of 130,000 unknown soldiers in shared granite tombs. Down the road, we walked thru tunnels under the fortress French and Germans fought over for most of a year. After the fighting, the only upshot was destroyed towns, scorched terrain, and hundreds of thousands dead.

On the site of Fleury-devant-Douaumont, a village that vanished under the Battle of Verdun, the façade of a memorial chapel is graced by a Madonna. The Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-l’Europe mourns the town that died for France.

For France, the “victory” was “glorious”… yet Pyrrhic. Its devastating losses essentially assured defeat a generation later.

The Western Front carved these peaceful fields like a seismic fault that kept slipping. Within northeast France, the devastation and death were so extensive that they still evoke numb disbelief.

The Second Battle of the Aisne cost France 180,000 casualties. Unsurprisingly, within weeks of that slaughter (and after three years of senseless butchery), men began to mutiny.

They attacked their officers, decoupled engines from trains, and implored entire divisions to refuse to fight. Within a month, the insurrection afflicted half the French army.

General Pétain restored order before the Germans found out. He reassured his forces by letting them wait “for the Americans and the tanks.” U.S. intervention would tip the balance of this war, and press the scale to assure another.

The collapse of Russia relieved German forces in the east. Ludendorff made a final push to crush the Allies before more American doughboys arrived. This “Spring Offensive” claimed another 1.5 million casualties.

Pea Gravel

That summer, the Spanish Flu made its appearance, ultimately claiming more lives than the entire war. Through the infection, the fighting persisted.

German forces came within sixty miles of Paris before being repelled in the Hundred Days Offensive. This final campaign carried the war to its conclusion, with another two million killed, wounded, or unaccounted for by the time the Armistice ended the carnage.

Or did it?

East of the Rhine, communism was ascendant, revolution was in the wind, and ancient animosities erupted among ethnic tribes fighting over the carcasses of fallen empires.

To the West as well, “peace” was a passing illusion… a pause in a gruesome Thirty Years War. But France welcomed the respite to lick its wounds.

The catastrophe cost the country seven percent of its population. As with the British and Italians, more French were killed in the First World War than in the Second.

Even the late-arriving Americans, who (aside from the usual financial interests and munitions makers) had no stake in the outcome of the slaughter, lost men at a faster clip than in the War Between the States.

This afternoon, we paid respects to some of the dead. It’s almost impossible to see each of the thousands of cemeteries bearing bones of soldiers sacrificed in that worthless war.

We chose the French National Cemetery around Douaumont Ossuary, the tower of which depicts an artillery shell. Over 16,000 French soldiers lie here, plus those of a couple thousand Muslim colonists. Within the nearby fort, hundreds of German soldiers are also entombed.

Like pea gravel on a park path, tombstones and crosses pack together across northeastern France. After four years of incessant carnage, ten million men quietly screamed beneath the earth.

But while wreaths on their graves were still green, leaders in countless countries above the ground had already discarded what they had to say.

JD

PS - One of the best songs about this worthless war was written by Eric Bogle, and the Dropkick Murphys gave one of its most poignant performances (which, I grant, is not how Dropkick Murphys performances are usually described):

Reims, France

July 7, 2026

[NB: Previous installments are linked here and here]

Three centuries after Christ, the Roman Empire was coming apart. But fourth century Gaul was among the more materially prosperous, intellectually advanced provinces of the western realm.

The rising Franks had arrived from the east, pressed west by encroaching Huns. They were a hardy race that reveled in being free. That’s (ostensibly) what their name meant. They were enfranchised after liberating themselves by repelling Roman rule.

Though they could be fearsome fighters, they waged war less often than our own enlightened leaders. The Franks also left legislation that preserved relative prosperity and general peace.

These prescriptions were inscribed in the Salic Law. Though wide-ranging, its most consequential code proscribed Salic land being inherited into female hands.

A millennium later, this clause kept English King Edward III from capturing the French crown thru his French mother. That slight launched the Hundred Years’ War.

In the fifth century, a possibly apocryphal Frankish ruler called Merovech spawned a dynasty, and had a grandson who essentially founded France.

Clovis (a Merovingian version of “Louis”, the origin of eighteen French monarchs of that name) was fifteen when he took the throne as the “first” Merovingian, and consolidated his kingdom by grabbing northwestern Gaul. A few years after his death, the Burgundians abandoned Arianism for Catholicism, and succumbed to the Franks.

Clovis’s conquests reached Brittany and the Loire. They also included Clothilde, a Christian woman who became his queen… and converted him to the Faith.

Baptized by St Remi at Reims, Clovis set a precedent for his successors. After 1027, most French kings were crowned in that city’s cathedral.

