I rarely interact with the homeless, unless it’s to offer money or food…
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.
Greifswald on Sunday
If, on a Sunday morning between 9:30 and 10 a.m. you sit in the leafy park of majestic linden trees beside the Nikolai Dom, the cathedral, you will be treated to a symphony of bells…
Bregenz
If attending a performance of the Bregenzer Festspiele is not on your Bucket List, it should be, opera fan or not. It is always a magical spectacle, the likes of which you will not see anywhere else…
Friendship
For me, the real joy of travel is less seeing marvelous sights, although I like that a lot, but rather spending time—sharing bits of my life and doing normal, everyday activities—with those whom I’ve chosen to inhabit my world…
Rural Paris
What were you doing in late July 2020, during that first pandemic summer? I was rowing. Here, a teaser from my forthcoming book: An American in Pandemic Paris. A Coming-of-Retirement-Age Memoir:
Sisters
I have very few regrets. Undoubtedly the biggest one is the lack of a meaningful adult relationship with my only sibling. I keep a photo of us on my piano, a reminder of a time full of promise for the future, one where I see my love for her evident in the way she’s nestled in my protective arms. Big sisters remain big sisters.
Hainewalde
Hainewalde (‘grove forest’ in German) is a picturesque farming village nestled in the foothills of the Zittau Mountains near the Polish-Czech border with Germany…
Trocadéro Man
Trocadéro Man smelled like springtime and fresh laundry, spoke English, German, Spanish, Chinese, and Russian, was easy to talk to…
Six Degrees…
Sometimes your worlds—past and present, near and far—collide…
Father’s Day
He called me Macushla, after the 1912 song undoubtedly sung to him as a child by his Irish mother…