Letter From Lilliputia: Small Is Beautiful In Paris

by David Downie on

It started on our flight back to Paris from New York: our seats had been put through the drier. They were too small to hold our newly fleshly forms. After a month in Chicago, San Francisco and New York City we had expanded our views – and backsides. Well, I had. My wife doesn’t thicken. Her DNA descends from termites.

The Paris taxi seemed luxurious after the battered Yellow Cabs of Manhattan. But it was shoebox-sized: half our luggage rode on our laps. We nudged bumper-to-baby-bumper down uncannily smooth surfaces into the groomed, green perfection of central Paris.

How quaint and prosperous and picturesque the tidy spider’s web of tree-lined streets with toy houses along them! The Eiffel Tower was slim and naked: it wore no cladding. Back home it might be demolished as pornographic. The Seine seemed a trout stream compared to the Hudson or Sacramento. And what were all those arched bridges built of stone? Surely steel and cement were superior?

In our absence friends who’d stayed at our apartment had exchanged our wormy furniture for dollhouse accessories. The ceilings and windows had downsized too. Our concierge, apparently by nibbling the wrong side of a mushroom, seemed the height of a child.

Forget inches: at 176 centimeters I towered over people and places! It felt wonderful. Petit was beau. How could I have forgotten why I moved here a quarter century ago?

Not only was small beautiful in Paris: old was pretty nifty too.Even the symmetrical broad boulevards driven through Paris in the 1850s-’60s by tyrannical Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann seemed mere country roads compared to the thundering avenues of our great American cities. I felt a new love for them well up in my caffeine-starved brain.

Strange: in centuries past Americans in Paris were bowled over by the newness and bigness. Nothing could be clearer from reading David McCullough’s new mega-bestselling book “The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris.”

In the 1800s to early 1900s Paris was cutting edge and huge, the biggest, brightest City of Light in the world. It had boulevards, triumphal arches, medical schools, hospitals and, after 1889, Eiffel’s amazing nude skyscraper. Paris during the infancy and adolescence of the United States was infinitely grander, more modern and more imposing than slaughterhouse Chicago, rustic San Francisco or ramshackle New York. How had the equation been flipped?

Jet-lagged we headed for a favorite local bistro in the fashionably ancient Marais neighborhood where we live. On Rue du Prévot, an alley between slump-back buildings 500 years old, we entered the heartland of Parisian Lilliputian Bobo-land. With arms outstretched I could almost touch the leprous plaster on each side. Never has shabby chic cost so much per square foot – or centimeter.

Happily ensconced at a microscopic wooden bistro table on diminutive 19th-century wooden bistro chairs at Les Compères, we studied the daily menu. It had been handwritten in chalk by the lively, pretty waitress-proprietor’s tiny little hand. The wine glasses were petit. There was relatively little in them – but it tasted good, like real French wine. Though loud of voice the handsome young barman behind his tiny blonde-wood bar was even smaller than I. The kitchen looked like a walk-in closet in Chicago.

Out of that busy little kitchen came more of those silly dollhouse accessories: saucers pretending to be plates, each topped with kindergarten servings of crisp mixed salad with sun-dried tomatoes and artichoke hearts, dressed with refreshing simplicity. The portions of the equally simple main course-pan-fried codfish reminded me of the single-bite tapas at sprawling Café Ba-Ba-Reeba in the Windy City. Even the duck confit and steak being wolfed by others looked minuscule.

Was all this tininess what was meant by “made to the measure of man?” I could feel myself retracting to European size as I savored the weightless spoon-sweet dessert: a simple swirl of unsweetened mascarpone and fruit compote. I resisted the house-made profiteroles. Afterwards there was no need to beg for “a small, single espresso.” The coffee was as thick as tar. The total content of the thimble containing it could not have exceeded 2 tablespoons.

Pleasantly buzzed, as I walked home to our 400-year-old apartment, past a city wall built in 1190 then through a handsome little square finished in 1612 I had one of those micro-epiphanies travelers are sometimes treated to.