For some, it took a while, which undermined their legitimacy. During the third phase of the Hundred Years’ War, the English invasion precluded Charles VII from receiving his crown at Reims.

After lifting the siege of Orléans, Joan of Arc led Charles to Reims to legitimize his reign. The tide of war turned, the English were ousted, and Reims retained a soft spot in French hearts. As does its cathedral, which has been our companion and guide since we arrived.

From the window and balcony of our hotel room, it fills the scene and awes the senses. From a distance, it’s a benchmark and compass: its eastern orientation provides direction; the twin towers become looming beacons that bring us home.

Style and Structure

Like the Scholastic summae of the Middle Ages, Gothic architecture synthesizes preceding traditions rather than exclusively adopting or rejecting previous forms. It represented systematic construction, creating overall coherence from individual components.

The cathedral often dominated Medieval cities. In Reims, which is now home to almost 200,000 people, it still does. After visiting it, we can see why.

With counterparts at Amiens and Chartres, Notre Dame de Reims is one of three major Marian cathedrals from the 13th century. The cathedral that preceded the current masterpiece burned down in 1210, when building began on the Gothic gem for which the city is now known.

Twin towers (which originally featured spires) entice the pilgrim as he approaches from the west. The front tympana boast rose windows that let evening light flood the nave. Though these heavenly filters replace sculpture that often adorns space above doors, statuary abounds around the façade.

More statues grace Reims cathedral than any other church in France. Thousands of saints, angels, prophets, demons, bishops, and kings fill archivolts and pediments, surmount columns, and consume space between the towers and beside the doors.

I’ve not seen flying buttresses as systematic and dramatic as they are at Reims. That’s because architectural ingenuity makes them hard to see at all. Their bases are capped with ornate spires that grace engineering with the gift of art, becoming decorative turrets that strengthen the structure.

Gothic vaults push outward against the walls. Flying buttresses redirect that lateral thrust into vertical piers on the exterior. But horizontal thrust combines with the weight of the pier to create a diagonal force. If that force’s vector tilts too far from vertical, it exits the base of the buttress, tempting it to topple outward.

The heavy stone spires atop the piers steepen the force vector, pulling it vertical so it stays within the middle of the buttress’s footprint. Because masonry is excellent in compression but very weak in tension, keeping the thrust-line centered prevents the joints from opening on the outer face.

The pinnacles atop Reims buttresses are unusually tall and elaborate. Many house tabernacles with statues of angels. That extra mass isn’t merely an ornamental flourish.

The added weight permits slimmer, more daring buttresses while still resisting wind loads and the thrust from the high vaults. In a partnership that was once an aspiration of architecture, style and structure perform supplemental functions.

The roof superstructure is a concrete copy of the wooden original destroyed in the First World War. To supply flexibility, oak pegs secure the reinforced concrete beams.

With the new roof being more structurally stable and less susceptible to fire, visitors are allowed to wander under the rafters - a space resembling an overturned hull of a concrete ship. We were proud to learn that American donations made this restoration possible.

A proliferation of immaculate stonework reflects admirable attention to detail. These craftsmen were indifferent to our inability to detect defects from the distant ground. Sculptures are everywhere. Angels, demons, gargoyles, beasts, and anonymous men make an appearance in stone.

Uncredentialed Expertise

Interiors of Medieval cathedrals are typically distinguished by a light choir and darker nave. But Reims offers the opposite effect, primarily because the stained glass windows were removed from the nave yet remain in the choir.

Reims features a three-part elevation of aisle, triforium, and clerestory windows. Verticality defines the nave, with bay pillars topped by intricate capitals.

Looking up, standard four-part vaults support a distant ceiling that recedes toward the sky. The triforium arches are sharply pointed, consistent with those connecting the aisle to the nave. Elaborate capitals enhance the columns, and epitomize the uncredentialed expertise that created these gems.

In most cathedrals, a wall separates the altar from the ambulatory. Reims does too. But the wall is low enough to permit a view thru the candelabra toward the west entrance. It’s astonishing. A pair of stained glass rose windows represent the interior of the tympana over the central doors.

About fifty statues surround the lower rose, including depictions of John the Baptist, Old Testament prophets, and the story of Melchizedek giving bread and wine to Abraham, with the patriarch dressed as a Medieval knight.

The choir windows are original, and the stained glass is a remarkable arrangement reflecting apostolic succession. The apostles grace the upper tiers, with assorted bishops (including the Archbishop of Reims and his subsidiaries) featured below. Reims cathedral itself is also shown, emphasizing its perceived primacy in the annals of France.

