Sounds of Travel 13: Ce Matin La

by Anna Brones on

Here at Gadling we’ll be highlighting some of our favorite sounds from the road and giving you a sample of each — maybe you’ll find the same inspiration that we did, but at the very least, hopefully you’ll think that they’re good songs. Got a favorite of your own? Leave it in the comments and we’ll post it at the end of the series.

For me, traveling music has to provide a good background. It has to to flow with your up and down emotions, fit a variety of situations, but be distinct enough that it brings back memories when you return home. For that reason, in my last post I wrote about St. Germain, which is one of my favorite artists to listen to while traveling. Along those same lines comes Air, another electronica-inspired group that hails from France.

As I wrote about St. Germain, music like this immediately takes me back to living in France; I can envision the first time and place that I listened to either of these two groups. But Air is a little more than that, the duo’s second album Moon Safari has become my traveling soundtrack — no matter what the destination — and my song of choice is Ce Matin La.


Some people tend to veer away from songs without lyrics, but for me, that makes them better travel songs; Ce Matin La is smooth and cheerful, and without lyrics, it gives a good background but doesn’t distract you from your surroundings. I’ve listened to it while waiting for the train in Vietnam, I’ve listened to it while crossing Sweden by bus, and I’ve listened to it on road trips all along the West Coast. Somehow Ce Matin La manages to seamlessly blend into all of those situations, making me reminiscent more of the feelings that go along with travel rather than a specific place. Unlike other songs that remind me of a particular experience, Ce Matin La is therefore simply my travel song. It embodies being on the road and passing through new places and the emotions that go along with that.

Another reason that Ce Matin La invokes traveling for me is the name. First, it’s in French, and anything in my third language speaks to me on a slightly more exotic level. Second, translated it means “that morning.” Who knows what morning Air is referencing, but when you listen to the song you can easily feel yourself sitting and drinking a cup of coffee in some other country with the whole day ahead of you, ready to be discovered. With light tones and a smile-invoking melody you are immediately transported into travel mode, which is exactly what one needs in these gray winter months!

You can check out previous Sounds of Travel posts here.

Gadling Take FIVE: Week of Nov. 22 –Nov. 28

by Jamie Rhein on

A person could get pretty depressed when taking a gander at how money, or rather the lack of it is influencing the places we love to go.

Perhaps some of the change is due to cultural shifts that would happen anyway. It’s hard to tell sometimes exactly what condition is causing the change.

This week at Gadling, there are a few posts that have to do with changes that are taking place around the world.

  • In France, fewer people are hanging out in cafes these days. Jeffrey gives the issue some thought in one of his posts.
  • Brenda provided more insight regarding the woes of Hawaii’s travel industry. As a person from the state, and a world traveler, she has an understanding of the factors that are influencing people’s vacation decisions.
  • In a post yesterday, Brenda also offered musings about the state of travel given the fact that there are so many places that seem inhospitable. She’s interested in Cuba and wonders if Americans are welcome.
  • Aaron, however, usually a sunny sort, has great things to say about travel in Chile. If you don’t catch this one detail while you read, he’d love to go back and is looking for someone to take him along.
  • On another positive note, if you want to feel great today, look at ImprovEverywhere’s latest video. As their latest stunt proves, everyone in the world could use a rousing welcome home–even if it’s from a group of total strangers. All you need is signage, balloons and warm, smiling faces.

Is the tradition of the French cafe dying?

by Jeffrey White on

Among the myriad stories of the global financial crisis that appear almost daily, this one from the New York Times today caught my eye.

The economic downturn is impacting that most sacrosanct of French traditions, the bar-cafe.

The article notes Balzac’s famous dictum — “The bar of a cafe is the parliament of the people” — in detailing how the French cafe is in real trouble these days. Simply put, people are going out less and when they do, they’re spending less.

The days of the long, leisurely French lunch — a couple of courses accompanied by a bottle of wine — have been replaced with the take-out sandwich, eaten on the run.

If they do come to the cafe, a owner named Maria Malichier tells the Times, “it’s a carafe of tap water, main course and off you go.”

“Now people don’t eat,” says another cafe owner, Gérard Renaud. “They come in for a coffee or a little aperitif and that is it. We are used to being busy, but now we feel lazy, and it is depressing.”

