Janet's Jaunts Blog

Martinique island girl turned Empress

On my recent visit to Martinique I stayed in La Pagerie, where the island girl who became Empress Josephine as Napoleon’s wife, was born and spent her early years. Even 200 years...

Martinique is magnifique

A flashlight beam came up from the pitch black darkness as we drove between banana groves on a rutted red-dirt road on Martinique. “They’re hunting land crabs for Easter dinner,” explained our...

Summer a season of challenges

Summer as a time of setting goals and meeting challenges was the subject of my recent travel section in which readers heard from a man about to set off on a 500-mile dirt bike challenge over...

Why Lyon is the gastronomy center of France

  Study the geography of Lyon, in south central France equally distant from Marseilles and Paris, and it’s easy to understand why many people consider it the country’s food capital. It lies at...

Lavender season in France

I’m recently back from France where I spent time in the Rhone Alps region around Lyon. There July’s blooming lavender was covering the landscapes sometimes next to huge fields of blooming sunflowers who turned their...

Surfing in landlocked Munich

  It was a rainy day in Munich as our guide stopped the van at the south end of Englischer Park near the modern art museum. It was an early May day...

Yummy Sunday at Tampa’s Thai temple

Few others seem to know of its existence but regulars at the Sunday Morning Food sale include those from Tampa’s growing Asian community and the international couples stationed at nearby MacDill Air...