Ravages of War

Leaving the church, we glance again at the jamb statues around the central west entrance. Most notable are depictions of Mary and Elizabeth during the Visitation. Their graceful disposition differs from most stiff Medieval sculpture. The facial expressions and garment folds betray familiarity with the ease and flow of Roman forms and Greek art.

The “smiling angel” Gabriel has for six centuries greeted visitors at the west front portal. But he was forced from his post for a dozen years. The statue was decapitated during the First World War. The Germans had taken the town, and converted the cathedral into a hospital.

When the occupiers abandoned the city, the church received their heaviest artillery. Some of it hit the rear of the building, igniting pine scaffolding that was emplaced around the edifice.

Flames consumed Medieval rafters and beams supporting the roof. The heat caused some of the stones to crack, and severed the head from the neck of the smiling angel.

At the time there wasn’t much to smile about. By the end of the Great War, over 90% of Reims was in ruins.

Of a population of 115,000 that heard the guns of August, fewer than 2,000 remained to appreciate the Armistice. Many had hidden in Champagne cellars honeycombed beneath the city.

A sizable post-war sentiment wanted to leave Reims in wreckage as a memorial to the ravages of war (much as Oradour-sur-Glane was embalmed after the next world war). Fortunately, that inclination didn’t last.

Reconstruction commenced, and though the cathedral didn’t re-open till 1935, the smiling angel retrieved his head almost a decade earlier. Around the façade, other saints and angels attest the horror of war with their missing limbs.

What Matters Most

Before the First World War, Reims rivaled Chartres in the glory of its stained glass. Most of it succumbed to German shelling in the first months of fighting. The transparent panes are bandages on war wounds that never healed.

An exception is in the apse behind the altar, a set of 20th century stained glass in intense deep-blue: a deliberate nod to the lapis hue that’s common to Gothic glass.

But the images depicted in the panels… the Tree of Jesse, a mingling of the story of Abraham with the life of Christ, and the coronation of French kings… intentionally reflect modern influence, to remind viewers what was lost.

When we learned these panes were by Marc Chagall, a favorite artist of my wife’s late father, we were consoled that what matters most will always be with us.

JD

Reims, France

July 6, 2026

[NB: The previous installment is linked here]

“When a man say no to Champagne, he say no to life.”

- Julien Grinda in The Deer Hunter

“The magnum is the best format for two people… when one of the parties is not drinking”

- Winston Churchill

Seventeen years after the Nazis surrendered in Reims, its cathedral was selected for a ceremony presided by Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer, to celebrate reconciliation between France and West Germany.

They picked a city with ample fuel to fill their glasses. The Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon is the reputed creator of the beverage named for this remarkable region. But no one really knows.

Family Business

Another Benedictine, historiographer and theologian Dom Thierry Ruinart, lived amid the aristocracy of Paris in the age of Louis XIV. Among them he witnessed a fascination for “wines with bubbles” from his home region of Reims.

He shared his perception of commercial potential with his family, but died two decades before his nephew, Nicolas Ruinart, started the business. Demand grew so quickly that within a decade Nicolas abandoned his textile ambitions to sell champagne.

Established in 1729 atop the Butte Saint-Nicaise southeast of Reims, Maison Ruinart is the oldest producer of champagne in Champagne. The cellars are spectacular, accessed thru enormous underground rooms, excavated from the surrounding chalk down to forty meters under the earth.

It was these caves that sixth-generation owner Andre Ruinart opened as shelter to locals when Reims was razed by German guns. Today his descendants opened them to us.

Almost 140 steps burrow into a five-mile network of tunnels carved thru the soft stone. Subterranean walls reveal marks third-century Romans made when they quarried chalk from tapered crayères resembling conical flasks, which Ruinart adapted to ferment and age his fine champagne.

Much as I shun dark enclosures, part of me resisted entering these confined spaces. But the chalk walls lend a light airiness that alleviates claustrophobia. And I had to go when I learned Thomas Jefferson ordered cases from these underground vaults. On our way out, we did too.

Twenty-four Grand Marques, hundreds of cooperatives, and thousands of small independent producers dot the rolling hills around Reims. Machine picking isn’t allowed on any of them.

In Champagne, all grapes must be picked by hand. Each August, a hundred thousand of workers take a couple weeks to relieve the vines of ripe fruit.

About a half hour from town toward Épernay, past the village of Bouzy, Ambonnay nestles in the valley of the Marne.

Ostensibly established by a third-century Roman who gave his name to the town, Ambonnay is now home to Champagne Dominique Foureur, where vigneron Gaëlle Foureur and her brother manage a small estate her ancestors started in the 1850s.

Gaëlle guided us thru the tunnels and workshops of the family business she now runs. Producing about 15,000 annual cases from her ten acres of vineyard, Foureur makes champagne from her own grapes, and sells excess supply to other operators.

