Would You Sleep In A Converted Shipping Container?

by Jessica Festa on




Beginning in September, travelers visiting France will be able to book a hotel room in a converted shipping container (pictured above).

Located near the France-Belgian border, Deûle Insolite is featuring 20-foot-long steel boxes with amenities like a kitchenette and a balcony with views of the Deûle River. According to the Huffington Post, the “cabins” were created in partnership with HouseUP, which specializes in transforming large steel boxes into beautiful vacation homes.

The shipping container rooms are just one of the quirky options offered to guests. Deûle Insolite also offers camping trailers, an Airstream Sovereign and a Mongolian-style yurt.

Would you sleep in a shipping container?

Postcard From France: Now And Then In Nice

by Don George on

June 27, Cours Saleya, Nice, France:

It’s my last day in Nice, this vibrant capital of pleasure and art and ease on the Cote d’Azur, and I’m sitting in the Cours Saleya, site of the fruit and flower market where I was 11 days ago, at the start of this glorious re-immersion in the riches of the Riviera. There’s a cold glass of vin rosé du Provence on my table, the sand-colored awning of La Storia restaurant on my left, the mustard-colored house where Matisse lived in front of me, and an archway framing palm fronds and the incomparably blue Mediterranean on my right.

This is the same centuries-old square where I sat and wrote 20 years before, on my second visit to the Cote d’Azur, and I am thinking about how things change and how they stay the same.

Back then I wrote:

I’m having a café crème and a croissant at a Cours Saleya cafe that looks right onto stalls selling a colorful collage of flowers, fruits and vegetables. As I sip and scribble in my journal, elegant older women with well-coiffed dogs smell melons and prod glistening red and yellow peppers. A trio of breezy, baguette-bearing beauties in floppy T-shirts and espadrilles buys peaches and peonies; housewives in sun hats and long-sleeved dresses stuff garlic and grapes and guavas into woven baskets. ‘Bonjour!’ and ‘Merci!’ peal through the morning air, past the graceful shutters and grillwork balconies on the salmon- and peach- and wheat-colored apartments that overlook the stony square.

I could have penned those same words today.

%Gallery-161308%Last night, I strolled for an hour along the broad, seafront Promenade des Anglais. The air was moist and warm, the palm trees rustled in a light breeze, and the whole city seemed to be out in easeful embrace of the balming night. Kids rattled by on skateboards; teenagers smoked and joked and simulated the French version of cool; American parents pushed strollers and exclaimed at the softness of the air; young couples kissed in passionate oblivion, and silver-haired couples strolled hand-in-hand, lost – or rather found – in their own reveries. And the moonlight flickered on the scraping sea, proffering a little piece of destiny, a midnight lesson for them and for me – the moonlight flickering on the ceaseless sea.

I wrote that too 20 years before.

From the Promenade des Anglais I wandered here last night, and the scene was amazingly vibrant: the square crammed with tiny tables showered with lamplight from the surrounding cafes, and resonant with excited conversation and leisurely laughter – the music of people with no morning duties or deadlines, of people wrapped, rapt, in the endless enjoyment of the moment.

The night oozed sensuality – the wine and the lamplight, the caressing air and the laughing, lilting patrons in T-shirts and sandals, shorts and short dresses. Later, when I returned to my room in the storied Hotel Negresco, about to celebrate its own buoyant 100th birthday, I reread what I had written about the residents of the Riviera on my first visit in 1976:

If they were blessed enough to grow up here, they have it in their bones, but if they have come here from elsewhere, they have knowingly abandoned whatever they have abandoned because they want what this region cultivates: a reasoned abandonment to sensual pleasures.

This spirit has stayed the same: The essential sensuality of Nice grows lush in the sunlight that illumines things to their core and the soft air that swaddles the skin like a benediction. It has plucked my heart and soul again as it did 36 years before.

What makes this place so seductive for me? The sunlight and the air and the colors certainly, the Mediterranean palette of beach and sea, the ochre, mustard, wheat, and terracotta walls; the bobbing boats and Belle Epoque facades; the fresh-grilled fish and succulent lé gumes farcis; the bubbly-beaded glasses of vin rosé; the stony plazas, stylish shops and splendored musées; the labyrinth of winding cobbled alleys, by night a magical medieval moonlit maze; the centuries-old cathedrals and just-opened galleries; the swish of the salt-tinged breeze; the terracotta roof tiles and green hillsides sloping to the sea; the legacy of art and history …

I sip and slip back in time. Oh to have been here in the 1920s with Gerald and Sara Murphy on Cap d’Antibes, partying on La Garoupe beach with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Hemingway, dos Passos, Cocteau, and Man Ray. Or to have sipped and supped with Picasso and Matisse, Chagall, Braque and Léger …

On my first two visits here, I was filled with a sense of soaring potential: The possibility of a life of sensual celebration and artful appreciation stretched before me like the glinting sea.

I know that feeling – and yet, and yet … Somehow today I don’t feel transported in quite the same way … Perhaps I have become too old, or la vie est devenue trop compliquée? “Life has become too complicated,” is what I meant to say. (Do I dare to eat one of those peaches? What would Monsieur Prufrock say?)

