Summer Promotions in France

July and August in Europe, in particular France, have the notion of being very busy and so some travelers avoid going in these months. For sure there are some things to know about travel in France in those months, but some deals can be had still.

What to know:

Paris does not shut down in August. I can't believe this generalization still circulates but invariably we will get the question. Paris metro area has a population of more than 10 million people; to say it shuts down is inconceivable. On the contrary, Paris is a great place to be in July and August. As a former resident I can tell you that you notice it being a little more quiet among the neighborhoods, but parking is easier, the metro is a little less crowded, and other small niceties. For tourists, the sites like the Eiffel Tower will be packed as much as ever, but most will not notice any kind of shut down. The exception might be a restaurant or local business that takes vacances for a couple weeks or even an entire month. IN this city there are numerous places to eat, no way is there a lack of options!

Paris hotels offer low season rates in July and August. We are offering a free night when at least 3 or 4 nights are booked.

The sun stays up very late into the evening and makes walking in Paris wonderful; but of course anywhere in France you notice this. Going on a cycling tour or hiking tour will give you more daylight hours and those very pleasant evening twilight hours to explore.

What to watch out for when you travel around France: Typically French and Europeans traveling through France to the southern beaches and Spanish beaches travel on weekly formats. House rentals are always Saturday to Saturday. So, in July and August if you want to take the Autoroute on weekends, expect traffic, especially at the toll booths. The big weekends this year will be July 15, July 29, August 12 and 26. Note that August 22 is a holiday and so is July 14 in France. On the worst of these weekends, you could expect to be stuck at a toll booth line for more than an hour or 2! You could get off the Autoroute before Lyon and go around, same at Nimes.

As an incentive for some of our cycling tours in the southern regions where it can be a bit crowded and hot in Provence we are giving all bookings for travel in July and August a free Eddy Merckx cycling jersey! And, in Dordogne, we are offering a free night stay in Bergerac!

Et voila,

L

Watching the Tour de France in Paris

July 23, 2006 - The Tour de France will finish on the Champs Elysees in Paris, and you think you can't go? Every year we get some last minute requests by people who want to watch but aren't quite sure what to expect. Also, many people think that with the Tour coming to town that hotels can't be found.

So, here are some things to know about going to this big event:

1. Tickets cannot be purchased and are not for sale. The Tour de France is open to everyone - for the most part. And, EVERYONE usually attends. Crowds are massive and its a free for all. Basically, you will see what you can. It helps to be tall. Tickets don't exist. There are passes that are available to the grandstands and these are for sponsors of the event and "VIPS". Typically, people connected with teams, their families, sponsor businesses, the organizers, politicians, etc. If you can get one of these - you are golden - but don't count on it.

Some tips to view:

a. rent a room with a restaurant, hotel, or other "establishement" overlooking the avenue. Avoid the ends of the avenue where you won't see the finish, but only the peloton when it laps. This is an expensive option and requires a large group.

b. go down early, and stand. bring sunscreen and water!

c. stand on the railing along the Tuileries Gardens - you will have a great view of the Rue du Rivoli section, but won't see the finish line.

d. push

e. climb a pole

f. watch it on TV

What to expect: wall to wall sardine can bodies squished and sweaty. If you are claustrophobic - avoid this. You can expect to walk about a mile out of the way around the Concorde to reach the Champs Elysees from Rue du Rivoli. Using the metro is good, but expect to be sandwiched the minute you emerge from the Concorde station and others on the route. The underground passages under the Rivoli and walkways through the Tuileries are good ways around the mess - for a while.

Be sure to stick around after the awards and ceremonial stuff. You can get some good photos. Historically, the very swank Crillon Hotel gets all the celebrity cyclists and some of the post event parties. If your are feeling spendy, you might get a room.

The finish is mostly ceremonial except for the stage victory and final sprint which is a very important stage to win. Crashes often happen. Its a sprinter's stage, and so the overall race winner is almost never in the fray. Its also typically a day when the French get a chance at some national pride.

Book your hotel away from the race unless you are going big $$$ to have a room with the potential to overlook. Note that no hotel will guarantee a specific room, so don't think you will get a room over looking the Champs Elysees if you book a hotel on the Avenue, you may face the back garden for the same price! In fact, get a deal, we are offering FREE nights in July and August. Stay in a quiet area away from the race, and go see what you want and then leave. See our listings at Paris Charming Hotels.

Enjoy the race.

Dollar Tanking Against Euro

Europe travel is going up - yes, that means cost! Well, if you hold US dollars it is really getting more expensive. But, the Euro has gained value on a number of currencies and so most travelers to Europe from outside the Eurozone will find things more expensive.