She emphasizes environmentally-minded viticulture, grassing over the vineyard rows to avoid herbicides (a common practice among producers in Champagne, including Ruinart).

Biological controls displace insecticides to alleviate pests. Among Gaëlle’s techniques are applying moths’ pheromone so males can’t locate females, which disrupts reproduction without spraying poison on the vines.

Against caterpillars that eat the buds, she deploys a naturally occurring bacterium emitting a protein toxin that afflicts caterpillars, but that leaves people, animals, and other insects unimpaired.

She demonstrated manual and mechanized methods of yeast extraction, cork installation, and label application during the bottling process, then welcomed us to her small tasting room to share results of her tireless effort.

Window to Heaven

France is famous for the fruit of the vine. It pours into millions of homes, bistros, cafes, and bars. But even in a country where faith is fleeting and many churches serve as municipal museums, some wine still fills the occasional chalice.

Remnants of Christian culture remain in Reims, most emphatically in ecclesiastical edifices that embellish the town. Notre-Dame de Reims anchors the area. But the nearby Basilica of St Remi was built first.

This eleventh century abbey replaced a sixth century chapel from which remains of St. Remi were moved. Though it survived the Revolution, the basilica suffered extensive damage during the First World War, and was assiduously refurbished during subsequent decades.

Smaller and darker than the nearby cathedral, the basilica is more peaceful and intimate than that popular church. Because of its blend of styles, it’s in some ways more architecturally interesting.

Begun as a Benedictine abbey built in the 11th century, the Basilica of St Remi is the largest Romanesque church in northern France. As with most ecclesiastical architecture surviving from the Middle Ages, it accrued additions and upgrades in subsequent eras.

As well as any structure, the abbey epitomizes the transition from Romanesque to Gothic. It also reflects the Catholic notion… derived from Pythagoras and Plato… that mathematics reveals the world’s relation to God. Geometry in particular was perceived as humanity’s window to Heaven, a cosmic blueprint connecting man to the Divine.

Ecclesial architecture in the High Middle Ages was a mathematical depiction of theologic principles and celestial order that exemplified symmetry, proportion, harmony, and beauty. The 13th century choir at St-Remi Basilica epitomizes this devotion to geometric consonance.

St Augustine believed God ordered everything “according to measure, number, and weight”. This influence is obvious to anyone entering the choir, a masterpeice of Trinitarian symbolism. Triple windows light three levels of the main apse. Multiplying the eleven bays in the elevation by the three stories of the choir yields the number of years Christ spent on earth.

The basilica is a transitional structure bridging architectural eras. Consecrated by Pope Leo IX in 1049, the transepts intersect a galleried nave extending 125 feet. As the original part of the building, this Romanesque core features the hulking walls, rounded arches, and thick pillars typical of that sturdy style.

The magnificent choir, radiating chapels, pointed arches, and groined vaults rode the Gothic wave of the next couple centuries. The stained glass gracing the apse and transepts also dates from this period. But lower levels retain the Romanesque aversion to large windows that jeopardized structural stability before later buttresses relieved lateral thrust.

Nave windows are correspondingly small… or (along the north aisle) blocked to preserve strength in the walls. Inside, elevation guides the transition from Romanesque to Gothic. Roman arches ascend toward groined vaults above the rounded windows of the clerestory. Similar cross vaulting supports the ceiling above the aisles.

An interior wall near the north transept reveals the architectural groping of those who built the abbey. Several windows appear to have been sealed, likely to enhance structural support for the Gothic Rose above the doors. Remnants of a column protrude about halfway up, presumably to support the pointed arches around prior windows.

The basilica houses remains of St Remi, the fifth century bishop and patron saint of Reims who baptized Clovis as first King of the Franks. The tomb of Clovis is also here, as is the Holy Ampulla - the glass vial containing the chrism that anointed the kings of France.

When Remi baptized Clovis in 496, the ampulla was ostensibly brought from heaven by a divine dove. It was found in St Remi’s sarcophagus in the 12th century and first used to coronate Louis VII in 1131.

As with almost everything else they touched, Revolutionaries destroyed it in 1793… though fragments were preserved and used again when Charles X assumed the throne in 1825.

Three French kings were anointed at St Remi, all before the cathedral was constructed. Since that structure was completed, such ceremony has mostly shifted from this church.

The “new” cathedral warrants its praise. But the old basilica deserves a toast.

JD

Reims, France

July 5, 2026

Atlanta boasts having the “World’s Busiest Airport”, as if that’s something to brag about. Why not remind everyone how awful the traffic is too?

Friday afternoon, we made it thru both, onto our flight, across the ocean… and into France the morning of the Fourth.