Add together the simplicity, the lack of cloying sweetness, the powerful yet handsome smallness of things and people, and the miraculously preserved antiquity of it all and, bingo! No wonder nervy, hormonal New York twisted the torch from Paris’ child-sized hands a century ago and went rushing unchallenged into the gigantism of American greatness. Paris was too perfect and too hobbled by agelessness to run the race or contemplate change. Perhaps Paris was too wise to want to run the race at all.

As I spiraled up our staircase – no elevator in 1640 – to an apartment with no air conditioning, no microwave and no espresso-entertainment equipment in the kitchen I sighed with satisfaction. No wonder quaint little old made-to-the-measure-of-humanity Paris was still the favorite city of millions, including large Americans, and oddball little old me.

Author and guide David Downie’s latest book is the critically acclaimed “Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light,” which will soon be out as an audio book. His next travel memoir, to be published in April 2013, is “Paris to the Pyrenees: A Skeptic Pilgrim Walks the Way of Saint James.” His websites are www.davidddownie.com, www.parisparistours.com, http://wanderingfrance.com/blog/parisand http://wanderingliguria.com, dedicated to the Italian Riviera.

A Few Mediterranean Sidewalk Cafés Can Make Travel Personal

by Chris Owen on

In popular cities of the Mediterranean, mobs of tourists come by bus, train, air and cruise ship. Looking to see famous destinations with their own eyes, perhaps fulfilling lifelong dreams, they clamber for the best view. During the summer, many visitors point and shoot only the top of iconic destinations to avoid photos that include the herd. But on a recent trip to the Mediterranean, we found some of the best shots at ground level while sitting in a sidewalk café.

The sidewalk cafés of Mediterranean cities are a great way to create lasting memories that may never be repeated again. Breaking away from the throngs of tourists visiting Dubrovnik in Croatia and Rome in Italy along with other must-see locations, time spent at local cafés was precious.

If we really want a good look at any of these places, we can Google just about any destination for uncluttered images of whatever we want to see without even going there. Get off a lucky shot during peak tourist season and that’s all the better.

Taking the time to sit and drink it all in at a sidewalk café has made for a more personal experience when traveling, an experience that photos can also capture.

Check this photo gallery that has many of the sidewalk cafés we enjoyed.

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[Photos- Chris Owen]

The Travel Conundrum: Does Misery Make the Best Travel Companion?

by David Farley on
Ask almost any seasoned traveler (or travel writer) about their most memorable journeys and you’ll likely get a tale of pain and suffering. “The best trips are the worst trips,” is a quip I constantly hear coming from travel writers’ mouths. And they’re right. Not only because, after the fact, it makes for good verbal consumption at a party but because it does something deeper to us. It almost feels like in those moments – smack in the middle of a desperate what-the-hell-am-I-going-to-do-now? moment – we’re really living. We don’t realize it at the time but being out of our comfort zone – even in such dark places we’d never willingly put ourselves – we become human.

As travel has become more accessible to people around the planet and the machinations of the travel industry have grown, experiencing pitfalls along the way are sometimes impossible to avoid. If you have a passport, if you’ve ever stepped on an airplane or a train or a bus, if you’ve journeyed beyond your backyard, then you too have had a bad travel experience. I asked a few people for their tales of travel misfortunes and here were some of my favorites:

Magazine editor Dana Dickey wanted to give herself a birthday present: a short trip with her friend to one of her favorite cities, Lisbon. She was late boarding the flight in New York and flashed her passport at the gate agent before quickly boarding the Lisbon-bound plane. But when she was standing in line at the passport check at the Lisbon airport, she noticed something was wrong: it was a few days after her actual birthday and her passport was expired. “The immigration officer unfortunately noticed, too,” said Dickey, “and he took me into custody, while my friend went on his merry way and checked into our suite at the Four Seasons.” Meanwhile Dickey was escorted to a dodgy antechamber in the customs office where she sat (with “suspicious looking chaps” who lounged on mattresses on the floor) for hours. The hardest to take for Dickey, however, was what her friend did – or rather, didn’t do – next. “Rather than enlisting the Four Seasons or someone to help me in my plight, my friend opted to call our mutual friends back in New York so that I could become water cooler jest while still in detention.” Six hours later, Dickey’s passport was extended a few more days and she was free to explore the city.