What is shocking is the rapid loss of value by the US dollar. In the last 3 weeks, the dollar has dropped from 1.22 to almost 1.3 today. On a trip of 1000 euros, that is an $80 increase, or 6.6%. You may so, oh well. If your trip is 2000 euros, then its $160. If you are a couple, that is $320 more for the same trip. Tour operators who handle hundreds if not thousands of people will lose dramatically. As we price in Euros, we continue to send upwardly revised invoices to clients who understandably grumble at paying more. So what can you do?

Watch the markets and be aware of dips and then lock in what you can. This latest drop has come so quickly it will have caught many off guard and not allowed any kind of recovery. A person could pay for travel on the dips in the exchange by paying at the best exchange rate possible. Note that most individuals will have to pass through a broker to buy Euros and there is always a premium for that. It may also make sense to buy actual cash from a forex service before travel if forecasts for a rise continue.

In other words, if you plan to travel in September and forecasts for Euro/dollar exchange at 1.38 hold up, you could consider buying a couple thousand euros now and use it to pay for everything on your trip. Credit cards will get the best rates at the time of purchase, but just about all add 1% service charge now too.

There is an element of gambling to this. Nobody knows what rates will do, and economists have been wrong, very wrong, before. You could buy Euros today for your September trip at 1.3 and the rate might go down to 1.2 by then. You would be upside down a little, but the cash is still good.

Use the link above to watch the news and keep track of trends and forecasts.

L

Orangerie in Paris Re-Opens

For our cycling and hiking travelers passing through Paris:

Monet waterlilies to bloom again at renovated Orangerie

PARIS, May 5, 2006 (AFP) - Bathed in natural light as the painter intended, a set of shimmering waterscapes by the French Impressionist Claude Monet go back on public display this month after six years under wraps, when the renovated Orangerie Museum in Paris reopens its doors.


The museum is due to reopen to the public on May 17 when last minute work on the building is complete. Entry will be free from May 17 to 21.
The national museums 28.9-million euro redesign also provides a new 1,000-square-metre exhibition space for one of the country's major collections of Impressionist and modern art.

The new museum restores to prominence Monets 'Les Nympheas' a monumental set of eight two-metre high canvases depicting ponds and water lilies. A 1960s redesign had obstructed a skylight over the long oval rooms designed by the artist to house the canvases, depriving them of natural light.

"Its unique — there's nothing to match it elsewhere," curator Philippe Saunier told AFP, referring to the arrangement of canvases — with a combined length of 100 metres — that are stuck to the walls of the ground-level exhibition rooms in the Orangerie.

"The work on light is the very basis of the Impressionist approach. It was meaningless that the works of Monet should not benefit from it," he said, speaking at the museums inauguration this week by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres.

Monet painted the Nympheas between 1914 and 1926 at his French country home in Giverny, in the northwestern region of Normandy. He offered them as a gift to France in 1918 following the end of World War I.

The artist intended the Nympheas rooms, with the soothing colours of the water scenes, to be an "asylum of meditation", according to information panels in the museum.

The museums other holding, the Walter-Guillaume collection, comprises 144 canvases by painters including Auguste Renoir, Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, André Derain, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani and Henri Rousseau.

The 1852 Orangerie building stands next to Paris Place de la Concorde in the Tuileries public gardens, where it was built as an annex of the nearby Louvre museum.

Originally opened in 1927 housing the Monet paintings, the museum was expanded in the 1960s to accommodate the Walter-Guillaume collection after it was sold to the state by the widow of the Parisian collector Paul Guillaume.

By the time it closed in 2000 for renovation, 500,000 visitors a year were flocking to the museum.

A team led by architect Olivier Brochet set out to undo certain features of the 1960s design, making the Nympheas directly accessible from the entry hall and removing an extra concrete floor that had been installed over their display rooms.

For the Walter-Guillaume collection, they dug out a new space below ground level, also lit by natural light and including an auditorium and a 500-square-metre room for temporary exhibitions.

But the reopening was delayed for more than a year by an unexpected archaeological find in the ground below the museum. Workers in 2003 discovered a 55-metre stretch of a 16th-century defensive town wall cutting across the area scheduled to house the temporary exhibition space.

The government ruled that the archaeological remains should be preserved, obliging architects to alter the planned shape of the exhibition space so the stones could remain in their historical position.

A 20-metre stretch of the wall is now visible inside the renovated Orangerie. The overall space of the museum has been almost doubled to 6,300 square metres.