Art for free in Paris? Paris’ cemeteries are beautiful and free.

by Gadling Staff on

Ah, Paris. City of light. City of magic. City of art. City of admission fees to view art.

Stepping inside the Louvre will cost you $14.00. Want the audio guide? Another 8 bucks. How about seeing one of the temporary exhibitions? That’ll set you back another $16.00. How about an espresso to caffeinate the experience? Plunk down $5.00, please. While no trip to Paris is complete without a foray to the Louve, spending that much money every day is going to result in a quick evaporation of your resources. You came to Paris to see fabulous art, but dang some days you get overwhelmed with the prices and the crowds. What to do? How about seeing world-class sculpture by some of the same artists whose works are exhibited in Paris’ pricy museums and galleries for free? Get thee to a cemetery. First up is Père Lachaise Cemetery, the world’s first “garden cemetery,” established in 1804.

Père Lachaise
48 51’35.95″N 2 23’20.51″E (Main Entrance)
A dozen years ago about the only ambulatory people in this magnificent cemetery were black-shrouded Goths who were on a pilgrimage to see the grave of their fallen high priest, Jim Morrison, or local Parisians who were out for a quiet stroll. That has all changed. Père Lachaise has been discovered. Not to worry, you’ll still be quite alone, at least by big city standards. You may have company around the permanent homes of some of the major celebrities, but wander off the main paths and you’ll get the serenity you want and at all times you’ll be surrounded by the magnificent sculpture you came to Paris to see. Better yet, it’s all FREE … but first things first.

(Père Lachaise)Before embarking on your eternal excursion, download a map and chart your path. (Vendors around the perimeter of the cemetery also sell reasonably-priced detailed maps). Then hop on the Metro and get off at (where else?) the Père Lachaise station. You probably won’t be able to resist making a beeline for JIM so do that if you must, then plan your path from there. Alas, Morrison’s grave is a pretty pedestrian affair, but, well, it is Jim.

(The grave of Jim Morrison.)

Other must-sees are the lipstick-kisses-covered-genitalia-abbreviated tomb of Oscar Wilde, the statue of journalist turned fertility god Victor Noir, dancer Isadora Duncan, writer Gertrude Stein, singer Edith Piaf, composer Chopin, glass artist Renè Jules Lalique and star-crossed lovers Heloise and Abelard. You can easily spend a day at Père Lachaise, but you can always come back and many people do, over and over again. Best haste; there are other boneyard bonanzas awaiting.

(Oscar Wilde’s tomb.)

Montparnasse Cemetery
48 50’10.13″N 219’39.04″E
Montparnasse Cemetery is home to Constantin Brancusi. A rendition of his sculpture, The Kiss, adorns his grave. Poet Charles Baudelaire has a suitably poetic tomb. And don’t miss the over-the-top tomb of Charles Pigeon, the inventor of non-explosive gas lamp. Pigeon’s tomb is a massive polished granite bed complete with a bronze sculpture of Pigeon and his wife. There are dozens of other sculptors, composers, actors, writers, singers and painters reposing at Montparnasse and you can easily spend hours tracking them down.

(Brancusi’s grave, topped with The Kiss.)


(Baudelaire’s tomb.)


(Pigeon’s grave.)

Saint-Vincent Cemetery
48 53′ 20.27″ N 02 20 21.20″ E
This postage-stamp-sized cemetery doesn’t have a lot of notable residents but its eclectic tombs and slanting hillside location make it a pleasant place for an unencumbered stroll.

Montemarte Cemetery
48 53’7.15″N 2 19’51.75″E
If nothing else, Montemarte Cemetery is a study in urban intrusion. Urban cemeteries have long been victims of city swell. Often the residents of these cemeteries are exhumed and deposited elsewhere with little or no fanfare. However, at Montemarte road designers figured out a way to thread a motorway above and through the burial ground. Sitting at the bus stop surrounded by petite mausoleums presents a unique opportunity to contemplate one’s mortality.

