travel diaries

I'm impatient by nature... I don't like staying in the same place, doing the same thing twice. I travel a lot; it's part of my life and part of my job, which for me are inseparable. When I was at university in Paris, I travelled around Europe by car. I went from town to town,...

It's a sort of ideal suitcase, in the shape of a cardboard sheet. I've made a list of everything that should be in the suitcase: two evening dresses so I don't have to wear the same one again, medicine in tiny boxes so I don't get in the way, scissors and my little knife, which I don't want to take out again...

Conferences, symposia, pre-operative patient visits... These are words that, for me, rhyme with travel. Not very entertaining on the face of it! My job, however, has enabled me to travel in a way that I probably couldn't have done on my own. Thanks to my work, from 1974-1975 I was invited to travel all over the world...

First, you need a guide. Or a friend living abroad... That's why I've always opted for the local guide on my leisure trips. He avoids wandering around, wasting time that can't be made up for, the closed doors of museums where you don't know the opening hours... He makes your stay easier because he knows the...

Tokyo, that's a trip that really made an impression on me; it's funny, because at first I had no desire to go there! I thought the Japanese were so far removed from me, really foreign. In what language? In English? I was quite confused. In the end, all these apprehensions...

I was on my way to Geneva for some meetings. Next to me on the plane sat a musician. We started a game of chess... all the musicians play chess! It was such a beautiful game... We continued it in the airport, all day, without eating or drinking. We didn't go to any of our...