The airport at Charles de Gaulle isn’t great either. It’s busy, hectic, and (as we were reminded) can be quite disorganized. But at least it’s easy to escape.

Or so we’d assumed.

French trains are comfortable, fast, and frequent, and radiate from Paris like traffic from L’Etoile. But not all of them take us where we need to go. We had to board one to find that out.

Plane, Trains, and Automobile

As expected in summer, Parisian stations are packed… particularly at Charles de Gaulle. Around the atrium chairs were full. Walls propped the backs of prospective passengers, while luggage and floors supported their butts.

Overhead screens flipped train schedules like a hyper-caffeinated croupier. Yet the one to Reims never appeared. Within thirty minutes of departure I began to worry.

But then my SNCF app gave the signal. Our train would depart from platform 6. Relieved, we grabbed our bags and went toward the gate.

We weren’t the only ones. The mob moving out of the atrium resembled the evacuation from Dunkirk. The train to Champagne remained disconcertingly absent from the smorgasbord of cities blurring the board. But I trusted our app, and led my wife into the crowd.

We found our gate, and showed our tickets to the first agent we saw. With an indifferent smile she waved us forward.

Still uncertain as we inched toward an escalator that supposedly descended to our train, I asked another person wearing official colors. Then another. And another. Each assured us we were where we should be. But none could explain why schedules revealed no train to Reims.

“It’s OK”, the last one lied. “Ça viendra à voie B.” Well, if “it will come to track B”… then off to track B we’d go!

Once again, we hauled our bags thru the throngs, and wound our way to the appointed spot. Assured we were finally in the right place, we grabbed a seat, caught our breath, and began to relax as we awaited our ride.

A few minutes later, a train arrived. Because it was bound for Montpellier, we stayed put. Almost everyone else climbed aboard. But like giving financial assistance to a Nigerian prince, what we’d done didn’t make sense.

The platform was empty, our train was already supposed to have arrived, and our destination was still AWOL from any announcements. Something was off… almost eerie. I decided to ask another agent. When I did, his eyes widened and his voice rose.

“This is it!”, he insisted, pointing at the Montpellier train which had been sitting idle several minutes. “Get on! Get on! Now! It’s about to leave!”

I ran back to my wife, and told her (in what I’m sure was a very calm, composed tone) “LET’S GO! WE HAVE TO BOARD!!”

As we hustled, I wondered what I was doing. I knew where Montpellier was. That it was about 500 miles in the wrong direction should’ve fazed me. Yet I’d followed orders like an idiot, assuming a stranger in a uniform could’ve cared less where we were trying to go.

For all I knew, he and friends were buckled over laughing at making a moron of an American. But this one needs no help.

We clambered aboard, and the train started moving. Once it did, I again felt like I’d left the iron on. Going to Languedoc to get to Champagne didn’t seem right.

On a whim, fatigued and frustrated, I showed our tickets to another attendant.

“Oh no”, she gasped.

Uh oh.

“We’re on the wrong train?”, I sighed.

“No”, she said. “You’re in the wrong car.”

“But it’s the right train?”, I pleaded… enlisting hope as my only strategy.

“Oui”, she promised. “But you need to take another one.”

(What?)

“Get off at the next stop and go to platform 3. Take the train to Strasbourg. It will stop at Reims.”

At that moment it hit me what happened. Our tickets included our departure time, assigned seats, and final destination. Yet they kept an important step a secret. We were supposed to change trains at Marne-la-Vallée Chessy. It was like booking a flight from Pittsburgh to Paris and not being told about the connection in Atlanta.

At the next station, we hopped off, hauled our bags, and hurried to the Reims train. Assured we were on the right one, we sought our seats… which two people were in.

I showed them our tickets. They showed me theirs… which looked just like mine. They were in the right seats. A helpful passenger took a glance, and pointed out a familiar mistake.

“You’re in the wrong car.”

I started looking for Alan Funt.

But then I realized he was right. I’d been looking at our return ticket. For this trip, we needed to be one car up. There we found (our) two empty seats, and enjoyed a comfortable ride the rest of the way to Reims.

From the station we took an Uber to the hotel.

War Room

The Hotel Caserne Chanzy is centrally located, part of the modern façade of an ancient city.

The suicide of the West known as the First World War destroyed most of Reims. German bombs turned almost 90% of it to rubble and ash.

Because the damage during the Great War was so extensive, Reims was a fortuitous site for Allies to receive the German surrender after the sequel.

This was a common pattern since the Prussian war, after which the victorious Teutons proclaimed a unified Germany in the hall of Versailles. The French demanded the same spot to exact vengeance after World War I, which had ended with an Armistice at Foch’s rail car in Compiègne. Two decades later, Hitler chose Foch’s car in Compiègne for the French to submit when the Occupation began.