What’s behind this? Obviously a bit has to do with the financial crisis. But at the beginning of this year a smoking ban extended to include bar-cafes, which is hurting business. So is a renewed crackdown on drunk driving, with cops apparently staking out cafes to catch tipsy drivers.

Anyone that spends any time in France, Paris or elsewhere, quickly comes to see that the cafe culture, dying or not, is something one can only admire about the country — how people seem to carve out time in their day for it, which of course is time carved out for food and drink and conviviality. There’s a reason why Hemingway’s A Movable Feast is so evocative of a certain time and place.

Now we have this arresting fact from the Times piece: Two bar-cafes close every day in France. In 1960, there were 200,000 of them countrywide; today it’s fewer than 41,500.

Photo of the Day (11-19-08)

by Jamie Rhein on

Yes, this is an elephant balanced on its trunk. David and Chi who captured this image at the Musée and Domaine nationales of the Castle of Fontainebleau in France said this sculpture was part of a larger exhibit. What a wonderful use of a castle. The exhibit looks like it may have been like a trip to some strange wonderland.

Unfortunately, the exhibit ended on November 17. My question is, what happened to the elephant? Where does one store such a piece? It seems that this elephant belongs in the library.

If you’ve been to a fanciful wonderland lately, send us your pictures at Gadling’s Flickr Photo Pool.

The Sounds of Travel 7: So Flute

by Anna Brones on

Here at Gadling we’ll be highlighting some of our favorite sounds from the road and giving you a sample of each — maybe you’ll find the same inspiration that we did, but at the very least, hopefully you’ll think that they’re good songs.

Got a favorite of your own? Leave it in the Comments and we’ll post it at the end of the series.

France. This is a country known for its music. The stereotypical accordion tunes from atop Montmartre embodied in the soundtrack of Amélie, the ballads of Edith Piaf, and the intense lyrics of adopted icon Jacques Brel (he was actually Belgian, but the French like him so much they seem to forget). But beyond those symbolic melodies that scream French roots, there’s another side to French music. One that is much more urban, cosmopolitan and chic. It’s the smooth, electro-jazz, slightly funky sounds of contemporary bands like St. Germain.

I was spending a semester in France in college and had fortunately been placed in a very cool attic apartment with an equally cool Frenchman; one who had a penchant for red wine, dinner parties and top of the line background music to complement the food and company. St. Germain’s Tourist album was played at one of the first of these dinner parties that I ever experienced.

It was a quintessential French evening: a bottle of regional Muscat to start the night, a whole chicken, cooked in butter and herbs fresh out of the oven, a salad with fresh greens and a homemade vinaigrette, a Burgundy to go with the chicken and a cacophony of French voices all giving their politically charged opinions on everything from GMOs to the American President. The upbeat sound of the saxophone in “So Flute” hung in the air, dancing around in the vibrant ambiance.

All of a sudden I felt instantly chic and European. Just listening to “So Flute” let me shed my hippie college roots and automatically develop into that classy, cultured young adult I’d always wanted to be. From that night on I couldn’t stop listening to St. Germain.

When I returned home after my semester abroad I would try and recreate these dinner parties. I would tell people that we would eat at nine, they looked at me as if I was crazy and sad they would come at six; Americans unlike the French are not trained for late night dinner parties. I got frustrated that the only white wine I could find for an aperitif was a Californian Chardonnay; trust me, after wine of Alsace, it’s not the same. But thanks to my pre-departure stop at FNAC (the French Borders) at least I could have “So Flute” play in the background. Maybe I didn’t feel so chic in my shared college house, but at least I could import the French urban vibe. At least it was better than drowning my sorrows in a bottle of bad red.

Returning home, especially after extended stays when you have completely immersed yourself in your host culture, can be hard. Sometimes, to get over that culture shock — no matter how long you’ve been back — all it takes is a melody reminiscent of your time there. Instantly you are taken back to a certain moment, a certain feeling and for a second all that cultural confusion just slips away. “So Flute” is that song for me and whenever I play it I am whisked away to my favorite vibes of France.

Click here for previous Sounds of Travel.