Happy Holiday week, everyone! My name is McLean Robbins and this week I’m taking you on a photo tour of my hometown of Washington, D.C. during one of its most popular weeks of the year – the Fourth of July! I’m taking you along for the ride on Instagram, where you’ll see all that the Nation’s Capital has to offer. From iconic monuments to my favorite city eats, you’ll see some of the area’s best sights.
Follow along on Gadling’s Instagram account, @GadlingTravel and #ontheroad, as I discover what the area has to offer through late Sunday evening.
Of course, we love to hear from you as well, readers, so any suggestions of places to visit, must-eat foods or travel tips are warmly welcomed!
The Tour De France Takes Over Nice
Nice, the resort oasis in the south of France, may be best known for the intense, steel-blue of the Mediterranean Sea, but for a few days this July, yellow was the color of note.
We arrived in Nice less than 24 hours before nearly 200 of the world’s best bike riders took over 25 kilometers of the city’s streets. The Tour de France is more than a sporting event for the French people; it’s a nearly month-long national holiday and point of immense national pride in France.
Just how popular is the race? Last year, nearly 20 percent of the French people lined the roads to catch a glimpse of the peleton screaming past. Although it’s been nearly 30 years since the last French champion, five-time winner Bernard Hinault — a fact that gnaws at the collective French psyche like bad red wine — it doesn’t diminish their love of the event.
Leading up to the race, Nice was awash in yellow — the jersey color signifying the Tour’s leader — as seemingly every other person wore a hat, T-shirt, or other article of clothing dug from the back of their closet matching the distinctive hue. Tour talk dominated conversation, both among the French and the thousands of cyclotourists who swarmed into the city to catch the action.Sitting in an outdoor café near the Promenade du Paillon the night before the race, fans good-naturedly joked about the team time trial happening the next day. A couple of Britons near us predicted a victory for Team Sky and its leader, Chris Froome, while a table of Aussies rooted for their countryman Cadel Evans and his BMC squad. (They were both wrong. Australia’s Orica-Green Edge would eventually win the stage.) I can only imagine our French waiter was waiting for the next stage more suited to the strengths of Team Europcar’s co-leaders, Thomas Voekler and Pierre Rolland.
Blocks away from our hotel, the Mercure Promenade, thousands of fans crowded an expo sponsored by Tour organizers. The giveaways from the various sponsors were a massive hit with the fans; every other person wore a hat adorned with the logo of LCL Bank, sponsor of the yellow jersey. Nearby, a DJ spun tracks atop a specially modified Skoda hatchback, attracting numerous bikini-clad ladies from the rocky beach below. The cycling kit of AG2R la Mondiale is often ridiculed for its garish baby-blue and brown hues, but fans still lined up six deep to grab a scarf with that same color scheme. We managed to grab several of each as cheap souvenirs for our jealous friends back home.
In the days before the event, the streets were nearly overrun by amateur cyclists of all shapes, sizes and abilities, who took to the streets test themselves on the same roads the pros would later conquer. Bike riders are commonplace in Nice – the city boasts an impressive bike share program called VeloBleu. After a quick phone call, my wife was able to rent one of the heavy, steel-framed behemoths for an hour for a mere Euro. We tooled around the city streets, amazed at how courteous and patient the drivers were. (It shouldn’t be too surprising, given how seemingly important bicycles are in day-to-day French life.)
I’m hoping the rest of the country is equally as bicycle friendly as Nice. For the next week, I’ll be riding some of the Tour de France courses with more than a dozen riders with Sports Tours International, a British outfitter specializing in adventure travel. Included on the route are two of the giants of Tour lore, Mount Ventoux and the Tourmalet, both of which top out around 2,000 meters. For a cyclist who spends most of his time training in the relatively flat state of Indiana, it should be a heck of a ride.
Archaeologists Unearth Treasure-Filled Tomb In Peru
It has been a busy couple of weeks for archaeologists across the globe. First, a team of researchers discovered a lost city in Cambodia and then a week later another team made a similar find in the jungles of Mexico. Not to be outdone, a group of archaeologists in Peru have unearthed a tomb filled with mummies and treasure that dates back to a pre-Incan civilization known as the Wari.
The thousand-year-old tomb is located approximately 185 miles north of Lima, not far from a dig that revealed two similar finds back in 2010. The burial chamber is located two meters below the Earth and was buried beneath 33 tons of gravel. It is believed to be the final resting place of three Wari princesses and the first undisturbed royal tomb from the Wari civilization. Because of the wealth that was contained within, the archaeologists who discovered the site toiled in secrecy for months fearing that if word got out about their discovery tomb raiders would surely strip it clean.
When they opened the tomb, the Peruvian and Polish archaeologists found 60 mummies sealed inside. The majority of those mummies were women and had been buried standing up, which belies their royal stature. Many of the mummies were wearing jewelry made of precious metals while well-preserved vases and wicker baskets filled with other treasures littered the floor at their feet. All told, more than 1200 silver, gold and ceramic objects were uncovered inside the royal tomb, which also contained pots, ceremonial knives and other more mundane objects that remain priceless in terms of cultural value.
The Wari people were a prosperous and powerful group of coastal dwellers who rose to power in northern Peru around 500 A.D. Internal strife seems to have taken its toll on the civilization, however, and by 800 A.D. they were already in decline. By 1000 A.D. the Wari were merely a shadow of their former self and shortly thereafter they all but disappeared from the region. Archaeological finds like this tomb are helping researchers to piece together more information about Wari culture, however, giving us a clearer vision of what life was like in Peru more than a thousand years ago.