Nithin Coca, a 28-year-old San Francisco resident, also had passport issues, but of a different kind. While in Paris, he left his backpack at a bus stop. He was actually relieved to learn his wallet, passport and cellphone turned up at a police station, but was in for quite a surprise when he went to fetch it and learned his possessions were found on the body of a murdered person. Coca was brought into an interrogation room and suddenly realized he was being investigated for murder. “I was worried that, as a wide-eyed foreigner, I was being accused of a crime, or forced to go on trial, or worse,” said Coca. Fortunately, after 30 minutes of questioning, they gave Coca back his belongings and told him he could leave.


When writer Alexander Zaitchik was traveling to see a friend in the Czech Republic, he wasn’t so lucky. Tired from his travels, he did the one thing he could not afford to do: fall asleep on the train. With no money on him, he woke up and realized he’d missed his stop. He got off at the next town, the winter cold blushing his cheeks, and boarded the next train headed back to his friend’s hometown in the center of the country. Because he didn’t have a ticket – at least not one for this train journey – he’d hoped a forgiving ticket checker would look the other way. Not so. When he couldn’t produce a ticket (or the equivalent of $1.50), the train slowed to a stop and, in the middle of a snowy forest, Zaitchik was unceremoniously tossed off the train. So he walked and walked until he found a road and stuck his thumb out until a generous driver stopped and, as luck would have it, was headed to the same town Zaitchik need to go to.

Travel wouldn’t be travel without the occasional misfortune. Yet, we don’t stop that from keeping us going. We continue moving to explore our own personal uncharted territories. It’s, at first, a human thing – we charted the planet and now we’re going further, into space. And it’s also a human statement: that no matter how hard life becomes, no matter what pain and suffering and discomfort our travel experiences serve us, we keep on trekking, putting one foot in front of the other, until the pain turns into joy, which (eventually) turns into pain again with the next bad experience. And so on. But in the end, what we’re left with is something a five-star resort or a Michelin-starred restaurant or an upgrade to first class cannot ever deliver: a lot more wisdom than we began with. And, in the end, that will be the one thing we’ll never forget to pack.

It’ll also provide one more thing: a damn good story to tell.

What are some of your travel horror stories?

Photo Of The Day: Locks Of Love

by Meg Nesterov on


Today’s Photo of the Day was taken on Paris‘ Pont des Arts bridge, where it is tradition to write your name and your lover’s on a padlock and attach it to the railing to symbolize your unbreakable bond. It’s a tradition popular all over the world, from Florence to Taiwan (check out Gadling’s gallery from Cologne, Germany. Over the years, many cities have tried to remove the locks or limit new additions, but true love prevails and it remains a fun way to leave a symbol of your beloved. Thanks to Flickr’s Luke Robinson for the photo, we hope some of that lovey doveyness followed you home from France!

Seen any sweet traditions on your travels? Add your photos to the Gadling Flickr pool for our Photo of the Day.

The World’s 10 Scariest Haunted Castles

by Justin Delaney on

From a Czech forest castle reported to house the gates of hell to a gargantuan castle right here in the United States, the world’s most haunted castles boast histories rich with frightening details. Specters haunt the halls of these old castles and travelers visit to experience brushes with the paranormal. Some of these castles possess secrets darker than a moonless night, and when darkness comes, the spirits stir.

These are the ten places to go and meet ghosts. Covering nine countries, each of these castles has a past that may just try and make a ghostly impression on your present.


