Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

THIS wonderful place is full of the notable and famed.
Strange and touching stories about so many of the people buried here.
The two balloonists whose tombstone shows how they died, holding hands as their balloon went higher and higher, the oxygen running out as they went.
The lion tamer killed by his beast, eating the very hand that fed it.
Oscar Wilde’s tombstone covered in lipstick kisses, and The Doors’ Jim Morrison which the locals wanted removed because of the young ones gathering (they couldn’t because he has a permanent place there), Abelard and Heloise, Edith Piaf, Marcel Proust.
All the French geniuses, all gone, but never really gone at all.
Worth an afternoon of your time if you are there.

Travelling In And Appreciating Former Communist Countries In Europe

EVERYONE SHOULD go and see the former Communist parts of Europe and meet real people who are trying to survive and thrive through real adjustments.
Everywhere I have gone, I have found them to be kind and generous and pleased to meet me.
The buildings are beautiful, the food great, the people warm and the atmosphere exciting and so much better than the jaded old hack places like Paris, Rome and London.
The people in places like Bulgaria, Poland, Macedonia, Ukraine and elsewhere have endured so much trouble, and I admire them so much.
In the spoiled West, we have become so cynical and pampered.