Plane Crash Memorialized In The Deep Sahara

by Megan Fernandez on

In a lonely corner the Sahara Desert, Google Earth shows what looks like a tattoo on the sun-parched sands: a dark graphic blot amid the vast remoteness of Niger’s Tenere region. The negative space in the center of the dot forms the shape of a DC-10 jet plane. Four arrows outside the circle point in each direction, like a compass.

The dark mass large enough to register on a satellite is actually an arrangement of boulders improbably hauled to the desolate area and hand-placed to create the precise image of a DC-10 – a memorial for the 170 victims of the UTA 772 plane crash on Sept. 19, 1989. A terrorist’s bomb downed the aircraft in Niger en route from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Paris, leaving no survivors.

Fifteen years later, victims’ relatives from the group Les Familles de l’Attentat du DC-10 d’UTA used some of their $170 million settlement to fund the memorial. (Last year, another commemorative site opened at Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.) This photo gallery offers an up-close look at the arduous labor of love, illustrating such daunting tasks as excavating one of the wings, later incorporated into the design. Parts of the wreckage remained in the sand when the work began (a testament to the remoteness of the crash site), and the gallery includes stirring images of loose, twisted aircraft seats and other debris. Other striking photos show how the group spent two months moving stones by hand to outline a circle 200 feet in diameter and then fill it in with rocks, leaving an empty space in the shape of the aircraft with remarkable accuracy. Broken airplane windows ring the circle, one for each of the 155 passengers and 15 crew members who perished.

Considering that Lonely Planet describes the Tenere as a classic “endless, empty desert,” the photo gallery will be the closest look most of us ever get of this amazing memorial.

The Late Night, Free Cultural Event Extravaganza: European Night Of Museums 2013

by Anna Brones on

Budget traveling night owl alert: if you’re in Europe right now you don’t want to miss out on the ninth annual European Night of Museums this Saturday, May 18.

The idea is simple: open up museums way past their general closing hours, cut the entrance fee and make museum going a little more like nightlife instead of a rainy Sunday afternoon activity.

Coinciding with International Museum Day, European Night of Museums is organized by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, and this year almost 3,000 museums around Europe are participating not just by opening their doors for the late-night crowd, but hosting special events and beyond. Track them down here.

In Paris for example you have access to 150 museums and cultural centers – most of them for free – and while the waived entrance fee might attract a larger crowd to some of the more well known spots, it also means the chance to explore a few new places that you might have been meaning to check off the list.

In the U.K., you’ll also find Museums at Night, tied in with the European Night of Museums campaign, but open for a couple of extra days, this year held May 16-18, 2013.

Latvia, Romania, Norway … wherever you are in Europe, find a museum and book your Saturday night.

#OnTheRoad On Instagram: Paris, France

by Anna Brones on

Paris is one of those iconic travel destinations that everyone seems to have on their travel list at one point or another. It’s romantic. It’s beautiful. It’s chaotic. It’s French.

I came three months ago, with the excuse of needing a month to focus on a couple of writing projects and somewhere inspiring to do it in. I still haven’t left.

Paris is one of those places that sucks you in. The kind of place that when you ride your bike down a street just before dusk, you risk getting in an accident because you’re mesmerized by the golden light hitting the tops of the buildings. It’s a city of well-known landmarks, but also one of hidden gardens, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, hipster bike shops, abandoned railways turned to community gardens and moments of serendipity. That’s the Paris that I have fallen in love with, and will be sharing with you this week on our #OnTheRoad Gadling Instagram series.

[Photo credit: Anna Brones]

April In Paris At The Bagatelle

by David Downie on

April in Paris is about spring buds, blossoms, lovers and delicate sunshine – everyone knows that. Just because the temperatures are often in the 30s or 40s Fahrenheit, branches still barren, makes no difference at all. So it was with a light heart and step that I trekked to the western edge of town the other day to revisit one of my favorite gardens anywhere: the lavishly landscaped Parc de Bagatelle.

Edging the Bois de Boulogne and posh Neuilly, Bagatelle comes complete with ponds, grottoes, fountains, lichen-frosted statues and sexy sphinxes, a miniature chateau, orangeries, a café and restaurant, and remarkable rose and iris gardens. Peacocks feathered and of a human kind saunter along looping lanes, some draped with wisteria or clematis. The exquisite whole is tied together by more tortuous history than could fit into several of my monthly columns.

Sound familiar? Look up “bagatelle” and you’ll find: “something of little value or significance.” Wrong: ride line 1 of the Paris metro to Pont de Neuilly then walk or take the 43 bus the last moneyed mile or so, and you’ll be startled by the large value and evergreen significance of this magical park.