We wanted to see where this pattern persisted. After checking into our hotel and dispatching our bags, we decided to walk. Under warm skies of unblemished blue, we strolled toward a nondescript structure across the river from the center of the city.

The brick building once housed the Collège Moderne et Technique, but that purpose was paused when Eisenhower used the logistical advantages of Reims to make the school the regional base for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF).

For several minutes, my wife and I stood alone in the place where the war in Europe came to an end.

In a dark room below Ike’s old office, large maps fill each wall, depicting the Allied stranglehold on the Reich. These were irrefutable arguments to anyone in the room, and surrounded a long rectangular table hosting sixteen chairs.

Three are isolated on one side. In them sat delegates of the defeated regime, who asked that German officials and citizens be treated with respect. From the other side of the table, the request was met with the silence of disdain.

The Allies wanted unconditional surrender. When the document demanding it slid under his pen, Alfred Jodl had no choice but to sign. The next day in Berlin, Wilhelm Keitel ratified the capitulation.

Eisenhower was too contemptuous of the Nazis to share the room with their three representatives, so he let Bedell Smith procure their signatures. When the Germans left, Eisenhower met Jodl on his way out.

He had only two questions. Did Jodl understand the conditions, and was he prepared to carry them out? Jodl said “ya”, accompanied by a submissive bow.

Eisenhower warned Jodl he’d be held personally responsible if terms were violated. Then the General walked away, and never shook the German’s hand.

Works of Fire

War has always afflicted Reims. The Remi tribe arrived a few decades before the Romans. They were still settling in when Caesar showed up. When he did, his new subjects secured his favor by helping suppress restless Gauls.

Originally called Durocortorum to denote its configuration as a “rounded fortress”, the settlement soon adopted the name of its tribe.

The city is delightful. Elegant edifices mingle with Roman ruins and Gothic influences. Beneath modern Reims the second-century Porte de Mars (the widest surviving Roman arch in the world) and the half-buried cryptoporticus at the Place du Forum are relics of Durocortorum.

Notre-Dame Cathedral and St Remi Basilica are the most obvious Medieval mementos. Around them are blocks of Art Deco decor with classical flair, reflecting the era when the city was rebuilt: after bombardment of the First World War, but before the architectural assault inflicted after the Second.

The Art Deco building in which our hotel is housed celebrated its hundredth anniversary Saturday night. Red carpets, Jazz Age ornaments, and ladies adorned in period dress welcomed singers, musicians, and dancers to a champagne party along the cobblestone block.

Our Fourth finished with lots of music, plenty of light, and genuine fire works. A fire-eating flame twirler dazzled attendees as they swigged champagne.

Les sapeurs-pompiers were honored as saviors of the city, with a few of these firefighters using our hotel balcony to descend to the street. By the time they did so, the works of fire were doused, the music ceased, and the cathedral bells tolled a new day.

JD

PS - a firefighter preparing to leap from our balcony ledge, as your correspondent snaps a photo while sipping champagne:

Atlanta, GA

June 12, 2026

Sometimes we need someone else’s eyes to see our blessings.

Most of us view the world thru distorted filters. Everyone reading this has a digital colander that sifts facts to console preconceptions.

Images from across the country or around the world form or reinforce certitude about ambiguous (and mostly irrelevant) events. Having been manipulated by scenes on our screens that some algorithm wanted us to see, we end up knowing less than we did before we looked.

This is especially true of distant activities around the globe. But even up close, we should occasionally wipe the sheen from our windshield to get a better look at what we take for granted. Over the last week, a German tourist brought a squeegee onto X.

Latent Pride

“Freddy” is in America for the World Cup. Apparently, he’s a passionate fan of Cristiano Ronaldo and (naturally) of his own German team, so he plans to follow the Teutons and Portuguese wherever they play.

I first noticed Freddy last weekend when he posted from a “sketchy” MARTA station in downtown Atlanta. Within a few days, he’d become a phenom.

Not because he’s posting anything we’d consider extraordinary, but for reminding us of the “ordinary” things we seldom appreciate. He tubed the Chattahoochee, ascended Brasstown Bald, climbed Stone Mountain, and was amazed by the carving adorning that rock.

But most posts… whether admiring the gulf coast, experiencing a pit-stop at a Buc-ee’s, or grabbing quick bites at Wendy’s, Waffle House, or Taco Bell… are at “mundane” stops. Yet each elicits scores of comments about other “essential” sites Freddy should see. He seems to have reignited local pride in people who receive his posts.

