Tag: London

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London’s Black Death–1665

The Great Plague 1665. Painting by Rita Greer (2009). By permission of the artist.
The Great Plague 1665. Painting by Rita Greer (2009). By permission of the artist.

One of the points I make in my new book Where Did They Burn the Last Grand Master of the Knights Templar? A Walking Tour of Medieval Paris, is that entire cities such as Paris and London are virtual museums—all you have to do is dig.

I also discussed this in my June 6, 2015 blog post Stop the Presses: Skeletons and Not Buildings. A dig in the basement of a Paris supermarket revealed the final resting place (i.e., burial pit) of many medieval citizens (likely from a now defunct hospital located near the pit).

Moving across the Pond, Londoners have been looking forward to their new rail system that goes through Crossrail’s Liverpool Station. That is until they dug up a burial pit containing the remains of 30 plague victims. Plague pits are actually quite common across England. During the 1665 plague, it is estimated that more than 100,000 London citizens (approximately one-fifth of the city’s total population at the time) died of the plague. Read More London’s Black Death–1665

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“New York City, London, or Paris?”

unnamedHigh Priced Living

I’m reading a lot about the escalating prices of homes in London and how we common folk can’t afford to live in the city any longer. So a recent article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ.com) caught my eye. It is entitled, Paris’s Haut Marais: From Shabby to Chic. It’s all about that too familiar story of a neighborhood that is run down, experiences high crime, and everyone stays away. But one day, several brave souls venture in, buy up some property, and begin to rejuvenate the neighborhood.

The Haut Marais (or Upper Marais) is essentially the part of the Marais District located in the 3e (third arrondissement or district). The southern portion of the Marais District is in the 4e and a common destination point for tourists. The article talks about apartment prices, the gentrification of the area, and some of dramatic improvements including several open air markets.

I decided to take a look at comparing some fundamental prices between New York City, London, and Paris. Here is data from April 2014 gathered by an online service known as Numbeo (all figures are in US$):

                                                                                      Paris               London           NYC

Meal for 2; mid-range restaurant:                        69.10              83.99              75.00

Domestic Beer:                                                            8.29                 6.05             6.00

Foreign Beer:                                                                6.91                 5.88             7.00

Milk (1 liter):                                                                1.51                 1.58             1.35

Eggs (dozen):                                                               4.33                 3.82             3.00

Bottle of Wine (mid-range):                                    8.29              11.76              15.00

Local Cheese (1kg):                                                  21.01              11.44              10.73

Gasoline (1 liter):                                                       2.26               2.34                 1.06

Basic Utilities:                                                           235.47          249.54              152.96

Cinema (one seat):                                                    13.82           20.16                 13.62

One pair of Nike shoes:                                            120               109                      89

Rent per Month (1 bedroom in the City):            1,578            2,470              2,857

Rent per Month (1 br. Out of the City):                 1,141             1,540              1,692

Price to Buy/Sq. Meter (in City):                           13,754          13,775              9,688

Now, its been a while since I’ve been in London or NYC but I can tell you (from first hand experience) that a beer in Paris is much more expensive than what Numbeo reports above. Another glaring exception is the local cheese. Sandy and I found that the least expensive food item when comparing to the US equivalents was cheese. We did notice on many occasions (regardless of where we went), shoe prices and specifically tennis shoes, were very expensive.

So what’s the lesson here?

Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.

Do we have a lot of stories? Of course we do. I’m looking forward to sharing these with you. Please continue to visit our blog and perhaps subscribe so that you don’t miss out on the most recent blog posts.

Thanks so much for following my blog and my little journey through this incredibly interesting process of writing a series of niche historical travel books and then getting the bloody things published.

-Stew

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