Paris Catacombs
48 50’1.99″N 2 19’56.06″E
Okay, this ones gonna cost you about 12 bucks, but for the truly macabre-motivated the Paris Catacombs are not to be missed. In the late 18th century, officials ordered the closure of various burial grounds in Paris and the transfer of the bones to abandoned underground quarries that at the time were just south of the city. In the next few decades the bones of approximately 6 million expired Parisians found their way to what became the Catacombs of Paris. The catacombs are open Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm. Bring a light jacket and sturdy shoes (130 steps down on a spiral staircase).

Douglas R. Keister is a graveyard guru, who Sunset magazine said “has done for cemetery exploration what Audubon did for birding.” His 39 books include four books on cemeteries such as Stories in the Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography. Read his blog on Red Room.

The cheapest way from London to Paris: Bus service for £15

by Grant Martin on

Backpackers rejoice. Eurolines, a part of UK bus carrier National Express has reduced the fare of their bus service from London to Paris, a hotly competitive route currently served by dozens of air and rail carriers. To date, Eurostar and budget air carriers have fought hard over the route, with fares on either sinking as low as $100 round trip.

Currently, one of the most common inexpensive routes taken is via low cost carrier such as Easyjet, where non-peak flights can often be found for a bargain. Eurostar, conversely, delivers passengers from city-center to city-center without security hassles and sometimes in just as much travel time.

With Eurolines, passengers can pay as little as £15 ($24 as of August 2010) for one way fare between the two cities. Travel time? Seven hours, and there’s even an over night bus that leaves at 11PM. For those without a tight schedule though, that’s a lot of money saved.

Make sure you book your tickets far in advance though, like with most carriers the £15 fares are probably in short supply.

[Via AERBT]

Travel writer Q&A: Julia Dimon

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Travel journalist and television host Julia Dimon lives the sort of fast-paced traveling lifestyle that most people, even quite experienced travelers, fantasize about. She’s visited over 80 countries and she’s been featured as a travel expert for countless print, online, radio, and television sources. Dimon’s excitement as a traveler is palpable. I asked her about her background, her move from writing to television, some of her favorite destinations, and her top tips for travelers and prospective travel writers both.

Q: Describe your profession.

A: I’m a travel journalist, host of several travel TV shows and hard core adventuress with a blog called Travel Junkie Julia.

Q: Tell me about your family background as a traveler.

A: My mom is a travel writer. I guess that adventure is in the blood! I had the privilege of traveling with her on assignment when I was growing up. As a family we went to Costa Rica, China, Europe, Cuba. I got the travel bug at a young age.

Q: For years you wrote about travel for the Toronto Star and then for Metro. How did you make your move from writing to television? Do you expect to remain in television or return exclusively to the writing at some point?

A: I started out as a travel writer and columnist, freelancing for many publications. Then, while in Turkey on a round-the-world trip, I met a fellow Canadian travel writer named Robin Esrock, who is now my co-host. Robin thought it would be a cool idea if we had our own TV show. I agreed. He pitched a concept to a production company, who took it to a Canadian-based broadcaster. From there we collaborated and developed a show about the real lives of two young travel writers, under pressure and on deadline. The show is called Word Travels and we’ve shot 40 episodes over three years.

TV, like travel writing, is also in my blood. My Dad is an Emmy-award winning producer, so I suppose it was fitting to blend travel and TV. Getting on a full-time travel show was a combination of luck, timing, my strong reputation as a travel writer and a helluva lot of work. Since filming Word Travels, I have shot a travel series for MSNBC and am hosting a new show with Ethan Zohn (winner of Survivor Africa) for the new adventure network Outside Television. I really enjoy the medium of TV and am moving more into that direction but writing is a part of who I am. I’ve been a writer since I was 12. I wrote movie reviews for a kids page in the Toronto Star for over a decade before moving into the travel section. Writing will always be a part of who I am and what I do.
Q: As travel writers we are often asked about our favorite places. I don’t know about you, but I always find such questions impossible to answer. But I’d like to tweak this question and pose a few variations on the theme: your favorite destinations for beaches, street food, budget travel, splurging, and mass tourism?

A: Beach: Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania, is one of my all time favorite spots. Sugar white beaches, amazing fresh seafood and a fascinating blend of Arabic and African cultures against a very cool capital city.