Freddy has multiplied his following fifteen-fold (from under 30K last week to over 450K as I write) simply by showing rural Americans what they see every day, but with a wholesome appreciation that sustained immersion has rinsed away from most of his hosts.

This isn’t an indictment of Americans. They have the normal nonchalance that familiarity inevitably breeds. Europeans are no different. They doubtless smile when foreigners clog their countries to fawn at cultural abundance by which they’ve always been surrounded.

Simple Scenes

Travelling with a couple friends, Freddy has intentionally avoided the “boring” Interstates, preferring to visit the “small villages” (I love that).

He’s marveled at the arboreal canopy that covers Atlanta. Was awestruck by an eagle flying in the “Loveliest Village”. Visited WalMart with a sense of wonder. Is taken aback by gun racks at a Bass Pro Shop. “Chilled” in a hotel room watching the NBA Finals while eating Chipotle (something thousands of Americans were doubtless doing at the same time).

His isn’t a slideshow featuring Niagara Falls, the Empire State Building, Washington Monument, or Golden Gate Bridge (tho’ those are likely yet to come). Aside from a glimpse at Atlanta, his initial foray has avoided big cities. He’s become popular by offering genuine reactions to simple scenes across the South.

These aren’t “bucket list” sites everyone is “supposed” to see. They’re the type places locals regularly pass without noticing, or indulge with indifference.

But Freddy brings fresh perspective that’s almost always positive, tinged with innocence, and awash in amazement. Driving thru Gainesville, Georgia or up Lookout Mountain outside Chattanooga, he was astounded by the beauty of the homes. A Coke machine overwhelmed him with the number of options. Louisiana left him amazed how varied American terrain really is.

Freddy has definitely been noticed. The Governor of Alabama responded to his posts from Auburn by inviting him back. The New Orleans Saints and Pelicans gave him tours of their facilities. He’s had to warn readers that he’s only on X, and that they should avoid imposters requesting money on other platforms.

Before long, Freddy may not need to buy drinks or pay for a hotel. By becoming one of the best ambassadors the United States could have, this trip could compensate itself.

The Tonic

For all I know this whole thing is a gimmick. Maybe this wide-eyed “German” is some American college kid who found a way to get famous by taking a road trip. I doubt it. Freddy certainly seems legitimate.

But to some extent it doesn’t matter.

Approaching the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Americans needed a pick-me-up. Freddy’s charming updates may be just the tonic.

For years, cultural anxiety has risen as prevailing moods have wilted. Politics has poisoned the culture, toxified relationships, and sprinkled eggshells under every conversation. Even deciding how (or whether) to honor the Declaration of Independence became contentious.

These days, most things are… almost as if by design.

This country has plenty of challenges. I write about them all the time. Among them is a deepening vitriol that’s induced half the populace to detest the other.

Or so we’re led to believe.

But remembering the sieves through which our “information” arrives, we recall the old adage to “believe none of what we hear and only half of what we see”. Much of what passes for “facts” is served from algorithmic spoons designed to stir the pot.

Our screens should always be seasoned with grains of salt. Especially on social media, each person is fed what others want him to eat… even persistent cynics easily persuaded by endearing tourists.

We’re expected to think those we disagree with politically aren’t merely people with whom we differ. They’re opponents… “fascists”, “bigots”, “traitors”, or “commies” we’re implored to vanquish.

Destructive people are obviously out there. But most of us just want to be left alone, get along, and go about our day. We don’t care how someone voted, or whether they did.

In most cases… especially at sporting events, concerts, or community gatherings… we reflexively high-five or spontaneously hug people we’ve never met, regardless their race, religion, or ideology. We may not want to become friends with these people. Yet the thought of hating them never crosses our mind.

Grateful Guest

I have no idea what Freddy’s politics are. Why should I care? Unless he tries to impose them on me, they’re beside the point. In a free country, that’s how it should be.

He’s simply adoring a country many Americans have forgotten they love. That he does so in a style that’s genuine, cheerful, and wholesome is an elixir many Americans seem to crave.

Particularly in the type regions Freddy has visited, they’re tired of hearing their ancestors denigrated, their customs mocked, and their intelligence questioned. Like anywhere, these places have their problems, many of which are getting worse.

But those who live there love their kin, respect their history, and take pride in who they are. And they appreciate a grateful guest who reminds them why they should.

JD

Sea Island, GA

June 7, 2026

During the warming period of the Pleistocene, sea levels were fifty feet above… and the shoreline eighty feet west of… the current Georgia coast.

Glaciers never covered this state. But their northerly retreat deposited offshore dunes along the south Atlantic coast.

Adjacent to St Simon’s, Sea Island is among the newer buffers shielding south Georgia. It’s a Holocene whippersnapper, rising above the waves only five millennia ago.