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Edinburgh Castle
Country: Scotland
Built: 12th century
Haunting: Do you believe in ghosts? Edinburgh is one of those places where skeptics cross the threshold and start saying yes. A few years ago, Time Magazine set out to name the ten most haunted places in the world and included Edinburgh Castle on that list. For starters, a headless drummer has been seen and heard in the castle halls beginning around 1650. Lady Glamis, accused of witchcraft in 1537 and burned at the stake while her young son watched, is also known to prowl the dark halls. A ghost dog has even been seen delicately prancing through the misty graveyard.

There have been so many hauntings for so long that Edinburgh Castle attracted one of the most thorough paranormal investigations ever. In 2001, an English doctor enlisted roughly 240 volunteers to spend 10 days in and around the castle. The volunteers were all screened to insure that none of them knew anything about the castle. The findings? The place is a paranormal hot spot. Many of the volunteer experiences were consistent with past sightings at the castle. There were burning sensations, phantom gropes, shadowy figures and a specter in a leather apron seen in the same spot he was seen by unrelated individuals before the study. Its ancient dungeons and cobbled corridors are home to some serious creepiness.

Visiting: Fly to Edinburgh from London for under $100 round trip. Buy tickets to visit the castle here.

Chillingham Castle
Country: England
Built: 12th century
Haunting: The appropriately named Chillingham Castle is located in the northern corner of England and has been haunting guests for a very long time. The castle served as a fortress to repel attacks from the Scots in the north and has thus seen a great deal of bloodshed. Chillingham has been featured on at least six ghost-related shows, and the webs are rife with strange pictures of its ghosts and orby videos.

So what haunts this medieval castle that appears to be plucked from Westeros? Most notably a childlike ghost, called the blue boy. The blue boy is seen regularly in the pink room as a flash of blue light and also above guests’ beds as a blue halo following a loud cry. Perhaps most creepy is one of the castle’s ghostly apparitions who wanders the dank halls late at night – John Sage. John Sage has a terrifyingly ridiculous backstory and was hung by Longshanks during the war with the Scots. He can be heard dragging bodies here and there.

Visiting: The Chillingham homepage states, “Tours last about 2 hours, depending on psychic activity.” The castle also accepts brave overnight guests. To get there, fly into Newcastle or Edinburgh and travel 70 miles to reach the castle.

Houska Castle
Country: Czech Republic
Built: 13th century
Haunting: Located in the forests north of Prague, Houska castle was never a strategic battle location. It also appears to have no function of outside fortification. It was not built to repel attacks or to keep things out. It was built to hold something in. It was built to close the gateway to hell.

The castle is built upon a fabled bottomless pit from which winged creatures and half-man-half-beasts allegedly exited. Demonic activity persisted at this site and eventually, Bohemian rulers decided to seal up the gateway with a castle. Before sealing off Hell’s realm, it is said that nearby prisoners were granted pardons if they would agree to be lowered by a rope into the hole. The story goes that the first lowered prisoner let out a yell after entering the hole. When he was raised up, he appeared to have aged over 30 years. He died of unknown causes just days later.

Wait, it gets stranger. During the 1930s, the Nazis took over the castle to conduct occult experiments with dimensional portals. Hitler, a paranormal enthusiast, was known to dabble in the occult, and it is uncertain what the scientists learned from Housksa Castle. Years later, during renovations, several Nazi officer skeletons were found, and it appeared they were killed execution style.

The recurring ghosts at Houska are plentiful, and include a giant bulldog/frog/human, a headless black horse and a woman in an old dress who is frequently seen peaking out of the top floor windows. Beneath the cellar there is said to be some nonhuman remains of the beasts that emerged from the hole.

Visiting: Houska Castle is just north of Prague and day trips to this spot are easy.

Belcourt Castle
Country: United States
Built: 1894
Haunting: In adjusted today dollars, Belcourt Castle cost its owner over $100 million back in the 19th century. Oliver Belmont, namesake of the Belmont stakes, heir to the Belmont family empire and poster child for turn of the century trustfund champions, built this behemoth. On its completion, Oliver chose to instead travel the world, collecting artifacts for the castle, which sounds like a pretty cool thing to do after building a gigantic home. The years were not kind to the castle and disrepair plagued it for much of the 20th century. In 1956, the mansion was sold to the Tinney family for $25,000 ($200,000 in today dollars), or about a fifth of a penny on the dollar (adjusted for inflation).

