Paris Breaks

With all flights into and out of the UK grounded, Eurostar ran an extra 10 trains last weekend, with six more than normal planned for Monday. Between last Thursday and Sunday, an estimated 50,000 people travelled by Eurostar, up 30% on normal passenger numbers. Eurostar passengers have been urged to book online rather than just turn up at railway stations.

Tens of thousands of Britons on holiday and on business are still trying to find ways to get into, or out of, the UK. With flight restrictions extended until at least 7pm Monday, and forecasters warning that the ash cloud could hang over the UK for “many more” days, the search is on to track down alternative transport routes.

As a result of the disruption to air travel in Europe, Eurostar say they are doing everything possible by adding extra trains to help passengers who are experiencing problems. Inevitably the trains are extremely busy.

They ask passengers only to come to the stations if holding a confirmed reservation for travel. Maybe these passengers should consider reorganizing their trips abroad and visit a holiday park here in the UK.

The holidays have come around again, and you have decided that the way you want to spend them is to travel in Europe. The big question though, is how will you get around? Car, bus, or airplane all offer possibilities, but perhaps one of the most attractive offers is a Camper Rental!

Spending your holidays in a camper van allows you so much more flexibility than any of the other typical means of transport. It incurs significantly less cost than airplane travel, and unlike a car or a bus, you do not have to plan your trip around places to stay. You don’t have to figure out the distances between hotels, or how long it will take you to get from point A to point B. Instead, you can just drive, taking your time to get to your destination, or perhaps not having and destination in mind! You can stop whenever you want, and not have to worry about checking into a hotel and unloading luggage. Your “hotel” is right there with you!

Planning a holiday in Europe? A Camper Rental could be just what you are looking for!

Paris – Tartempion

Originally uploaded by Añelo de la Krotsche

Tartempion restaurant is located in Montmartre on Rue du Mont Cenis which is just off the famous Place du Tertre. It’s one of the many restaurants which are in the area and around the square. Like many occasions during short Paris breaks when there’s not much time to choose, it can be difficult to decide where to eat from the many options available. In any case, I’d definitely recommend Tartempion, especially if you like duck salad.which is what I ordered. It’s a combination of duck leg and smoked duck served with fresh salad, bread and washed down with a nice glass of wine. I’ll be back!

Paris Breaks blog wishes everybody a Happy New Year for 2010 and we hope you get to visit Paris as many times as you’d want to next year.

During 2009 we posted twenty three times on the Paris breaks blog, and focused many of them on the different arrondissements of Paris.

April in Paris

Originally uploaded by LindaH

LindaH’s picture on Flickr about April Paris Breaks manages to capture the idea of getting totally involved with paris by not wanting to take a camera. There’s a map of Paris on which are cards from the Hotel Le Petit Trianon, A Breton cafe where you can eat gallettes and breton cider, and a few other mementos from a short break easter holiday in Paris.

Lot’s of people do take cameras though, and that’s fine too. Both approaches work for me. Sometimes I must admit I do like to take lots of pictures, especially when chugging along on thr Batobus for example, or in a dramatic visual environment such as la Defense. But I do get the point about living in the moment and getting totally immersed in Paris breaks as if it were part of a lifestyle rather than just a holiday. In any case, holidays anywhere, not just in Paris, are to be savoured for the relaxation and mind broadening stimulation they provide, and I think far too many tourists seem to get wrapped up in getting the best value by seeing as many sights as possible in the short time available and trying to steal enough images for later, to try and prove to someone – goodness know who – themselves maybe? that they had a great time or at least that they did actually make it all the way to Paris.

Paris Breaks to the 20th Arrondissement

Ok, the idea of going on Paris breaks in order to hang out entirely in the 20th is only semi-serious, it would be a bit like visiting London in order to spend all your time in Leytonstone or Newham, but that’s not quite as mad as it sounds. You’d be surprised at the number of young Europeans and Orientals wandering about in East London these days, I’m sure Brick Lane, Walthamstow and Stratford must feature in some offbeat guide books to trendy London. But back to Paris, and the Bellevile,  Barbes  area. It’s similar in some ways, with a history of immigration, a melting pot of world cultures and cheap accommodation for starving artists etc, but with a Parisian style that’s unmistakeable. So you might find a flourishing little underground Parisian indie music scene, or an ex-pat community linking South Sea islanders with Mexican sushi vendors. But you might just find the usual struggle against exploitation and discrimination that you wanted to get a short break from while abroad. You’ve only got a few days in Paris so why spend some of that precious away day time in the 20th?

Père Lachaise Cemetery

The single great tourist attraction in the 20th is a  graveyard.  The landmark is Père-Lachaise Cemetery, the resting place of Edith Piaf, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, Isadora Duncan, Sarah Bernhardt, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Colette, Jim Morrison, and many others.

Père Lachaise is located on Boulevard de Ménilmontant. Métro station Philippe Auguste on line 2 is next to the main entrance, while the station called Père Lachaise, on line 3, is 500 metres away near a side entrance. Many tourists prefer the Gambetta station on line 3 as it allows them to enter near the tomb of Oscar Wilde and then walk downhill to visit the rest of the cemetery.  Abelard is also buried there, and the list goes on.

The Communards’ Wall (Mur des Fédérés) is also located in the cemetery. This is the site where 147 Communards, the last defenders of the workers’ district of Belleville, were shot on 28 May 1871 — the last day of the “Bloody Week” (Semaine Sanglante) in which the Paris Commune was crushed.

And so we come to the end of our little series of distributed articles about Paris breaks to each of the 20 arrondissements or districts of Paris, but not to the end of the Paris Breaks blog which continues with a new series coming soon looking at a number of aspects of our favourite city with one common theme.

