Paris

Oscar Nominated Films That Inspire Travel

waipio valley ©paul (dex) Unless you’ve managed to avoid tv, internet and newspapers over the past couple of days, you’ve probably heard that the nominations for the 84th Academy Awards were announced on Tuesday. And while all the award buzz may be about the actors, directors, writers and producers of the nominated movies, travelers may [...]

Temporary Apartment Furnished by IKEA, Opens in Paris Metro

IKEA’s temporary apartment in the Paris Metro © IKEA France Facebook.com Last week, the Auber station in the Paris Metro was transformed into a 3-D version of an IKEA catalog. With just 581 square feet to work with, the company wanted to demonstrate how a confined space could be furnished. Five tenants lived in the space [...]

Beggars Banned From Paris’s Tourist Hotspots

Paris in Wintertime ©laverrue With the French economy in deep recession, the poor and homeless are crowding Paris’s doorways and metro entrances. In reaction to the rise of beggars outside Paris’s great landmarks, France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy has launched a war against the homeless in the city, setting himself against Paris’s very popular mayor. The [...]

DaVinci Code Finally Cracked?

Mona Lisa ©Oh Paris A 37 year-old oil painter and graphic designer claims to have finally cracked the mystery of Leonardo DaVinci’s elusive Mona Lisa. According to decoder, Ron Piccirillo, the coy Mona is disguising a menagerie of animal allegories. Piccirillo, discovered four lion heads, an ape and a buffalo hovering in the air after [...]

Eiffel Tower Won’t Go “Green”

Eiffel Tower ©Omarukai French authorities have denied reports that the tower will be transformed into the world’s largest tree. The denial comes on the tails of a story published by France’s Le Figaro newspaper reporting that the iconic Eiffel tower was considering a 72 million euro ($A96.09 million) project that would see 600,000 plants hung [...]

Paris’s Hidden Museums

The Wine Museum ©Nico Paix The Louvre. Musee d’Orsay. The Pompidou Center. Paris certainly packs a punch when it come to world-class museums, but if you are a traveler looking to explore a museum off a beaten path Paris certainly doesn’t disappoint. in an article for Gadling David Farley writes about the hidden museums of [...]

Exploring the Moment One First Emerges from the Paris Subway [Video]

This is the continuation of a series that explores that moment of uncertainty and magic that happens when you emerge from the depths of the [Paris] subway system. Lovely. (Also, check out Sub City New York.)

Travel Along With France’s Metro Wine Map

Paris Metro Map ©AnnieGreenSprings Dr. David Gissen, an architectural historian and wine buff has designed a graphically interesting way to view the various wine regions of France. Inspired by the style of metro and subway charts, the Metro Wine Map of France collects France’s various wine regions into “lines” and then designates popular cities as [...]

Inside David Lynch’s New Paris Nightclub

Inspired by the deeply strange Club Silencio in Mulholland Drive, the film director has opened a nightclub in the French capital. There were no dwarves. No dancing men. No one talked backwards – until the daquiries kicked in – and with the exception of the Japanese cowboy who turned out to be a fashion designer, [...]

Paris Airport Introduces Holograph Boarding Agents

Orly Airport ©nozomiiqel Yahoo News reports that travelers at Paris’s Orly airport will be greeted by holographic boarding agents. The holograms’ main duty is to welcome passengers and provide accurate flight information. Since the “virtual” agents are merely projections of real life agents, they will not be able to talk back to passengers. The good [...]

Undead Destinations

Bran Castle © Horia Varlan The recent pop culture obsession with vampires has led to a surge in fang tourism. Lonely Planet has compiled a list of the best places around the world to delve into the mystery of the undead. Explore ancient legends of beautiful Pontianaks– Indonesia’s version of a vampire–in their namesake city [...]

Paris Airport Tests Virtual Boarding Agents

Paris Orly Airport © nozomiiqel In Paris, travelers are now encountering “virtual boarding agents” who pop up seemingly out of nowhere. From MSNBC: The pilot project at Paris’ Orly airport began last month, and has so far been met with a mix of amusement and surprise by travelers, who frequently try to touch and speak [...]

Learn Travel Writing from Rolf Potts

In case you missed it, the inimitable Rolf Potts will be teaching a travel writer’s workshop this summer: Aspiring travel writers looking to hone their skills can learn from one of the best – Rolf Potts – at the Paris Writing Workshop, July 1 – 29, 2011. Join Rolf and other successful fiction and nonfiction [...]

Paris in 2,000 Images [Video]

Composed of just over 2,000 images, strung together in a complex time-lapse manner, it’s clear a lot went into the making of this visually stunning project. Indeed. Get the full video and an interview with its creator at Intelligent Travel Blog.

Paris Catacombs: Exploring the Urban Underbelly

Paris has a deeper and stranger connection to its underground than almost any city, and that underground is one of the richest. The arteries and intestines of Paris, the hundreds of miles of tunnels that make up some of the oldest and densest subway and sewer networks in the world, are just the start of [...]

Photo of the Moment: Sous le Ciel de Paris, France

Show Your Teddy Bear a Good Time in Paris for Only $140

A Bear About Town © Lisa Omarali From the “Does this even require comment?” file, comes this interesting news story. A retired French man is offering to show your teddy bears and other stuffed loved ones a night on the town in Paris for the low, low price of just $140: Here’s how it works: [...]

Photo of the Moment: Les Galleries du Louvre, Paris

High Culture on a Low Budget: Paris’s Musee Nationale du Moyen Age

The Cluny © wallyg It’s hard to imagine Paris while simultaneously ignoring the city’s roots in the Middle Ages. We have the Dark Times to thank for many of the streets, buildings, literature, art, restaurants, hotels, and, bien sur, Notre Dame. There is, thankfully, the Musee national du Moyen Age (National Museum of the Middle [...]

The Great Eiffel Tower Hoax

The proposed Eiffel Tower expansion project that we reported on a while back has been exposed as a hoax. According to a tower spokesperson, the idea is “preposterous,” and the entire scheme is a hoax. The news reports said that there were plans to add an extension to the globally recognized landmark to allow people [...]

Eiffel Tower to Receive an Extension?

Paris’ most famous landmark may receive an extension as part of its 120th birthday celebrations. A Paris-based architectural firm has won a contest to redesign the tower’s public access areas. The firm, Serero’s, winning design features an extension of the top floors of the tower, without the need for any permanent structural changes to the [...]

Artist Recreates the Scents of Helsinki, Budapest, Paris

Hungarian born artist Hilda Kozari has created an art installation consisting of three bubbles – one each for Helsinki, Budapest, and Paris – that she says represent what each city smells like. The bubbles are part of an Urban Olfactory Installation exhibit and have been created in collaboration with perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour. The sense of [...]

Paris Bids Adieu to Smoking

Yes, you read that correctly: Paris has banned smoking. Paris?!? The last bastion of smoking collapses. The city of cigarette thin women and chain smoking men is set to welcome a smoke-free new year. A no-lighting-up-in-public-spaces ban on smoking went into effect in Paris, France on January 2, 2008. Parisian Days of Yore / © [...]

Mobile Hotel Provides Room with a View

Is that a plane? A Martian spaceship? No, it’s Hotel Everland! A Swiss artist duo, known for their artwork that invites viewer participation has created a mobile one room hotel. The room includes a bed, lounge and bathroom and can be hoisted onto any surface. Right now, it sits on the rooftop of the Palais [...]