The Tinneys got a beat-up fading mansion with massive infrastructural needs – and a few ghosts. The strangest thing about Belcourt is that the hauntings allegedly come from the vast assortment of artifacts rather than the actual house. There is a haunted 15th century set of armor that lets out a blood-curdling scream every March, said to be the time that its medieval owner took a spear through the eye. In the Gothic ballroom there are haunted chairs that many claim to have been pushed out of while sitting by unknown forces.

Visiting: The owner of Belcourt Castle gives ghost tours and this May, he will be giving them on Friday and Saturday evenings. It is also open for weddings and other events. Belcourt Mansion is roughly an hour-and-a-half drive from Boston down 95 South.

Brissac Castle
Country: France
Built: 11th century
Haunting: The stylish French château is over seven-stories tall with around 200 rooms and is considered the tallest château in all of the Loire Valley. After a rich history, beginning with the Counts of Anjou in the 11th century, the domain was purchased by a noble husband and wife named Jacques and Charlotte. Charlotte enjoyed tormenting her husband by having noisy sex with randoms. She would keep her husband up all night with her lovers and eventually her husband snapped.

The affair ended when both the lover and Charlotte the wife disappeared. Jacques was likely behind it, but after their death, the lovers’ moans did not stop – they grew louder. The moans persisted and Jacques was forced to sell the castle, tormented by the ghosts of his past. Today, it is said that in the early morning the lovers’ moans persist.

Visiting: Château de Brissac is open to tours and even has two suites and two rooms to stay in overnight. The price for the overnight stay is not cheap, starting at 390 Euros with availability from May through September. Reach Brissac from Paris by high-speed train, taking just an hour and a half to reach nearby Angers.

Eltz Castle
Country: Germany
Built: 1157
Haunting: A picturesque castle with one of the richest interiors in all of Deutschland, Eltz rises up out of the surrounding Mosel forest as if boasting its longevity to the surrounding environs. A testament to its strength as a stronghold, Eltz Castle is one of few castles in the region that has never been destroyed. It is also one of just a few German castles that is said to be haunted. Allegedly, the ghosts of medieval knights still patrol the castle, which, 33 generations later, is still owned by the same original family. Imagine living in the same house as your Great X 30 grandmother.

Visiting: Reach Eltz Castle by flying into Frankfurt Hahn airport and traveling by bus or taxi for the final 15 miles to the city of Cochem.

Castle of Bardi (or Landi Castle)
Country: Italy
Built: 900, ish
Haunting: Built on a spur of red jasper, Bardi towers over the Emilia-Romagna valley. Bardi’s etymological impetus began with Hannibal and his cavalry of war elephants. The last elephant, named Bardus, allegedly died here during the march to Rome. Unfortunately, the castle is not haunted by a menacing ghost elephant.

A sad old story explains the real ghosts of this incredible fortress. Instead of Romeo and Juliet, we have a tale of Moroello and Soleste. Soleste was the daughter of the castle’s lord, and she was in love with Moroello, the captain of the knights. During a long battle, Soleste waited for Moroello to return, perched on the edge of her family fortress, eyes locked on the distant horizon. Eventually, she saw riders galloping back from the battlefront. When the soldiers reached her eyesight, she noticed they were riding with enemy colors. She was overcome with grief at the possibility of Moroello’s death and threw herself off of the castle’s edge. In a sad twist of irony, the riders were in fact Moroello and his soldiers, and they were just wearing the enemy colors to boast. Moroello found his love dead on the ground and immediately realized what he had done and killed himself. The ghost of Moroello haunts the castle to his day, wandering the grounds searching for his lost love.

Visiting: Bardi is located in Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy. The easiest way to reach the region is by plane to Parma or by train from nearby Bologna or Milan.