Do you prefer your Paris breaks with more of an international standard feel and all the modern luxuries of a big well known hotel chain? If so you might consider the Holiday Inn at La Villette, Paris for the full four star treatment without aristocratic prices.

Paris, 4* Holiday Inn Paris La Villette, 2 nights from £139.00pp
Available on selected dates, address :

216 AVE JEAN JAURES PARIS, 75019 FRANCE

The Holiday Inn Paris La Villette is a modern hotel located opposite the museums of music, science and industry and La Grande Halle (theatre and convention hall) and within direct reach of the main historical monuments, cultural and shopping areas of Paris by metro. The hotel has 182 air conditioned bedrooms with many facilities including a TV with in-house movies, minibar, safe, hairdryer and telephone. There’s also a fine restaurant and a mini gym. Great for Paris breaks with familiar comforts.

Holiday Inn Paris breaks

Within walking distance is a unique complex associating the Science and Technology complex, the Music complex, the Grande Halle and the Zénith venue.

The “Porte de Pantin” underground metro (line 5), situated only 50 m from the hotel will quickly take you to Notre Dame de Paris (20 min), the Eiffel Tower (30 min) and the Louvre Museum (20 min) .

Paris breaks in the 19th Arrondissement

Today, Paris visitors come to what was once the village of La Villette to see the angular Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, a spectacular science museum and park built on a site that for years was devoted to the city’s slaughterhouses. Mostly residential and not at all upscale, the district is one of the most ethnically diverse in Paris, the home of people from all parts of the former Empire. A highlight is Les Buttes Chaumont, a park where kids can enjoy puppet shows and donkey rides.

Eurostar Breaks And The Paris Trocadero

The Trocadero in Paris is sadly best known as the nearest metro station to the Eiffel Tower, as people on Eurostar breaks hurry to conquor the iconic landmark. I say sadly, only because there is so much more to the Trocadero area than that, and besides it’s actually nearer to get there via Metro Bir-Hakeim.

Trocadero is in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, which is an upmarket area with some very prestigious properties and lots of expensive hotels, which is great for Paris breaks where money is no object. The cafes and restaurants in the area tend to be a tad more expensive than other districts of Pars too, but don’t let that put you off – it’s always going to be possible to find an affordable side street establishment if you’re on a more modest budget .

Trocadero Metro Paris

Paris Trocadero History

The Trocadero lies across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. It’s another area of Paris named after a famous French war victory. The French won the Battle of Trocadero in 1823 protecting the autocratic Spanish King Ferdinand VII. Some forty years later they honored this victory by renaming the square called Place du Roi de Rome (King of Rome Square). Next year, the Palais de Trocadero (Trocadero Palace) was built on the site as the centerpiece of a world fair celebrating France’s recovery from its defeat in the Franco-Prussian war. The Palace was built like a concert hall in mixed Moorish and Byzantine style with a large aquarium occupying the lower level. For the Exposition Internationale World Fair of 1937 the old Palais du Trocadero was demolished and replaced by the modernist Palais de Chaillot.

The complex now includes several museums.

• The Musee national de la Marine (Naval Museum)
• The ethnological Musee de l’Homme (Museum of Man)
• The Musee national des Monuments francais (National Museum of French Monuments)
• Theatre National de Chaillot (Chaillot National Theater).

At the Palais de Chaillot the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The esplanade was renamed the esplanade des droits de l’homme (esplanade of human rights).

So there are plenty of cultural and educational destinations in this arrondissment to greatly enrich any length Eurostar Breaks to Paris  -  after you’ve been up the Eiffel tower of course !

The chances are that nearly all first time Paris breaks cover the 7th arrondissement, largely because of the iconic Eiffel Tower which dominates both Paris itself and the idea of Paris so it’s an aspiration which simply has to be fullfiled. Whether you actually go up the tower, and how far is another question. Many people such as myself have never bothered to do it, put off the queues, the crowds, the cliche, the costs but no doubt the view from high up is breathtaking, and the experienc of riding those 19th century lifts or else walking up a ridiculous number of steps.

Paris 7th Arrondissement – Eiffel Tower and also the Musée D’Orsay

Apart from the greatest tourist attraction of all, the 7th arrondissement on the Left Bank dis largely a district of smart residences and dull offices. The Eiffel Tower of course is one of the most recognisable landmarks in the world, but many Parisians especially in the immediate neighbourhood hated it when it was unveiled in 1889 as a temporary exhibition for the World Fair. There are many other Parisian monuments in the 7th too, such as the Hôtel des Invalides, which contains Napoleon’s Tomb, the Musée de l’Armée, and the fantastic Musée d’Orsay, the world’s premier showcase of 19th-century French art and culture, housed in the old station termial building – the Gare d’Orsay. There’s much hidden charm here in the 7th as well, such as the Rue du Bac, which was once home to the real Three Musketeers and to James McNeill Whistler, who moved to no. 110 after selling Mother. Auguste Rodin the father of modern sculpture lived at what’s now the Musée Rodin, 77 rue de Varenne, until his death in 1917.

Both the Rodin museum and the Musee d’Orsay are essential visits for art lovers on Paris Breaks in the 7th arrondissement, and did you know you can also walk all the back to the latin quarter just by following the Boulevard St Germain which starts in the 7th, or take the batobus which stops just outside the Musee d’Orsay.

As of 1st July 2009, VAT on all restaurants and cafes in France has been cut from 19.6 per cent to 5.5 per cent, a huge reduction leading to big savings for consumers. This translates into a saving of approximately 10 per cent when passed onto customers, meaning a meal typically costing €15 (£13) will be reduced to around €13.20 (£11.40).

The move aims to boost consumer spending in the busy summer period throughout France and attract more visitors on Paris breaks from the UK, offsetting the slightly weaker Pound Sterling against the Euro.