Gadling + BootsnAll – Picks of the Week (4.10.09)

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Welcome back to another weekly installment of our Gadling and BootsnAll Picks of the Week. Every Friday we’ve been taking a look at 4-5 of the most interesting stories from our friends at independent travel website BootsnAll. What strange destinations, thought-provoking lists and out-of-the-way festival ideas did we come up with? Check below for a few ideas:

  • Beer Bash – if you like drinking beer (or just enjoy a good party) you definitely already know about Germany’s popular Oktoberfest in Munich. If you’re looking to avoid the huge crowds of drunk tourists in Munich this year, Jennifer Price suggests you check one of Germany’s huge variety of other beer festivals, happening throughout the year in cities across the German state.
  • Cathedrals of the East – just in time for Good Friday Christina Dima has a religiously-themed rundown of 11 of the most interesting Orthodox-style Churches and Cathedrals. Though they share many customs with the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church also has many of its own unique traditions and architectural styles. Having recently seen the Church of the Spilled Blood in Saint Petersburg, I would have to agree these buildings are quite beautiful and unique.
  • Forgotten Ruins – mention the word “ruins” to many travelers, and destinations like The Pyramids, The Parthenon and Machu Picchu immediately come to mind. Yet there are plenty of equally impressive but far less-visited ruins out there waiting to be discovered. How does a visit to 40 acres of ancient Maya temples hidden in the jungle in Honduras sound to you? Cherrye More has the scoop on Six of the Least Visited Ruins you need to check out now.
  • Market Essentials – if you want to get a sense of the local culture the next time you travel abroad, visit the local market. Whether its fresh pasta spices in the Campo de Fiori in Rome or Seltzer Bottles in San Telmo in Buenos Aires, you’ll get a great peek into daily life and unique insight into what sorts of products get the locals buying. Dana McMahan takes this concept to the next level with a look at the Markets of Europe and their various specialities.
  • French Cathedrals – wrapping things up on a relgious note, BootsnAll’s France Blog has post on some of the many Cathedrals of France, from the ubiquitous Notre Dame in Paris, to lesser-known structures in Reims and Tours.

Strikes by Eiffel Tower workers anger tourists

by Jeffrey White on

If you’ve headed to Paris for the Easter holidays, chances are you’ve left the city’s most famous tourist attraction rather frustrated.

Workers for the company that runs the Eiffel Tower have been on strike for two days now, complaining over stalled pay increases. As a result, the tower was essentially closed Wednesday and Thursday. Negotiations with union workers was ongoing today, but the tower remained closed Friday morning.

Around 300 workers completely blocked the Eiffel from tourists on Wednesday. Yesterday, after more protests in the morning, one of the tower’s four pillars briefly opened to visitors before security workers shut it down again. Tourists were left in line for hours without any indication whether they’d get a chance to go up.

Basically, the workers’ beef is that while the price of going up the Eiffel Tower has increased this year (tickets now run roughly $18), their salaries have not gone up. Security workers and ticket takers are demanding pay increases and bonuses.

About 18,000 tourists per day visited the Eiffel Tower last year.

%Gallery-10003%

Spring painting for the Eiffel Tower: It takes gallons

by Jamie Rhein on

Every 7 years the Eiffel Tower is painted by hand. Although this icon attracts people by the droves to Paris and prompts folks like Tom Cruise to use it as a romantic backdrop for a marriage proposal, the Parisians don’t have much to do with painting it.

Actually, they don’t have anything to do with it, but probably do what they can to avoid getting paint dropped or splattered on them when they pass by.

This year, Romanians and Greeks will wield hand-held, small circular brushes to coat every bit of it with fresh paint. The specialized paint called “Eiffel Tower brown” is Norwegian.

Although the paint color has varied over the years, the painting method has remained the same ever since 1889. The color has stayed brown, however, since 1968 when it was decided that particular color works best with the skyline in Paris.

The statistics for this paint job are impressive.

According to the AP article, twenty-five people will use 66 tons of paint, 35 miles of climbing rope, and 18 months to do the job.

I’d say that the people who will be doing the painting will have an excellent view of Paris from the top as long as they don’t look down.

Competitours Race Day 5 – Paris “We won!” (with Video)

by Kent Wien on

As part of our Gadling on the Road series, Kent Wien and his wife Linda are participating as Team Gadling in the first run of Competitours, an Amazing Race like competition taking place in three different countries in Europe. Race along as Kent documents their progress.

All eleven teams gathered at the train station in Brussels for our journey to our next destination, which had just been revealed before dinner. Sure enough, we were going to Paris.

I made it to Paris a few times last year but I didn’t feel like Linda and I had any advantage over any of the other teams, since the challenges were rather varied. And I was more interested in the challenges that I wasn’t familiar with, avoiding the Pont Neuf and Catacombs challenges in favor of the more out of the way tasks.

We poured over the 6 pages of options for Paris and the surrounding area. We knew we’d have to come up with either two 30-point and one 15-point challenge or better yet, a 60-point plus one 15-point challenge to reach our maximum limit of 75 points for the day.

The 60-point challenge was risky. A day trip to the Loire Valley to tour the

Gadling Take FIVE: Week of March 21 –March 28

by Jamie Rhein on

I’m psyched. As soon as I set this puppy to post, I’m heading to Cleveland to go to the Cleveland International Film Festival where I’ll meet up with Brook Silva-Braga for the showing of his film A Day in Africa. There’s also a load of stuff going on to commemorate the inductions at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

It’s been busy around here at Gadling as well. Kent has been posting about his Competitours Race in Europe, Aaron is posting about his Heathen in the Holy Land experiences which includes why wearing stripes is a good thing. For anyone who wants to be a flight attendant, Heather has the scoop on that . And Karen, with her artist’s eye, tells about color in photography. Her post is gorgeous.

Here are six more.