the cuisine part was fabulous accompanied by a real foodie who runs foodie tours and has a foodie book about Paris about to come out. He is a local where I am now and knew the area we visited really well.
the afternoon took a bleak turn with a visit to a town that was destroyed by the nazis in WW2 by a man on the rampage who clearly had fury in his heart and revenge on his mind. Given the nearby city had harboured Jews one might have thought that the lessons about revenge would be held in mind. though this is interesting to read as a perspective from those for whom this massacre is still visible and memorable
you can google the massacre and images of what is left. Standing as a reminder of the folly of war and revenge
this was a galling, stomach churning and awful site. I have read about it before but to see it has been another thing.
Which of course takes us to this absurd left wing right wing thing where some have tried to tell us that Hitler was somehow a left wing leader
what he was was a tyrant and as long as we try to take a simplistic binary view of politics we will fail to see that what matters more is lust for power, speaking with forked tongue, evidence of narcissistic tendencies, self glorification and grandiosity, and form over content. Appealing to base human instincts of survival, fear and otherness are red flags.
