Hemingway on Paris and surrounds

The Writer's Almanac - Someone loved France!

On this day in 1922, 22-year-old Ernest Hemingway wrote to his father from Paris, where he and his had moved with his wife, Hadley, just a few months earlier, hoping to establish himself as a writer. He wrote:

 "Spring has come quite definitely here although it took plenty of time about it. It was a great change getting back here from the warmness of Genoa where I didn't need to wear a coat at all. […] The country outside of Paris and up into Picardy is beautiful. Fields full of big black and white magpies that walk along the plow furrows like crows do. Lots of larks too. There are lots of common birds I don't know, but I go down to the Zoological gardens that's right near our house and identify them. Saw a crossbill the other day.

"The forests are very wild and free of underbrush and cover all the hills and ridges. Hash and I took a forty-mile hike through forest nearly all the way. Forests of Chantilly, Chatallate, and Compiegne. They have deer and wild boar and foxes and rabbits. I've eaten wild boar twice and it is very good. They cook it up into a pasty with carrots and onions and mushrooms and a fine brown crust."