Category: france

Biannual roundup of your favorite posts

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Above photo from Postcard from Toulouse, France: Falling in love one quirky detail at a time

The year 2022 brought a reshuffling of what blog entries caught your attention. You dove back as far as 2010, an indication of how long I have been blogging.

Barton Springs in Zilker Park, Austin History Center

You politely made one of the stories drawn from research for An Ostrich-Plumed Hat, And Yes, She Shot Him Dead your number one favorite, clearly attracted by Texans’ love of pralines. You continue to support efforts to populate Brackenridge Park with ghosts, and thanks for welcoming a post about my new hometown focusing on the history of Zilker Park. And the quirkiness that is Toulouse sparked your attention. In other words, your interests are as unpredictably wide-ranging as my posts.

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Postcard from Zaragoza, Spain: Vowing to map out street-art stalking

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Above: “No al Maltrato Animal,” #savethechicken

There are pockets in Zaragoza full of street art, but somehow our meandering paths this past spring did not stumble across many of them. The city’s efforts to turn abandoned buildings into artists’ canvases through its Festival Asalto can be found here, a website I wish I’d tracked down while there.

So this post combines a few of our snapshots of art seen on the streets with artistic commercial signs and will remind me to do a minimal amount of research before striking out on long urban walks on future trips.

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Postcard from Zaragoza, Spain: Seductive scallops and marisquerias

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Above: Zamburinas at Marisqueria Tony

Faithful making the long Camino de Santiago pilgrimage crossing from France through Spain, perhaps a 500-mile hike, wanted to return with a souvenir as proof of the arduous journey afoot. A shell found commonly on the Galician coast just beyond the route’s destination of Santiago de Compostela became that evidence, a variegated or calico sea scallop, zamburina.

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