Improvements at Nice airport
Nice Côte d’Azur Airport has announced that Terminals 1 and
2 will benefit from a €30 million renovation, which will commence in January
2015 and run until 2017.
Read more: http://bit.ly/1zJ4sDV
Friday, 21 November 2014
New for Eurostar
London to Paris in just 2
hours
Eurostar passengers making the 306-mile journey between London and Paris will soon have their journey time cut by 15 minutes, after the company unveiled a fleet of new high-speed trains. The trains will go into service at the end of 2015.
Eurostar passengers making the 306-mile journey between London and Paris will soon have their journey time cut by 15 minutes, after the company unveiled a fleet of new high-speed trains. The trains will go into service at the end of 2015.
The launch comes on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the
start of Eurostar services in November 1994, when the journey time was just
under 3 hours. There were just two trains a day when the service started.
Today, there are between 15-17 daily services to Paris.
The e320s, created by Italian design house Pininfarina, will
be equipped with free WiFi throughout
and customers will have more space per seat, each equipped with power points
and a USB socket.
The number of passengers travelling on Eurostar's trains
topped 10 million for the first time last year, giving it around an 80% share
of the travel market between London and Paris, and London and Brussels.
In another direction, May 2015 will see the start of a new
year-round Eurostar service to Provence, stopping at Lyon, Avignon and
Marseille. That will be followed at the end of 2016 by the launch of a route to
Amsterdam with stops in Antwerp, Rotterdam and Amsterdam's Schiphol airport
along the way.
Read more: http://dailym.ai/1tmZuHx
Thursday, 16 October 2014
EUROSTAR ANNOUNCES NEW YEAR-ROUND CONNECTING SERVICE TO GENEVA
Eurostar has today announced a new year-round service to
Geneva via Lille, in partnership with international high-speed train service
“TGV Lyria”. From Thursday 9th October, travellers will be able to purchase
tickets for the new Swiss route, with the inaugural service leaving London St Pancras on the 14th December 2014.
With an easy connection on to a “TGV Lyria” service in Lille
Europe, passengers can travel from London to Geneva in just over 6 hours
(London to Geneva will take 6 hours 18 minutes with a 37 minute connection in
Lille) with services specially timed to ensure a fast transfer between the two
trains.
Recent Eurostar customer research revealed that Geneva is
one of the most desirable destinations for UK travellers. With four daytime
services each week (on Monday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday), the new Geneva
service means passengers can sit back, relax and enjoy beautiful views of
France and Switzerland before they arrive.
For those wishing to venture further, the new route offers
passengers a convenient way to travel to some of the most popular destinations
in Switzerland, with simple onward connections from Geneva to Aigle, Martigny,
Sion, Sierre, Visp and Brig.
The new Swiss service coincides with the refurbishment of
Lille Europe station designed to significantly increase the capacity of the
Eurostar terminal in order to accommodate growth in the number of connecting
passengers. The new look Eurostar terminal will be unveiled in December this
year.
Thursday, 9 October 2014
€30 million refit for the Eiffel Tower
"It's a process of permanent reflection."
The renovation is part of the city's attempts to promote the
tower as more than a top tourist attraction, but as a symbol of the French
capital's dynamism and capacity for regeneration.
The deputy-mayor of Paris, Jean-François Martins said: "Originally
it was a challenge of engineering innovation; today the challenge is to
continue that spirit, by modernising, renovating, reinterpreting the Eiffel
Tower while remaining true to its history.
The work has modernised the pavilions on the first floor,
introduced access to the outer platform with its spectacular panoramic views of
the city to those in wheelchairs. A cinema room shows historic and recent film
of the tower.
The project also aims to reduce the tower's carbon footprint
by repositioning glass panels to reduce air-conditioning costs in summer,
introducing solar panels, installing a rainwater collection system, and using
LED lighting.
Friday, 22 August 2014
The best place in France to live...
According to the annual
“Better Life Index”, published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD), the best place to live in France is in the
Midi-Pyrénées.
The region scored 7.82 out of 10 across a range of 11 criteria, including employment, health, the environment, education, civic engagement, access to services, and public safety.
The region scored 7.82 out of 10 across a range of 11 criteria, including employment, health, the environment, education, civic engagement, access to services, and public safety.
The full list of French regions is:
1 Midi-Pyrenees (7.82/10)
2 Limousin (7.77/10)
3 Pays de la Loire (7.71/10)
4 Bretagne (7.70/10)
5 Poitou-Charentes (7.56/10)
6 Île-de-France (7.55/10)
7 Aquitaine (7.54/10)
8 Rhône-Alpes (7.47/10)
9 Auvergne (7.46/10)
10 Basse Normandie (7.42/10)
11 Centre (7.30/10)
12 Bourgogne (7.22/10)
13 Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (7.10/10)
14 Franche-Comté (7.05/10)
15 Alsace (6.99/10)
16 Languedoc-Roussillon (6.91/10)
17 Lorraine (6.85/10)
18 Haute Normandie (6.84/10)
19 Champagne-Ardenne (6.68/10)
20 Picardie (6.49/10)
21 Nord-Pas-de-Calais (6.01/10)
22 Corsica (5.66/10)
Thursday, 31 July 2014
Chamonix valley pays tribute to the Golden Age
In 2015, the Chamonix Valley will be celebrating the 150th
Anniversary of the year 1865 and the Golden Age of Mountaineering, an intense
period of alpine exploration and conquest that was pioneered by the Victorian
mountaineers.
1865 was an exceptional year in the Alps! It was
immortalised by 58 “first” ascents and 7 in the Mont-Blanc Massif, including
the Aiguille Verte, the Grandes Jorasses and
the remarkable Brenva Spur on Mont Blanc. 1865 was a bitter sweet year of
triumph and disaster, too – Whymper’s ultimate victory over the Matterhorn turned
rapidly to tragedy, when three mountaineers and Chamonix guide Michel Croz fell to
their deaths on the descent. It was the 14th July – Bastille day.
Next summer, between June and September, the valley will pay tribute
to the mountaineers, guides and artists of the Golden Age through a programme
of exhibitions, memorial climbs, events, films, conferences and book
publications. They will have the privilege of exhibiting the “treasures” of the
Alpine Club (the first club of its kind, founded in 1857) and other private
collections.
More information: http://1865.chamonix.fr/En
Wednesday, 16 July 2014
Fait maison
When is home-made, really home-made?
Visitors to France, especially those concerned about what
they eat, should keep an eye open for a new sign – Fait Maison – intended to
flag up restaurants where the food really is home-made.
It may come as a shock to many that in a nation renowned for
its cuisine, many French restaurants simply re-heat pre-prepared food, rather
than cooking it from scratch...not that this practice is peculiar to France, of
course.
Conservative estimates suggest that barely 50% of restaurant
meals were home-made, while the Union of Hotel Skills and Industries claims
that 85% of restaurants make use of frozen or vacuum-packed food.
To many people this seems at odds with the perceived view of
French culinary traditions, so a law designed to uphold those traditions was
passed earlier this year, and came into force recently.
Now any restaurant that serves a home-made dish can indicate
it on the menu with it new logo – in the form of a casserole with the roof-like
lid. From next January it will be compulsory for all menus to carry the logo. So,
if you don't see it, the food is not fait
maison.
And does it matter? No-one is suggesting that any of the
practices currently adopted results in poor quality food. But a high proportion
of people think that the use of pre-prepared food by restaurants is
incompatible with what they expect.
How will it pan out in practice? No-one can be sure. But
it's an interesting development to watch.
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