American Airlines Serving Instant Ramen Between Dallas And Seoul
American Airlines recently announced a new direct route between Dallas/Fort Worth and Seoul‘s Incheon International Airports in an agreement with Japan Airlines. In addition to mentioning the “special attention [they will give] to the culture of the airline’s Korean customers” in their press release, American also briefly mentions offering “Shin Ramen Noodle Cup as a snack option to customers in all cabins.” Shin Ramen is the most popular brand of instant ramen in Korea, where the cheap noodles are so loved and a part of the culture that they are often sold in restaurants and commercials featuring the infamous PSY constantly air on television.
American Airlines is clear that this will be served only as a snack and not as a replacement for a meal on the nearly 14-hour flight. However, with the far from pleasant reputation that airline food has, adding it to the menu is more likely to receive jeers from passengers than cheers, regardless of the renown it has in its home country.
[via The Korea Times]
Is Priceline Lowering Its Standards For 3-Star Hotels?
I’ve been a devoted user of Priceline’s “Name Your Own Price” bidding tool for years. In the past year, I’ve written columns here on how to game their bidding system, how to overcome their new bidding hurdles, and another piece about trying to decode their star system. I still love the bidding concept but after several negative experiences of late, I have a few words of cautionary advice on how to bid for hotel rooms.
Two years ago, Hotel Deals Revealed did an analysis comparing Hotwire to Priceline on how generous they are in assigning star levels to hotels and concluded that Priceline was more cautious in assigning stars (i.e., they weren’t overrating hotels). But based on several recent experiences bidding on three-star hotels in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and London, I think Priceline has lowered its standards for how they classify three-star quality hotels.While bidding on three-star hotels in the U.S. in the last three months, I’ve gotten Holiday Inn hotels on four consecutive occasions. Each hotel was adequate, sort of, but none was as clean or nice as what I’ve been accustomed to getting – Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Sheraton, etc. – for three-star bids on Priceline over the years.
Charlottesville, Virginia, is a good example of how Priceline’s ratings have changed over the years. I’ve gone to Charlottesville several times over the years and have used Priceline on multiple occasions. There are a number of good three-star hotels in town – Hampton Inn, Doubletree, two Courtyards, a Residence Inn and others. But Priceline now considers two Holiday Inn locations in town as three-star properties as well.
I’ve stayed in both and they simply aren’t as clean or nice as the hotels mentioned above. The furniture at the University location, for example, is dated and ill fitting – the office chairs in the room don’t level up with the desk, for example, and on a recent stay there were a host of dead bugs in the sliding glass door, which also had a broken handle.
But as mediocre as the Holiday Inn Charlottesville University is, it’s the Taj Mahal compared to the Avni Kensington, a supposedly three-star property I got from a recent bid on Priceline in London. (Priceline refers to this hotel by its old name, the Kensington Edwardian.) My first impression was of their bathroom in the common area. There were no hand towels next to the sinks – just rolls of toilet paper to dry your hands.
My room had three droopy old single beds plus a broken television and non-functioning Wi-Fi. (The Wi-Fi was later fixed; the TV was not.) Trip Advisor categorizes the hotel as a two-star property, which is about right. I made a complaint about the property to Priceline but they stated that the hotel was “unwilling” to issue a refund so I was out of luck. A Priceline spokesperson told me several weeks ago that the company uses a number of criteria in categorizing hotels, including some factors that travelers might not care much about – like if the place has a full-service restaurant, a pool and others.
But what I found most interesting about the experience is the fact that I was unable to review my hotel experience in London on the Priceline site. I asked the customer service rep how I could leave a review of this hotel on the site because they use the customer reviews as a basis for how they categorize the hotels, but she said I had to wait to see if I received an email inviting me to take the survey. I looked through my inbox and noted that I had received survey requests for all of my previous hotel stays (none of which had I issued complaints over) but I didn’t get one from this stay in London.
Priceline gives bidders guarantees that they’ll receive a hotel with positive feedback (it varies based upon the star level you are bidding on); so I can’t help but think that they flag customers who complain about a property not to receive the survey email.
What can you take away from my bidding experiences? The most import thing is to do your homework before you bid. Use Priceline’s normal search function and look at what they are offering at each star level. Then check the reviews of those hotels online and assume you’ll get the place that has the lowest reviews. If you can’t live with that, you need to bump up the star level you’re bidding on.
For example, if you are bidding in the north suburban area of Chicago, and you see that Priceline has a hotel they consider a three-star property but that it has horrible reviews, assume that if you bid three stars, you will get that hotel. If you can’t live with that, you need to bid 3.5, or find another way to book your room.
July 8, 2013 Update: A spokesperson for Priceline tells me that the company sent me a survey email on 6/22 inviting me to review the hotel I stayed at in London. I have double checked both of my email addresses and I never received it. Either way, there should be a way for customers to review the hotel they stay in, whether one gets their email inviting them to do so or not. And, after bidding on yet another 3 star hotel in Portsmouth, NH this week, and, once again, getting another Holiday Inn with so-so reviews, I stand by what is written above. 3 stars with Priceline used to mean Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, Sheraton and so on. These days, it seems to be Holiday Inn and other brands in that tier.