Street food: Thailand has some of the best street food. Steaming dishes of pad thai, green curry, red curry, chili mango and the occasional deep-fried grasshopper make for an interesting and extremely affordable foodie destination. As for street meat, you can’t beat a Toronto hot dog from a street vendor. Grilled sausage topped with a buffet of condiments, fried onions, pickles and bacon bits. Not good for you, but delicious.

Budget-friendly: Laos is one of the most beautiful and most affordable destinations out there. For those travelers who are concerned about making their money last, I suggest forgetting Europe and considering India, Cambodia, Bolivia or Peru.

Splurgeworthy: Jordan is a fascinating country but it’s not terribly cheap. Between spending a night in the desert at Wadi Rum, snorkeling the Red Sea, seeing the skillfully chiseled pink rock in Petra, floating in the Dead Sea, and soaking up the Roman ruins in Jerash, the country has a lot to offer the adventure traveler. You absolutely can do Jordan on a budget, but with so many five-star hotels and fancy Dead Sea spa treatments, it’s more tempting to splurge.

Mass tourism: Does Chernobyl count? Kidding… I was there last summer and I’m still waiting to glow radioactive. I’m a big NYC fan. After all the traveling I’ve done, I think New York is the most vibrant, dynamic city in the world. It’s my Number One city, closely followed by Paris. Number Three is still up for grabs…

Q: Top tips you’d offer to someone wanting to work as a travel writer?

A: I have written some tips for people wanting to break into the travel writing business.

Q: Top tips for regular travelers?

A: Go with the flow. Not everything is going to go according to plan so be flexible and take things as they come. Often the best travel experiences arise from the unexpected. Connect with local people and never turn down an invitation, within reason of course. Safety is obviously your number one priority. The people who know the country will be better than any guidebook and can give you insight into the local culture. Go local – where do local people eat, shop, play? Arm yourself with knowledge, be social and ask everyone you meet for recommendations on cool things to do. Learn some basic local language, try everything once, and always carry toilet paper.

Q: What are your essential carry-on items?

A: Laptop, iPod, all chargers, camera, a bunch of magazines to catch up on world events, an empty water bottle, snacks (almonds, dried fruit), sometimes a blanket.

Q: Where is your next trip?

A: I just got back from a palm tree-piña-colada filled weekend at the Gansevoort Turks and Caicos. Next I’m going on an Antarctic expedition, an 11-day voyage on a luxury vessel from Patagonia to the Antarctic Peninsula. Fjords, icebergs, glaciers and tons of cool wildlife are in my future. After this trip, I will have visited all seven continents. Whoo hoo!

Top five cities for taxi drivers (and the bottom end, too)

by Tom Johansmeyer on

When you step into a cab, you never know what you’re going to find. The driver could be knowledgeable, helpful, pleasant and safe. Or, he could lead you into a fender-bender in minutes. It’s a real roll of the dice, of course, though some cities’ cabbies are certainly better than others – at least that’s what hotels.com found.

In a study of world’s taxi drivers, hotels.com found that London’s are tops. But, you get what you pay for: London‘s taxis were also the most expensive. New York came in second, with 27 percent of the vote (compared to London’s overwhelming 59 percent). New York’s drivers ticked up 10 percentage points, but this still wasn’t enough to break the tie it scored with Paris for having the rudest cabbies. Rome picked up the dubious distinction of having the worst drivers.

Tokyo (26 percent), Berlin (17 percent) and Bangkok (14 percent) round out the world’s top five.

Madrid took sixth, followed by Copenhagen, Dublin, Frankfurt and Paris. So, Denmark may be happier, but Spain has better cab drivers.

Of course, there’s always one you should look out for …


[photo by Ben Fredericson via Flickr]

Cockpit Chronicles: Navigating Paris with an iPhone GPS

by Kent Wien on

I’ve lamented on Cockpit Chronicles about my distaste of four-day trips. I’ve come to realize that I shouldn’t be flying such long trips after I came home once and I could actually see the growth in my two daughters.

But when a rare (for the Boston base anyway) six-day trip showed up on our bid sheets, I had to rethink my bidding preferences. The trip had a 24-hour stay in New York between two Paris layovers, and since my wife and kids were already away visiting relatives, I figured I may as well be working.

