Month: November 2020

  • Five Alps mountain passes in two days, part 1

    Five Alps mountain passes in two days, part 1

    Like millions of people in 2020, due to the pandemic, we worked from home, stayed away from crowded places, and stopped traveling. Before the arrival of winter and the possibility of another extended lockdown period, we decided to go on a short road trip within Switzerland in September. Driving your own car is safer than…

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  • Mariage Frères, London

    Mariage Frères, London

    This visit to London was made in December 2018. The post has been sitting around for a while. We hope the store survives the pandemic with enough local customers while the tourists who frequent Covent Garden are gone. It was a long weekend. On our last day in London, we booked a place for brunch…

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  • Maison Assouline, London

    Maison Assouline, London

    Another post on bookstores. Assouline is a publisher of books that serve as luxury lifestyle accessories. They are based in New York but the flagship store is in London, opened in 2014.  We were in London during Christmas 2018. The store is situated between two other book-lovers destinations – Hatchards and Waterstones – mainstream bookstores.…

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  • Amazon Books, Walnut Creek

    Amazon Books, Walnut Creek

    We have posted on this blog many pictures of bookstores, and lamented the fact that brick-and-mortar bookstores are becoming rare and possibly extinct in certain cities. In the US, this trend is driven largely by the advent of e-books sold online. Amazon started their global online business with this retail concept. By chance, we came…

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  • “Their Morocco” by Mehdi de Graincourt

    “Their Morocco” by Mehdi de Graincourt

    This is our last post on Morocco which we visited in January/February 2020, just before the coronavirus pandemic hit Europe and Africa. The tourism industry suffered enormously worldwide.  We hope the lodgings and services we had enjoyed can bounce back quickly in 2021. We close this series with a softback coffee-table book I picked up…

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