Make a Moleskine Travel Journal, Win a Prize

by Dave Luna on

Calling all artists! Your talents could snag you a free trip to Paris* courtesy of Moleskine and Air France. The pair want to you create a work of art based on your travels for their “Invitation Au Voyage” exhibition.

All you have to do is transform any Moleskine notebook — Classic, Cahier, Reporter, or City — into a travel journal. Take a trip somewhere and document it using any artistic style you want: words, paint, collage, etc. The only thing that matters is that your work is interesting, unique, and creative.

Judges will select the 50 best journals for display in their traveling “Invitation Au Voyage” exhibition. If your work is chosen, it will make its way around Asia during August and September 2007.

The first prize is an economy class ticket to Paris, France. Second place will receive Moleskine’s entire set of city notebooks covering Europe and America. Moleskine will also give a set of three notebooks to each of the remaining 47 artists chosen for the exhibition.

The contest ends on June 30th. *Anyone can enter, but Moleskine recommends entrants reside in Asia since the 1st prize will only fly from Asia to France. Give it a shot even if you don’t live in Asia. Your work could still end up in the art exhibit!

[via Moleskinerie]

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Photo of the Day (5/4/07)

by Neil Woodburn on

It’s spring and time for you-know-what in Paris.

This great shot by Marni Rachel so nicely captures this wonderful season in the French capital; two young lovers wrapped up in each other’s presence as history looms unnoticed nearby.

If you would like one of your great shots to be considered for Photo of the Day, please visit out Gadling Photo Pool over at Flickr and upload your very best.

Detour Worth Making: The Underground Church of Saint-Jean at Aubeterre-sur-Dronne

by Willy Volk on

In south-central France, close to the Perigord — one of Europe’s wildest spots — lies the village of Aubeterre. Though the village itself is beautiful — featuring winding cobbled alleys and verdant landscapes, just how you’d imagine a rural French village would look — the most impressive feature in the community lies semi-hidden underground. Hand-hewn from the surrounding rock, a subterranean cavern rests beneath the Church of Saint-Jean.

Centuries old, the glorious cathedral-like structure — 88 feet long and 52 feet wide — features arched ceilings more than 60 feet high. Interestingly, in 1958, locals discovered a necropolis containing more than 80 sarcophagi, hollowed out of the floor.

You can visit the underground church 7 days a week, from 9.30 to 6.00 pm (the church closes at midday). If you can’t make it to France, you can still check out some awesome images of the place. I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of work that went into hollowing out such a large space.

Parkour in the New Yorker

by Erik Olsen on

For those of you who, like me, anticipate with frothy-mouthed enthusiasm the arrival of the annual “Journeys” issue of the New Yorker, this year’s recent issue was a bit of a disappointment, eh? There was Pankaj Mishra’s travel tale about the new railroad from Beijing to Lhasa, Tibet – the highest train ride in the world – which, I have to tell you, I found kind of boring.

Patricia Marx’s piece on luggage had a few clever moments, and might have appealed to me if I had any interest in designer luggage, but alas, I’m afraid it just didn’t do it for me.

There was one piece, however, which I really enjoyed and I recommend you read. And thankfully Remnick and Company finally made the foray into the 21st century and have most of their content online. This piece by
Alec Wilkinson on the “sport” of Parkour, was fascinating. I thought I knew a little bit about the sport, which is really more of a very physical activity and basically involves running around and jumping over and off things. If you happened to catch the most recent Bond, Casino Royale, you saw Parkour at the very beginning. Cool stuff. Well, Wilkinson’s piece takes a look at the invention of Parkour and introduces us not only to its inventor, a Frenchman named David Belle, but also to some of the American pioneers of Parkour who live in Boulder.

I would guess that this is just the beginning of much greater popularization of Parkour and is as fine an intro to it as you’re going to find.

Driving On the Wrong Right Side of the Road

by Jonathon Morgan on

I remember when my family first moved from the US to the UK, one off the most obvious — and most difficult — parts of culture shock was driving on the opposite side of the road. There’s a number of little things that make this a challenge — for example, it’s hard to know where the left front corner of your car is in relation to where you’re sitting in the driver’s seat. This issue led to a couple awkward explanations at the rental car place.

However, far more troubling is when you have a mental lapse, revert to old habits, and drive on the wrong side altogether (which is surprisingly easy to do when there’s no oncoming traffic).

It appears Americans aren’t the only ones who space out while behind the wheel. Brits driving in France are apparently having considerable trouble remembering to drive on the right side of the road, as opposed to left as they’ve grown accustom. So much so, that police in a small town in northern France have launched a poster campaign to remind motorists to drive on the appropriate side.

They hope that by covering the town in English-language posters that read: “For your safety, keep right on French roads,” they can prevent additional tourist-related traffic deaths (there have been 2 in the last 2 years in this town alone).

Now if they could just explain how round-a-bouts work, I think we’ll be in business.