For the last century, hundreds of exquisite houses and a couple luxury hotels have done their best to push it back under. But this speck of land makes for a nice weekend while it’s here.

Old World Charm

In the early 1960s, Philip Anschutz bought his father’s oil drilling company. With the returns, he entered a slew of industries, including real estate, railroads, sports, and entertainment.

In 2016, he ventured into hospitality, buying the Sea Island Resort. Among its prizes was The Cloister, an elegant assemblage of old-world charm from which I’m writing today.

Condensation usually coats the panes of the sublime solarium, creating an impressionist palette of Spanish tiles, stately oaks, and regal palms, enlivened by fresh rays of a rising sun.

But not today. This morning no moisture mars the glass. Amid a soothing breeze, humidity is low, the air cool, and clouds nonexistent. Especially for South Georgia in June, this weather should be hung in the Louvre.

As a supplement to morning coffee, Mozart supplies a soundtrack, as a couple lovebird parrots chirp their off-key arias.

I’m up the hall from the centerpiece of the complex. The Colonial Lounge greets new guests, while welcoming stragglers from the Tavola Bar. This elegant marvel forms a captivating foyer. Arcaded tiers adorn white stucco walls, atop which an upper clerestory sheds natural light.

Between here and there sits the Spanish Lounge, retaining the original design of architect Addison Mizner. After an update a couple decades ago, the entire edifice voices an honorable echo of his initial intent.

But this particular parlor… with its stately fireplace, timber beams, and roof deckings… is an exact recording. Down to the materials, the room is a faithful replica of Mizner’s work.

Among the premier architects of the 1920s, Mizner lent novel panache to Palm Beach and an upscale brand to Boca Raton.

Because of his success to the south, Mizner’s vision and talent were soon requested up the coast, to prove Gibraltar isn’t the only place the Atlantic meets the Mediterranean.

Influence also comes from the opposite end of the “Roman Lake.” Almost 700 area rugs cover the floors of this resort. Each of these pedestrian ornaments was designed and woven in Turkish villages. It’s as if Asia Minor awaited the Cloister… and it’s nice to know its patience paid off.

Change of Fortune

The first European came under arduous conditions three centuries ago, when James Mackay settled St Simons while serving under James Oglethorpe. Others came under horrific conditions, as described here.

For two hundred years, the island was relatively isolated, reserved for grazing by smatterings of plantation owners fending off natives from the interior, Yankees from the North, and malaria from the marsh.

Fortunes changed when a larger fortune arrived. In 1926, a beneficent Yankee was welcomed. That year, Hudson Motors tycoon Howard Coffin bought Sea Island.

He opened The Cloister a couple years later. When President Coolidge spent the following Christmas here, he put this place on the map.

Electricity, water, and phone service soon fed new “cottages” around the resort. A residential community arose, which today is as expensive as in any vacation destination in America.

Abundant Fruit

Not long after Sea Island found the map, it helped to shrink it.

Soon after the Cloister opened, Paul Redfern flew from Sea Island to Brazil. It would be the first non-stop flight from the U.S. to Brazil. His plane was sighted two hundred miles off South America. No one would ever see him again.

Yet the seeds he planted bore abundant fruit. Tho’ he’d never know how it’d be harvested, the vat he helped fill would ferment into ubiquitous flight we take for granted today. Attaining liftoff usually requires a runway.

Like a trail thru the sea oats, this note has been an aimless trek. Since I started, it’s taken me outdoors, to savor the most of this lovely resort. The air is soft, my coffee warm, the breeze cool. Off the back patio, the ripples shimmer as the river comes alive.

As always, the best times have been with my wife… over a round of golf at the Plantation Course, cocktails and dinner overlooking the ocean, or a soothing stroll along the beach.

It’s essential to seek and seize these moments. Like many Americans, we don’t do so enough. Far too often, special occasions drift by, waving frantically as we look the other way.

JD

PS - For observations and perspectives about places around the world, please consider the book I published earlier this year:

Savannah, GA

June 4, 2026

A soft breeze lifts the mist from the Savannah River. As the sun ascends, its light reveals a glorious day.

My office this morning is the Gallery Espresso, a charming café off Chippewa Square. I arrived before the rush, grabbed a cappuccino, and nestled comfortably into my al fresco seat.

I was here yesterday too, when the eclectic…

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Atlanta, GA

May 28, 2026

The best big cities are essentially assemblages of small towns knitted together. Like San Francisco’s districts or the arrondissements of Paris, they’re dozens of unique neighborhoods quilted into a cohesive whole.

America has few cities of such fabric. New York is an obvious exception, with dozens…

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