David Howell Travel Photography and Map Blog

Dreaming about travel. Savoring travel. Remembering travel.

Decent and kind people who you don’t share a common language with. Unexpected challenges. A smile. Patience. A comfortable seat at the window on a long train ride deep into the Alps. Curiosity with rewards. Quiet narrow country roads. Wind rustling the leaves of trees along a river whose name you can’t pronounce. Sheep bells. A muddy river in spring flood flowing out of a Mexican jungle. Birds with impossible colors….

A warm afternoon in the shade.

In a quiet back corner of the park. The bird songs mix with the background traffic sounds of Paris.

You have the last throw. Your teammate is depending on you to find a way to get closer to the bright orange cochonnet….

The incomparable Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

Many voyages started and ended in this former railway station on the banks of the Seine. The station was the hub for the rail system serving southwest France from 1900-1939. There were 16 underground tracks with the main station, great hall, and hotel above….

You don’t hear the rustle of the leaves on the gravel path or the scooters in the distance.

The long warm afternoon is fading but the autumn leaves still provide a reflected glow. There is enough light in the opening under the trees. You are still caught up in another time and place.

It is a good book. Time has been forgotten. Your mind is filled with vividly imagined villages, laughter, arguments, passions, fear, danger, and music….

What if he hadn’t done his math homework?

What if playing a video game like Grand Theft Auto had been more important?

Ieoh Ming Pei certainly did his homework. He completed architecture degrees at MIT and Harvard. Then he designed and completed buildings around the world. Architecture is an interesting mix of art, science, and math using both sides of the brain….

You can’t ride a camel to these pyramids. These are timeless pyramids, but not old.

This is a true oasis. An oasis from the pettiness and routine of daily life.

It would be easy to wander through the passageways and hidden alcoves for days. There are royal treasures and icons of ancient religions….

It is easy to get lost, or at least disoriented, in large art museums.

At one end of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris there are five stories. When we were last there, the impressionist paintings were on the fifth floor. But they had been moved since we visited previously….

Do you walk down the block to a café in Paris every morning to watch as the city wakes up?

Most people have a morning routine. Sometimes it is dictated by family responsibilities, such as making breakfast and getting ready for school or work. Other people choose to start their day in a public place….

Strolling the pre-dawn streets of Paris with a camera is an interesting way to start the day….

Time is different in an art museum.

For some, it drags on forever, while they wait for the art lover they are accompanying. For others, they lose track of time as they imagine the setting and ideas of the artists, tens or hundreds or thousands of years ago.

This ornate clock in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris calls attention to time. But….

This is a department store. We are trying to sell socks and batteries. Is there really time and space for art?

One of my current favorite authors, Edith Wharton, was a New Yorker by birth, but spent many years traveling and writing about what she learned. She felt that “…the French are a race of artists: it is the key that unlocks every door of their complex pyschology [sic]…” (French Ways and Their Meaning, 1919). Perhaps this sounds like an overly generalized stereotype. But I think that it is hard not to see the justification for the statement if you spend time in France, especially Paris.

Walking through parts of Paris you can see artistic planning and composition….