Now I have become the age I innocently imagined back then. I am the map, know the route I tread. Am I straining too hard for epiphany?

Sigh. Scribble. Take another sip of rosé.

Around me people lick gelatos, smile for photos, exclaim over hot slices of socca. Beauties in bikinis bike breezily by. Elegant older women with well-coiffed dogs smell melons and prod glistening red and yellow peppers, and housewives in sun hats and long-sleeved dresses gather garlic and grapes and bushels of lavender and thyme.

I think of the surprise feast I savored on a country terrace three nights before, the almost deserted beach on St Tropez where I impetuously plunged into the crystalline sea, the kindly gallery owner who closed his shop for an hour to sip coffee and talk art with me. I think of the stories still to write, the places still to be seen. And something stirs inside me; a fragile tendril greens.

It’s evident all around me, if I just open my eyes, my heart, my mind. The gift of Nice is this sense of celebration that infuses every day, celebration of sun and cypress, plane tree and plage, lavender and olive and pungent fromage; celebration of art, celebration of sea, celebration of cobble and tile and tranquillity.

It’s a lesson to cherish on this lamentably last day.

And a souvenir I’ll nurture as I move away.

Packing Notes For Summer Travels

by Pam Mandel on

Did anyone else totally screw up their packing for TBEX, the recent travel blogger’s conference in Denver? I did, egregiously. Having deferred to the Rocky Mountain location at Keystone Resort, I completely overlooked the fact that it was in the 90s in Denver. I packed as though I were summering in Seattle – a raincoat, jeans, long underwear, and layers, you know. As a result, I ended up wearing the same skirt and rotating through my T-shirts for the entire trip. Oops.

I departed for a week in the south of France just two weeks later, determined not to make the same mistakes. My destination: Bordeaux for the wine festival – Le Fete de Vin. There were to be some fancy evening dinners, a fair amount of walking, two events on boats. The weather was forecast to be hot with some chance of thunderstorms. I might need to clean up – the cliche of French style is a cliche for a reason – but I would also need to cover some ground on my feet. Plus, there were the hours in transit, long-haul flights, lurking around airports.

I totally nailed it, with room to spare, and I still had long underwear and a raincoat.

On the plane

  • Phoebe dress by ScotteVest: While it’s not a particularly flattering cut on me (it’s too blocky, if that makes sense) it’s a nice piece for transit. I liked using the big pockets for my lip balm, passport, podcast-filled phone and wallet. I’d like a more fitted shape, but when you’re spending ten hours folded into an airplane seat, who cares?
  • Striped long underwear by Columbia: I have last season’s version and I wear them as leggings often – they’re totally cute. I get cold on the plane, and they’re a great layering piece.
  • Zip front hooded sweater from Triple Aught: One of my favorite sweaters. It’s warm, has a stylish cut, and has zippered pockets.
  • Cushe Wildrun shoes: Easy to get in and out of at TSA checkpoints, plus, they are great for walking.
  • Dahlgren alpaca socks: Big wooly ones. They’re for skiing and hiking, but also for napping on airplanes.
  • Pashmina scarf: Really? I need to tell you this? Right, I didn’t think so.

Everything else

  • Keen strappy sandals: They dress up beautifully, work for shorter walks and they absolutely make the transition to evening wear. Bonus, they don’t take much space in the bag.
  • Chaco Paradox shoes: I intentionally packed a second pair of walking shoes; my feet like it when I give them something else to live in. Also, they’re cute and a little unusual in style. They felt very appropriate when I was striding about vine-covered properties.
  • Five nice shirts: No particular brand – four of them white. Linen, muslin, silk, cotton. Lightweight – all of them.
  • Two pairs of shorts: Longish shorts. Yes, you can wear teeny tiny shorts while swanning about the south of France. Go right ahead. Mine are just above the knee. I’m a modest dresser, especially when traveling.
  • Two black dresses: One silk for evening wear, one Dharma dress from Aventura. The Dharma dress is a perfect travel piece, fine for summer dress weather in the day, but absolutely makes the transition to evening. I never wore the silk dress, but I was glad I had the option and it takes up almost zero space in my bag.
  • Footless lightweight stockings: Didn’t wear those either; it was way too hot, but I packed them in case I found I needed to go all out with the dress up.
  • ExOfficio rollup pants: Mine are a pale blue/gray, with a white shirt; they look like business. They’re very light, so great for heat or for when you need a little coverage from the wind or sun.
  • ScotteVest Lucy Cardigan: Also new from ScotteVest, this lightweight wrap works perfectly for evenings out and covering up a sleeveless dress. It feels soft, looks cute, and is very nice for summer evenings.
  • Rain shell from Westcomb: (You can take the girl out of Seattle but … ) I didn’t need it, but I always pack a raincoat – always. I can’t help it.
  • The other stuff: Socks and underwear (I wish I’d packed better socks), a swimsuit, an absurd amount of cables and electronica, product and meds.
  • Packing cubes: I’m not brand loyal when it comes to a system, but I actually am a convert to packing this way. My clothing stays cleaner, it’s easier to find things in my bag, and I end up packing more efficiently.