Dragsholm Castle
Country: Denmark
Built: 1215
Haunting: Some places are simply haunted by a ghost or two, but Dragsholm, located on an islet in Denmark, is allegedly home to 100 ghosts. How anyone came to take inventory on the ghosts and find such a round number was likely done with some relation to Dragsholm tourism development, but the place is wicked haunted, having functioned as both a prison and a battle fortification. Some consider it the most haunted castle in the world.

Of the many stories about Dragsholm’s ghosts, perhaps the most terrifying origin ghost tale involves the White Lady. Before she wandered the castle halls as a ghost, the White Lady was just a girl – a girl who was in love with one of the castle laborers. As a member of nobility, her father, and owner of the castle, condemned the relationship, but the affair persisted. Eventually, the father grew so angry about the ongoing affair that he imprisoned his daughter in the walls of the castle. She was not seen again until hundreds of years later. In the 20th century, during some routine castle remodeling, workers found a skeleton in one of the walls. The skeleton was wearing a white gown.

Visiting: Dragsholm Castle is open to overnight visitors, so if you want to stay in a really creepy castle this is probably the one. To get there, take a train from Copenhagen through Hillerød to Odsherred. The castle also has a restaurant.

Moosham Castle
Country: Austria
Built: 1208
Haunting: Built by the Prince-Bishops of Salzburg, Moosham Castle has a strange and sinister past. Hundreds of witches were beheaded within the walls of Moosham, and many still haunt the Austrian castle. Due to these hauntings, the castle is known colloquially as the Witches Castle.

In addition to being home to a coven of creepy witch ghosts, Moosham is also allegedly the lair of the werewolf. During the 1800’s, Moosham saw a sudden preponderance of mutilated cattle and deer corpses. As a consequence of this, several Moosham residents were tried and imprisoned as werewolves.

Visiting: Take bus #270 from the Salzburg bus station to reach Moosham. The trip takes about two hours.

Warwick Castle
Country: England
Built: 1068
Haunting: First built in the 11th century by none other than William the Conqueror, Warwick has seen more battles than perhaps any other castle in Europe. It has found peace in recent years, but the spirits still linger. Its eroded walls and faded battlements tell the tale of a long hard life for the spirits that now walk its halls.


The ghost tower is said to be one of the castle’s most haunted areas, as Sir Fulke Greville still wanders its interior. Murdered by his manservant in 1628, he is said to materialize from his portrait late on cold evenings. The castle dungeon, home to all sorts of past torment, also seems to be quite haunted. Many visitors complain of vertigo and nausea upon touching the dungeon apparatuses.

Visiting: Warwick Castle is very tourist accessible and is open every day except Christmas. Warwick Castle is located just 40 minutes from Birmingham airport.

Honorable mention:

Castle Bran or Dracula’s Castle
Country: Romania
Built: 1212
Haunting: In the heart of old Transylvania, deep in the Carpathian wilderness, is a castle named for a ruler from the 15th century – Vlad III Dracul. After Vlad’s father was assassinated and his brother was buried alive, he set out to become more ruthless than anyone in fiction could believably create. He makes pint-sized tyrants like Joffrey Baratheon look like equitable play dates.

It all began at an Easter feast when Vlad asked his nobles how many princes they had survived, insinuating that they conspired against past rulers. The story goes that he arrested all of them. He impaled the older ones and their families and made the younger nobles into slaves for a wave of ambitious improvements to the castle. All told, Vlad impaled tens of thousands of people, earning the nickname Vlad the Impaler, and the tales get so ridiculous that it is difficult to sift the myths from the truth. In fact, Vlad never actually lived in Castle Bran, though the castle has come to be associated with the “Son of the Dragon.”

Visiting: The easiest way to reach the castle is by traveling by train from Bucharest, Romania to Brasov, Romania. Many tour companies in Bucharest can arrange a day trip for well under 100 Euros.

[Top image of Brissac Castle via flickr image user @lain G]