The Paris Charity Bazaar Fire

CW: While I've tried not to be overly graphic, this post does discuss the injuries and horrors of a historical disaster. I have not included photo references, but if you would like to see images of the building and the aftermath, please follow some of the links below. If you've been on Netflix (US) in…

The Baroness of Flight

On August 22, 1882 in Paris, one of my favorite figures from history was born: Élise Léontine LaRoche. Élise was solidly middle class, the daughter of a plumber. This perhaps explains her interest in all things mechanical from an early age. She loved motorcycles, cars, and eventually started flying hot air balloons before taking up…

La Maupin

Author's note: For the following biography, I found that most sources were very redundant, possibly because so little information about the subject can be confirmed. I found the link below by Kelly Gardiner to be the most complete, so if you enjoy this post, I encourage you to visit her site and check out her…

"What is your nationality?"

Can you guess where I spent Easter? Alice and I took a train from Florence to Paris on Saturday night. We had a three hour snow delay in the mountains, which means it took fifteen hours to get there (glad I brought my knitting!), but it really wasn't so bad, since we had a sleeper…

Mood: Incompetant

Am I the only one who has trouble navigating the Eurail website? All I want is a ticket for a night train from Firenze to Paris. I want to know how much it will cost for basic accommodation (as in, a place to park my butt for twelve hours so I can hopefully sleep), when…