I could have easily traveled for a month or longer with this kit; for a week, it was perfect. The events turned out to be more casual than I’d expected but I wasn’t sorry I’d packed for more formal as the choices I made added little weight or bulk to my bag. I had exactly the right clothes for everything I did and had the weather gone south, I’d have had the pieces I needed to make the transition. And I had room in my carry-on sized bag to spare.

It’s rare I win so completely at the packing game. I’m hoping I’ve turned a corner and I’ll get it this right for all my future trips.

Image: Nancy Packs Her Suitcase via Flickr (Creative Commons). Awesome photo and SO not me.

Paradise Regained: Revisiting La Colombe d’Or In St.-Paul-de-Vence, France

by Don George on

June 28, 2012; at La Colombe d’Or, St.-Paul-de-Vence:

Conjunction of memory and moment: Nineteen summers ago I sat in this limestone-terraced restaurant in the medieval marvel of St.-Paul-de-Vence, experiencing a time-stopping, life-enlarging afternoon that has become iconic for me. Now I am back, my journal opened to a page as white as the brilliant sunlight that splashes over everything here, and then to a much earlier page, all blue scribbles and a fading blush of Provencal wine.

I am ensconced under a white parasol at a red bouquet-brightened table, looking out on a somnolent scene of green hills and straw-colored houses with terra-cotta roofs.

I have just finished a truffle salad – so redolent I felt transported before taking even a bite – and now I’m sipping a chilled vin rosé, eating buttery bites of crusty-tender baguette, and sliding ineluctably into heaven once again.

I feel like I’m in a Matisse canvas – bright white flagstones and sun umbrellas, green hills, red roofs, blue sea and sky. Then the sun dapples and it’s an Impressionist scene, a Renoir moment as the maitre d’ ceremoniously ushers diners to their tables and they exclaim at seeing old friends – “You’re here! Yes, you too!” – kiss-kiss, take their seats, and sigh. The rosé flows, and time slows.

The waiter appears and – just as nineteen years before – places before me with a flourish an artful platter of grilled sea bream, dauraude royale.

“Bon appétit, monsieur,” he kindly purrs, and pours some more wine.

Around me is a symphony of sounds: the clink of silverware on china, the splash of wine into glasses, the mellifluous laughter and multilingual chatter of diners in summery clothes.

An American family of three sits at the table in front of me, and I lean forward to recommend the truffle salad. They are from Napa Valley, it turns out, an hour’s drive from my home, and we exclaim at the wonder of meeting people so close so far away – and the sheer joy of sharing such a singular place on such a singular day.

The family to my left joins the conversation. They are from Newport Beach, in southern California, and have made the pilgrimage here from a cruise ship docked in Monaco for the day. Soon a woman appears at my shoulder, smiling. “Ojai,” she says, and then from the table behind me, a voice trills, “San Francisco!”We are all caught up in a buoyant bubble of bonté and bonhomie – a celebration of life’s bounty and of our own good fortune to be sharing it on this sun-dappled summer terrace in the middle of one of the most blessed places on Earth.

I take another sip of rosé, savor the perfect daurade with green beans and watch the choreography unfold – a ballet of white-shirted waiters bearing bottles and platters, the maitre d’ surveying the scene, calls for flutes of Champagne here, moans over delicate bowls of luscious red framboises there, kiss-kiss and sit and sigh.

To my right is a vibrant Leger mural, wrought into a section of the terrace’s streetside wall. And as I have just reaffirmed on a rambling restroom detour, the rustic interior rooms here still house an astonishment of modern masterpieces – canvases by Picasso, Dubuffet, Dufy, Miro, Chagall, Picasso, Braque, and Matisse, among many others, all given by the artists when they were still struggling unknowns to the generous and perspicacious owner, the late Paul Roux, in lieu of payment.

This place is an enchanted little world, I think – reluctant to take fork to fish, reluctant even to move, wanting to hold and savor this moment forever.

Awaiting me, I know, is a medieval meander through the cobbled alleys of St.-Paul; an espresso at the Cafe de la Place, where I will watch local gentlemen enact their afternoon rite of pétanque; and then a serene stop at the exquisite Chapelle Folon, which had not even existed nineteen summers before.

Some things change, and some things stay the same.

But for now the world is wondrously reduced to this: the sunlight catching in the canopy of branches above and blessing the hills beyond, the murmuring music of the diners behind me, the perfume of the flowers mingling with the scents of the chef’s seasonings, the exuberant atmosphere of artwork all around, the cobbled stones beneath me, the fish and bread before me, the wine as red as the flowers, the tablecloth as white as the parasol; an ineffable moment of ease and artfulness, a soul-fulfilling scene of life lived to the full.

The platter of now absent daurade has been whisked away and replaced with an ebullient bowl of fulsome framboises. Slowly, dreamily, the California fan club rises, smiles, waves, exchanges cards, prepares to go their own way – and the afternoon shimmers and sighs, as ephemeral and endless as this last glass of rosé I raise in my hand, in toast to the marriage of memory and moment in this blessed land.

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.