I’d be flying as a relief pilot working with Boston, Miami and New York pilots. The layovers in Paris and downtown Manhattan easily made up for the loss of stick-time since I wouldn’t be at the controls for any takeoff or landing. I would likely meet some new people from the other bases as well which can be nice.

The evening trip to Paris started off with a Boston crew that I’ve flown with before, and went without a hitch. We managed to catch a nice view of the high altitude (300,000 feet) noctilucent clouds, a spectacular phenomenon that I’ve written about before. It never gets old, especially since it’s visible for just two months out of the year.
Captain Mark flew a beautiful morning arrival into Paris, after which we piled onto the crew bus for the long ride to the hotel, near the center of the city. While the location is amazingly convenient for sightseeing, the bus ride on weekdays can take as much as 2 hours and 10 minutes to travel just 21 miles. I’ve often thought we’d do better on a bike.

On this morning though, we were lucky to keep a relatively good pace, arriving at the lobby just an hour and a half after we left the airplane.

While on the bus, I did a bit of sightseeing. Since my iPhone required a data connection to view the maps as we traveled, I couldn’t use the GPS function to get a better feel of where we were. Since the iPhone doesn’t store the maps by default, an extremely expensive roaming data charge would be needed to see where we were. In fact, as an experiment, I once checked my location on the map in Paris and racked up $6 in roaming data charges in less than a minute.

But then I remembered a really inexpensive iPhone app called GPS MotionX (itunes link) that allows you to cache maps just for the area you’re traveling to by drawing a circle and pressing the download button. With the fast WiFi network and an $8 a month Boingo account, I managed to download the maps back at the hotel.

So many times I’ve followed other crewmembers around the city, checking out museums, restaurants, shops and of course the bike tour through Paris and I would have loved to have known what our route had been between the sights.

With the recent ability to run apps in the background on the iPhone, GPS MotionX allows you to track your path through the city, and even take pictures along the way at each stop or at an interesting sight. For those without a privacy concern in the world, you can even share, in realtime but at designated intervals, your path via Twitter or Facebook.

It also lets you know the distance traveled, the current, average and top speeds, and the elevation that’s depicted in a profile view. The ability to snap a picture at certain waypoints would have given me a much better understanding of a city. Paris is probably the best example, since there’s just so much to experience.

It’s a big city. A GPS could come in handy.

So when the other two Boston pilots and I decided to meet up at 3 p.m. to venture out around the city, with no specific plans, I could tell this would be a good track to record on the iPhone.

Once I explained the function of the GPS app, the path almost became a quest itself as we proceeded. We stopped at a cafe to meet up with the flight attendants, but decided not to eat dinner there, since we had already made plans to go to Willy’s Wine Bar, a restaurant that I hadn’t been to before, which meant I could add it to my list of conquered Parisian restaurants.

Unfortunately we discovered a full house at Willy’s, so we continued on to another place the captain knew about. While it didn’t quite garner a spot in my address book of favorite restaurants in the city, it wasn’t bad, and the appetizer, raclette covered potatoes, may make me want to come back for another entreé.

At least I’ll have the GPS track to remember just how to get there.

By the time we arrived back at the hotel, the MotionX app told us we had walked for 3 hours and 16 minutes, covering 8.16 miles at an average of 2.5 miles per hour. Adding up all the hills we climbed totaled 477 feet, so I don’t feel nearly as bad about the Crepe Nutella we had from an outdoor vendor on the way back.

I sent our route to the captain and first officer, but the .gpx and .kmz files it creates only store one photo from each outing. In fact, even in the app itself, there’s no way to view the pictures taken at each waypoint without digging into a few menus. If only you could touch the waypoint and the photos would pop up. Perhaps in a later version.

A few days before this trip, my wife told me she had found a great way to keep the kids entertained on vacation. She had just discovered geocaching from a friend of hers, and so she took our daughters out to a spot marked near her hometown in Germany. The kids were so excited, since they managed to go right to it without a GPS. But they were having trouble finding the next location on their list.

“Can we somehow do that with the iPhone?” She asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure there’s an app for that.” I told her. And now I think I’ve just found it.

Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on some of Kent’s trips as an international co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 based in Boston. Have any questions for Kent? He’s on Twitter @veryjr.