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Jardin des Cinq Sens: Yvoire’s magical lakeside garden
A brief history of a special French medieval garden on the banks of Lake Geneva in Haute-Savoie
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‘Village of cats’ in southern France is inspired by an old legend
Story of a young girl and her kittens has influenced the architecture of La Romieu, classified one of the Plus Beaux Villages de France
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When and why do we say c'est la sardine qui a bouché le port de Marseille?
Marseille, a ship, a very big sardine, and a stereotype
The Flight
The Flight, Gaito Gazdanov, Pushkin Press, £12 ISBN: 978-1-78227-162-8
WITH illicit romance in Paris and the Riviera, fabulous wealth and a hearty lust for life this story of a forbidden affair exposes the flaws of a family of Russian émigrés.
Gazdanov’s writing is inflected with hues of his adopted France in a playfulness that seems to say all is fine with the world… while all around lives and hopes are failing. The Russian names make this difficult at first but the quality of the writing encourages the reader. The themes of missing happiness and the pain of exile are ever-present but this is a tale of loves that cannot last...