Everything about Bagatelle is contemporary, right down to the oligarchs and corrupt politicians in their mansions bordering the walled enclave, plus the kaleidoscope of workers on the bus, or the new skyscrapers rising over nearby La Défense-Paris’ mini-Manhattan. By day the surrounding parklands are filled with birdsong and joggers, millionaires on horseback and dog-walkers tangled in designer leashes. By night the essence of Neuilly comes out: the woods and lanes around Bagatelle fill with prostitutes that look amazingly like the garden’s sphinxes, and sleazy customers in SUVs. The delightful and the seamy frolic cheek by jowl.

“A mere bagatelle,” is one of those shopworn saws my father’s generation used when dressing up false modesty. The grand gesture – diamonds, baubles, or, as happened here, a chateau and garden – is tossed off with “oh, it’s nothing, a mere bagatelle.” Not that my father would’ve indulged in pretense.

As I entered the romantic 19th-century garden gateway and stood before two towering plane trees hundreds of years old, I recalled that the phrase was coined by the loveable Comte d’Artois, later King Charles X, a despotic reactionary later known for his ghoulish S&M parties in the Paris catacombs.

The count was the youngest brother of Louis XVI, he who lost his bewigged head. Charles and his ditzy sister-in-law Marie Antoinette had a little bet: she wagered he could not build a perfect rococo mansion and garden in less than 70 days. The count won: it took his nearly 1,000 artisans and serfs 64 days and nights (some say 68, but who’s counting?). Marie Antoinette did not bring in her sheep or feed them cake. She stayed in Versailles. The count lived high – for a while. This was 1775. Revolution hadn’t yet knocked off the big wigs.

The other saying associated with Bagatelle is “parva sed apta” – small is beautiful. It’s carved onto the façade. This one was coined probably 2,500 years ago in Athens or Rome but is apt to this day: the chateau is pocketsize, symmetrical, pink-stucco perfection, and the garden itself, though not exactly small, seems intimate and compact compared to the sprawling Bois de Boulogne.

Even when spring is a month behind as it is this year, the daffodils and crocuses at Bagatelle carpet the endless, rolling lawns. Peacocks wing past, plucked from some surrealist movie. Buds burst and leaves unfurl in a gentle yellow rain. Gone are the counts, kings and queens. Allergens and democracy have prevailed at Bagatelle: even the millionaires mix with the hoi polloi, though the park’s main café-restaurant is so expensive its clientele seems plucked from the ranks of the Comte d’Artois.

Near the cheapo café with powdered coffee and plastic seats, on the south side of the park, I rested on a mossy bench after several mile-long laps. The air was pollen-rich. I watched an elderly couple flap newspapers and coddle their very fat cat. The peacocks and hens also watched, unafraid. The cat, peacocks and fellow strollers seemed not to notice the stylized sculptures – a temporary art exhibition – dotted around the garden. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen the compound invaded by contemporary high culture. Bagatelle is trying to be cutting edge – without much success. What people including me come here for isn’t today’s outdoor art. It’s a chance to sit or walk in an unnaturally beautiful natural setting, amid antique marbles and thorny roses, quietly celebrate the seasons, and the continuing struggle to uphold equality of enjoyment in France.

Author and private tour guide David Downie’s latest critically acclaimed books are “Paris to the Pyrenees: A Skeptic Pilgrim Walks the Way of Saint James“ and “Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light,” soon to be an audiobook. His Paris Time Line app will be published in April: www.davidddownie.com and www.parisparistours.com.

[Photo Credits: Alison Harris]

Eurostar Revamps Services In A Bid To Lure Fliers

by Reena Ganga on

Long-distance train travel is making a comeback with Eurostar announcing plans to expand its services. The high-speed train, which primarily serves London, Brussels and Paris, has its sights set on new destinations across the European continent.

Eurostar says its entire system is undergoing an overhaul – from the booking process, to the routes, to the trains themselves. The company’s website has been given a facelift in order to create a more user-friendly booking portal, and brand new uniforms have been designed for the crew. Updated trains are also in the pipeline and are expected to be up and running by 2015.As far as network expansion goes, Eurostar says it has its eye on a number of possible routes including London-Holland and London-Germany. Eurostar’s Chief Executive Nicolas Petrovic says he will be looking closely at routes that currently have a lot of air traffic. He told CNN he hopes travelers will eventually come to think of train travel the same way they think of flying.

Eurostar’s overhaul comes in the wake of stiff competition from German train line Deutsche Bahn, which has said it will offer trips across the Channel Tunnel starting in 2016.

[Photo credit: Flickr user Mike Knell]