While I don’t consider myself an opera fan, the generous invitation of a friend to accompany her to the 150th anniversary of the legendary Wagner Festival in Bayreuth was an offer I couldn’t (or at least didn’t) refuse…
Author: michellefacos
I am a multi-lingual art historian, consultant (art, travel, writing), editor, entrepreneur, lecturer, and writer who has lived along the shores of the Baltic, the Mediterranean, and Lake Erie, in New York and in Paris, and in the forests of Quebec and Sweden. While I’ve lived a semi-nomadic existence for the past few decades, I’m inching toward a life anchored in Europe.
14 July – Bastille Day
Quatorze Julliet (or Bastille Day, as Americans have dubbed it) in Pau didn’t turn out to be festive in the way I anticipated…
La Vita è Bella
I love those days of blissful serendipity when you wake up with no particular plan, and then, while still in your pajamas, come up with one modest goal…
Homeless in Berlin at Christmas
A tidy, well-mannered, and elderly homeless man has taken up nocturnal residence in the covered portico of my friend’s building…
Adieu, Adine!
When Mother and I discovered and fell in love with Tolg’s ‘tailor’s cottage’ in 2003, we had no idea that a huge part of our Tolg happiness would be generated by you…
Recommendations
For me, it’s important to understand how my friends evaluate food just as it’s important to understand how to interpret Yelp or other popular restaurant rating systems in order to gather the desired information. I lunched recently in Paris’s Latin Quarter with friends with whom I periodically dine out. They had just returned from Sicily,… Continue reading Recommendations
Life Surprises
After three successfully completed marriages and a host of other unanticipated twists and turns…
Knut & Ute
Knut and Ute are farmers living in Germany’s Zittau Mountains, a gentle, Catskill-like range that stretches across the ‘Three Corner’ region…
Americans Abroad
Most Americans are descendants of individuals who left their homelands due to discrimination, famine, greed, poverty, war, or (in the case of many with Irish and African roots) colonial dispossession or enslavement. Perhaps the restless longing for a homeland and community—a reassuring sense of rootedness—is what shapes the American character?
The Commission
Monsieur Lacépede knocked lightly so as not to disturb the meeting, pushed the door open with his shoulder, set down a silver tray with Sèvres porcelain – two cups of coffee and a plate with four madeleines – on the table between them, and discreetly departed…