Paris: BlaBla capital of the world

Happy Earth Day everyone! Yes, we mean Paris the capital of the world of BlaBla Car, the e-mobility tech company. As we at Madeleine’s want to be cool while doing good, we thought we’d write something in honour of Earth Day.  And so we decided to share our piece on a very Parisian technology company, Read more

A London theatre update, a poem about the Thames for the early morning, and some unpoetic thoughts for a Saturday afternoon

We at Madeleine’s spent a most enjoyable Saturday afternoon in London discovering the city’s first new theatre in 80 years, the Bridge Theatre. “The Bridge” of course refers to the Tower Bridge, and the theatre was by the river and had opened with fanfare in the autumn of 2017 (with none other than Dame Maggie Smith Read more

Hong Kong’s 9 new MTR stations and musings on a montage of shots of old “steel folding-door” store-fronts

(photo credit: Freda Chan) A friend of Madeleine’s who is a wonderful photographer living in Hong Kong shared a most fascinating montage of shots taken of “steel-folding-door” store-fronts of traditional old-style stalls in the city – if you look carefully you can see the names of cake shops, furniture shops, grocery stalls, fishing tool store, Read more

More on gutters and Oscar’s London

So, we at Madeleine’s love this Oscar Wilde quote that “We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars”.  And we’ve included this into “Madeleine goes to London”. But Oscar, Oscar, where can we find you in London?  Flamboyant and witty, the playwright, poet and critic was born in Read more

The London of gutters, stars, fantasy stories, acrostic poems, and Harry Potter

We at Madeleine Travels love the “lower ground floor” flats in London.  While Oscar Wilde urges us to see stars from the gutters, we can certainly glimpse through to the partially subterranean living and dining rooms through the gutters in London (see Madeleine goes to London)! Might the Brits’ subterranean living tradition be related to Read more

Celebrate the best Shakespearean concoctions in London this summer and autumn

As we celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death this year, there are more than the usual amount of Shakespearean activities in London this summer. One of the most interesting is Henry V at the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park with Michelle Terry in the title role; as the Financial Times put it, “[I]t’s hard to Read more

Summer 2016 – top 5 summer operas to die for

Going to an opera performance on a lazy summer day is one of life’s true pleasures, and so we’re sharing below our “top 5” for summer 2016 … What we are looking for?  Great quality performances in beautiful outdoor settings over the summer months. With this in mind … be prepared to go to Europe Read more