France Impressions is a blog about my travels throughout France.
Travel is about embarking on journeys, discovering new places, its people, learning from others and in particular, learning about oneself. I believe travel is an art and I like to craft trips and tours around your personality, interests, desires and dreams. I undertake to open for you 'doors that are normally closed" thereby ensuring you gain access to exclusive experiences while introducing you to extraordinary personalities.
One of the great pleasure in my life was always dining at the formal restaurant, La Tour d'Argent overlooking the Cathedral of Notre Dame and having one of their numbered ducks. Founded in 1582 and run in the 20th century by the Terrail family, it was the place, for once in your life to dine at. Having three stars for so many years, after the Death of Claude Terrail, it slipped from three to two to one Michelin stars and was the place to avoid , only visited by tourists and the food was lacking. Today, under then leadership of chef Philippe LABBE, he has brought back brilliance once again to the kitchen. The duck is still there plus a host of new dishes for the 21st century.
The service many tell me a bit to formal ( I love that!) The restaurant has become an excellent place to dine again and the views? WOW!!!
This exhibit—running through March 26—explores how Louis XIV used entertainment as an instrument of power. 3D images help recreate the dazzling spectacles which took place on a daily basis at the king’s lavish palace. A trip to the Château de Versailles is also an opportunity to try chef Alain Ducasse’s elegant new restaurant, Ore, which is located in the recently renovated Pavillon Dufour.
Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer presents an all new shopping experience in the Boulingrins Gardens, just a stone’s throw away from the Place du Casino.
The Monte-Carlo Pavilions consist of 5 superb pebble-shaped spaces, with a total surface area of 2,500 m², large enough for twenty shops. With their rounded, futuristic shapes, the pavilions are located between the avenue de la Costa and the Place du Casino.
All pavilions are unique, each with a different shape and size ranging from 220 to 600 m² and a ceiling height of maximum 10 m. The temporary pavilions are meant to last 4 years, which corresponds to the duration of the renovation works at the Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo and the Sporting d’Hiver.
A new replica of the stunning Lascaux cave paintings was unveiled Saturday in the Dordogne region of southwest France, more than seven decades after the prehistoric art was first discovered in Montignac, the village at the foot of the hills where the original cave complex is located.
The new project dubbed "Lascaux 4", which opens to the public on Thursday, aims to recreate the sensations experienced by the four teenage boys who found the cave on September 12, 1940.
The spectacular prehistoric art is thought to be 18,000 years old and has been on UNESCO's list of world heritage sites since 1979. But tourists have been kept away from the original site since 1963 because the carbon dioxide they exhaled was damaging the paintings, wreaking havoc with the cave's fragile ecosystem.
And the early work preparing the site for visitors had also disturbed its environment more than the authorities anticipated.
"Lascaux 2", an earlier copy of the site, opened in 1983, but it reproduced only 90 percent of the cave's wall art, The new version marks "the first time that we've reconstructed the entire Lascaux cave",
"Lascaux 4" took a team of 30 workers four years to complete at a cost of 66 million euros .
Housed in a half-buried building of concrete and glass, it replicates the dimensions, the artwork and colors of the original cave.
I visited Lascaux 2 this year and was wowed!
First, there is the land itself. From Cape Finistere to the Riviera, via the Alps, The Dordogne and Provence…there is no more beautiful or varied landscape in the world. I drive regularly in France and have to always stop and get out and reassure myself that this is not a dream. It is unfair on the competition because it is at least six countries in one.
Its artistic legacy grows richer year by year. Just in one place, the Musee d’Orsay; one room after another with visions of such genius, that you wonder if it’s an optical illusion. Millet, Courbet, Degas, Cezanne, Monet, Renoir and on and on…hundreds and hundreds of serene works so deeply connected to the country that had produced them.
Within the countryside and depictions of it, there are the buildings. Versailles, The Sacre Coeur, Parisian townhouses or the great Provencal farmhouses with their turquoise-blue shutters are certainly admired. But I think if France is really in your blood you really have to love those undistinguished small villages and towns – The hotel de Ville with its black slate roof, the cobbled square, narrow shuttered streets –all somehow suggestive of intrigue and clandestine romance.
The wine of course, still remains the worlds best. The food, well what can I say..its the most important thing that attracts me to France; before, now and always.
But its greatest natural resource is of course, its people. They can be proud, they can be shy, they are almost always private and hard to get to know, but I have never laughed as much or found greater friendship or greater generosity of spirit than in France.
~ H.E. Lewis
Howard E. Lewis, CTC - Famed travel agent, raconteur,Edwardian in manner and spirit,gourmand, master BBQ Judge,hotel guest and man of leisure.
If you are interested in any of the areas/hotels that I have highlighted on this blog and/or wish to talk about France or anywhere else in the world ( hotels-cruises-tours) and what I and we at Protravel International can do to make your next tripmagical! , please don't hestiate to E Mail me (howard.lewis@protravelinc.com) or call me at 800-301-3993 ~ Howard
NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THIS BLOG
Howard E. Lewis, CTC - Conde Nast Traveler magazine award Winner since 2003 for France
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