for thirty years. The current GOP positions and statements on refugees reflect the decline and are disgraceful.

Fell head over heels for them all when I visited for a couple of weeks back in '03.

Hemingway's 'A Moveable Feast' has become so much in demand in France that it's temporarily out of stock. I put an OP in *Good Reads about it today, check it out. ~ Art, history and culture are my fields so France is definitely the place and Paris the enchanted City of Light. What sites and experiences have you liked the most?
I've seen Paris and environs, Normandy's D-Day beaches, the Loire chateau and the Dordogne and Provence in the south.

But the people I was there with spent a day hiking the city and I loved it all - the architecture, history, food, wine, and the "life is to be lived and enjoyed" attitude of the French. Went through Notre Dame and another cathedral, walked the Left Bank and the diplomatic district.

We stayed in the Opera arondissement and there was a hole-in-the wall 20 table restaurant across the street from the hotel where you could eat ike a duke, if not quite a king, for 15 Euros - three fabulous courses and an amuse-bouche. The wine prices there almost made me cry. In Lyon you could get a magnum of a wonderful Hermitage for 25 euros. Here a regular bottle of the same wine was $60.

Loved the view at the top of the Arc de Triomphe and just sitting and gazing at the Eiffel Tower and the Champ de Mars behind it. Also spent a few days in Lyon, which is Foodies' Heaven. Saw an amphitheater in the Old City that was constructed at the order of Julius Caesar. That even put the Cathedrale de St Jean into perspective, and construction on it was started 20+ years before the Norman Conquest.

Never been to Italy, but that's the only place I can imagine rivaling France for the Good Things in Life and so much glorious history.

about the culture, ambience and joie de vivre. We stayed in the Opera district once and walked to the little Hemingway Bar in the Ritz where the waiter gave me the best Pimm's Cup evah. The last night a French friend took us all over ending up at Harry's American Bar, 5 Rue Danou ('sank roo danoo'), the venerable hole in the wall where Americans have gathered since the days of Hemingway, Dietrich and Gershwin whose piano is in the basement.



Saw Saint- Emilion in the Aquitane when visiting Bordeaux in the SW. Great lunch and some incredible wines. The vineyards have been there since Roman times. Traveling back north to Paris on the high speed TGV train and looking at summer sunflowers out the windows was incredible. Too bad the US can't have modern transportation like the civilized world! Never visited Lyon but it sounds interesting. Do see Italy- awesome Rome, Florence and the beautiful, quieter countryside. A bientot!

the rest of the world - except perhaps the Italians - how they should live.

Friends toured and loved Italy's Amalfi coast on the Mediterranean- Capri, Positano, Pompeii, sigh.

I'd live in the tropics if I could, we can always dream. C'est la vie!

And (also just my opinion), there is no anthem that comes close to La Marseillaise for stirring, patriotic music.

Superb!