Exotic France

Roseraie du val de marne

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 20:09:04 +0000

Everything about flowers not only you found in Holland or Dutch, but you could found it France as well. If you like rose, a flower that often use as representation of love, visit roserai du val de marne.

Roserai du val de marne is located in Rue Albert Watel, you could reach the place by using metro and jump down in Porte d’Italie then continue the journey by using bus no. 184 or 186 (or 286 on holiday).

Almost the same in Holland, the best season watching these flowers is in June, on summer seasons. During this month almost all roses rose, in all colors and shape, from ancient, modern, and botanic type of roses, you could found in here.

Morning is the perfect time visiting this place, why? because the area is quite wide considering this is the first largest roses garden ever open in the world. Jules Gravereaux is the man behind this garden, firstly open in 1894, he develop the garden just as hobby, later in 1910, he have collected 8000 roses plant from different kind of types.
Its just too bad, right now only 3300 type of roses could be watch and preserve.

The garden open from mid May until mid September, from 10 a.m until 8 p.m. each day. In June, they will gave you music concert in the middle of the garden to entertain you. Ticket sold for 3 Euro for each adult who want enter the garden, and 1.5 euro for age between 5 – 15 years old, elderly, and groups more than 15 persons.

Best in Car Hire

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:34:57 +0000

HireCars.co.uk is one of the leading car hire services in the UK. Did you know that we currently offer over car hire services at more than for 6000 destinations across the UK?. The reason behind this is a phenomenal growth that we treat all our car hire customers are valued clients, each with their own specific needs. We have a wide network of car hire providers spread across the country. They enable us to provide the best of cars to our clients at a rate that is comparable with the best in the industry. Some of the cities like car hire east midlands and Heathrow will be easier to book these car hire services.
The only thing you need to do is to provide us with some basic information on your requirements. We will have a car ready for you in an instant. We even offer you luxury car hire services if you need to have more exclusive vehicles.

Marseille visit

Thu, 06 May 2010 07:01:45 +0000

Marseille in the south of France is the country’s second largest city after Paris. Right on the Mediterranean coast it is one of France’s great historic cities.
An ancient city in the Bouches-du-Rhone ‘departement’ of Provence, Marseille is the largest French seaport and one of France’s great historic cities. It was functioning as a port even before Julius Casar conquered the Gauls.

Settled by the Ligurians the town was taken by the Phoenicians around 600BC, the Greeks in 540BC and the Romans two thousand years ago. As a result of such long settlement, Marseille is rich in history. The bustling atmosphere of Marseilles also reflects its great port, fishing fleets and specialism in seafood. The city’s one-time reputation for gangsters and crime was depicted in French and American films, the best-known of which to English-speakers is ‘The French Connection’ starring Gene Hackman.
But time has moved on and Marseille is now better known for its museums and galleries, as a port of call for Mediterranean cruise ships, for its football team, Olympic Marseille – and for its seafood.

Marseille is heaven for seafood fans. As well as the many fresh fish dishes you can choose between various versions of the traditional fish soup, bouillabaisse. Bouillabaisse du Ravi and Bouillabaisse du Pecheur are variations commonly served in the city’s restaurants. Ravi (‘delighted’) features six different fish while the Bouillabaisse du Pecher (‘fisherman’) has three.
‘Moules marinier’, another staple seafood dish of Provence, combines mussels with Provencal herbs and finely diced onion. Eat in the Vieux Port (the old port) looking out over the Mediterranean and you’ll see the bustling harbour at work. Alternatively, go into the quieter streets of the Quai de Rive Neuve. The dry local white wines suit fish and seafood very well but many people choose a rose wine – ‘pink’ somehow seems right in the heat of the Provencal summer.

Many holiday makers combine a visit to Marseille with visits to other towns on the Mediterranean coast. St-Tropez, Cannes, Cassis, Sainte-Maxime, Frejus, Antibes, Nice, Cap Ferrat and Monte Carlo all have distinct characters and charm. With their beaches and glamour they will definitely appeal to the committed hedonist.

Inland, the towns of Aix-en-Provence, Arles and Avignon will appeal to culture vultures. In particular you may want to visit the summer theatre festival in Avignon and the exhibition in Arles of Roman antiquities. The latter is on until mid-September 2010 and features a bust of Caesar and many artefacts excavated from the river bed of the Rhone.

In Marseille, some major sights to see are the 5th century Abbaye de St-Victor, the Old Port, the Romanesque Basilique Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, the former prison of the Chateau d’If, the famous street known as La Canebiere, the historical ruins in the Jardin des Vestiges, the old town square Estienne d’Orves and the 17th century building La Vieille Charite, now an exhibition centre. Museums not to miss are the Musee d’Histoire de Marseille, Musee de la Marine, Musee des Docks Romains (a Roman warehouse), the art Museum (Musee Grobet-Labadie) and the Musee d’Histoire Naturelle.

High-speed trains (TGVs) run frequently between Paris and Marseille and take just three hours. The local airport, Marignane, serves destinations around Europe and in Africa.
payday advance

Nord Pas-de-Calais

Thu, 06 May 2010 04:41:45 +0000

Because the sun appears less often here than in the south, some people think of Nord-Pas de Calais as a gloomy region. They have clearly never paid it a visit: it’s probably one of the jolliest regions in France, and always ready to celebrate. Parades, carnivals, fairs and fanfares – good habits endure in this land of memory, bristling with belfries. To get the right feel for the region’s spirit, you need to join the crowd during the great collective celebrations, and share their meals based on seafood – the famous moules-frites, the traditional waterzoï (a court-bouillon of fish and chicken) – washed down with some of the local beer. It’s a lively region where tradition is part of daily life – a region open to the major capitals cities of Europe such a short distance away!

The Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France is the most northerly region in the country, and it borders Belgium. This is the place to enjoy beaches and countryside, fine cuisine and unique shopping, local markets and unique architecture. This is a major port, and those traveling by ferry from the U.K. land here.

To visit France’’s northernmost region is to discover a universe where sea and earth are intimately linked. In the past ten years, Nord-Pas de Calais has been transformed by the Channel Tunnel––a project accomplished in May 1994 but contemplated by Napoleon two centuries earlier. Another asset is the TGV train service from Paris to Lille, the region’s capital, a non-stop 150-mile trip that takes 59 minutes in railway cars whose comfort equals that of a first-class airliners, minus the airport delays and weather turbulence.

payday loan

Early skiing in France

Thu, 06 May 2010 04:35:29 +0000

Suddenly, I know how Posh feels – what to wear to the airport? Not, in my case, because I need to assemble yet another fabulous couture ensemble for the awaiting paparazzi, but because it’s one of those scorching late September days Britain sometimes serves up by way of apology for another underwhelming summer. And I’m going snowboarding.

It’s a strange feeling to do the Tarentaise rat run – the road between Geneva and the French Alps soon overfamiliar to frequent visitors – in full bloom, the monochrome of Lake Annecy and the gradually gathering mountains swapped for turquoise water and lush green forests flecked with gold and red. And the temperate theme extends alarmingly high. By the time I reach Tignes les Boisses’ Hôtel Les Mélèzes at 1,850m, of the craggy peaks crowding the wraparound views, only the Grande Sassière across the Isère valley shows any snow.

I’m here for the ski and snowboard test camp jointly run by tour operator MountainSun and ski and board hire company Edge 2 Edge. Part of the vast Espace Killy ski area which is also home to Val d’Isère, the Grande Motte glacier above Tignes hosts skiing almost all year round, and, after its three-week autumn closure, the 25 guests gathering on the last weekend of September for a pre-dinner drink in the chalet hotel’s snug bar are its first visitors of this winter. Running until 13 December, the camp has an eye-catching price tag – the standard package of three nights’ catered accommodation, three-day lift pass, airport transfers and use of new-season boards, bindings, skis and boots by top brands starts at £99.

I’m not first on the slopes, possibly because of chef and hotel manager Roger’s generosity with the Talisker single malt after dinner. But my timing is good. At 10.30am I board the funicular railway, which bores 3.5km through the mountain before emerging into swirling grey cloud. Thankfully, it has evaporated by the time the Grande Motte cable car carries me to 3,456m and the glacier’s highest skiable point.

Tignes’ out-of-season skiing can offer up to 20km of piste – I share five open runs with a couple of kids’ teams on race training and around 50 other downhillers. A couple of snowfalls have dusted the glacier, but it still has a grey palour. Still, this is unmistakably an Alp, and a mighty one. Unsweetened by their more familiar winterwear of several million tons of whiteness, the raw, angular ridges and peaks of Grande Casse, Mont Pourri and the Mont Blanc range layer into a stupefying panorama. And, it occurs to me as I make my first carves, I could blow the cost of this whole trip in four hours on Tamworth SnowDome’s 170m of indoor, man-made snow.

The last time I was at Tamworth, I don’t remember having brand-new, high-end kit chucked my way either. The Edge 2 Edge team are pioneers of a new service that lets you order or be fitted in the UK then have your equipment delivered to resorts in the Tarentaise region, bringing to the camp new-season boards, skis and boots by Burton, Head, Salomon, Scott, Atomic and more. Thanks to them, I finally get to ride Lib Tech’s Skate Banana snowboard, whose radical “reverse camber” construction made such an impact it was near impossible to lay hands on one for its first two seasons. The seven points of contact provided by its subtly bumpy outline give amazing control and make breezy work of Grand Motte’s crunchy-then-mushy covering. Before I know it, I’m being chased down the mountain by ski patrol, the last man down. “I know,” grins ski tech Matt when I swap my Banana for a Burton at the end of the day. “It feels like you’re cheating, doesn’t it?’” .

Down in the valley too, the camp punches above its weight. A ten-minute shuttle ride from the main base station (and linked during heavier snow by the Les Boisses lift to Espace Killy’s 300km of runs), Les Mélèzes is a simple, spotlessly clean 20-room chalet hotel with the usual alpine extras like hot tub, sun terrace and sauna plus a Wii, Wi-Fi and Sky TV. Served in a dining room whose large windows reveal spectacular views of the valley, Roger’s food is, for the price, frankly astounding. Dinners include whole poussin with orange zest gravy, herb-crusted rack of lamb with dauphinoise gratin and roasted veg, and seared fillet of pork with wholegrain mustard and mushroom sauce. And the throng who fill the bar, many pre-bonded by previous trips with MountainSun (its repeat rate for guests averages about 60%) variously enjoy relaxed and borderline riotous evenings, side by side. The prices help – here a pint of beer will cost you €4.50 against the valley average of €6. This trip’s only reminders of in-season fiscal realities are at the Panoramic mountain restaurant, the only one open at this time of year, where coffee costs €3.60.

On this, the inaugural outing of the three-year-old camp’s 2009 run, there’s even the opportunity to trade in my last afternoon’s skiing for Franceraft Savoie’s final white water rafting excursion of the season out of Bourg Saint Maurice (for a €60 supplement). Surrounded by flitting birds, dappled sunshine and the dramatic cliffs of the La Pucelle gorge, the 22km, rapids-studded stretch of the Isère river adds another satisfying snowsports holiday first to the tally. And with my bags waiting for me in the MountainSun transfer bus at the end, that run back to the airport is neatly snapped into two palatable halves.