Airport transport CDG airport to downtown Paris - by rail, rates (about 8 euros) and times see http://www.ratp.info/informer/anglais/aeroport_rerb.php?partenaire=
Camino de Santiago de Compostela - Travel diary by Meredith Sykes during her 800 km, 50 day journey from France to Santiago on the Spanish coast in October-November 2004: www.marneweb.com/bnb/camino.htm
Currency converter: The best one seems to be http://www.xe.com/
Driving tips for France, and much more. This personalized page by Jeff Steiner has many good suggestions for anglophones - especially Americans - traveling in France, not the least of which are his guidelines to understanding French signs and staying alive on French roads. www.americansinfrance.net
Electricity, portable telephones, roaming advice etc: In France 220-230 volts, 50 amps is standard. The socket is the type with two round holes, and sometimes with an earth pin, in a larger circular recess, is common in France and most of Europe (except UK). A good country-by-country database of plugs and lots more information is at http://kropla.com/ Click through the password window which doesn't seem to stop you. You will find France-US adaptors in each of our apartments and at the B&B. Transformers on demand. This site by Steve Kropla has evolved the past few years and is invaluable for those who need to stay wired. For finding free wi-fi hotspots in France, the US and elsewhere try http://wififreespot.com/. It lists one just two blocks from our apartments, on rue Oberkampf although you would be hard-pressed to find a faster, more convenient one than we have in each apartment.
Events in France, such as festivals, concerts, exhibitions and visits, markets and fairs, sports events and shows, are visible in English and French on www.tourisme.fr, a site that regroups the 3600 local tourist boards and "syndicats d'initiative" as they are often called. You can find a site by type, date, region or city. There is quite a lot of other useful information at this url. I haven't explored it all.
French links: check out http://www.linksfr.com/links/directory/Travel_and_Tourism/Lodging/Lodging.html for a variety of useful links concerning France.
Getting along in France: French or Foe? by Polly Platt seems appreciated by francophiles and francophobes alike so she must have hit a happy median. Check out a diverse set of reviews at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/book-customer-reviews/0964668408/qid%3D958494910/102-5191486-0138436 before you buy. You now get this book used from Amazon for as little as $2. It has good information. She purveys her consulting work on her own web site at http://www.PollyPlatt.com
Getting along in France: Culture Shock! Paris At Your Door by Frances Gendlin is more recent and doesn't have the years of hype of Platt's book to boost it. More matter of fact with valuable advice on how to find a residence, conduct business, and relax in Paris. Insights into why the French are the way they are. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1558684050/qid=958495830/sr=1-1/102-5191486-0138436
Other lodgings -
Maps of France: If you can't wait to get to France to buy your topo maps for hiking or general maps for touring try this comprehensive source in North Carolina http://www.omnimap.com:80/catalog/int/france1.htm It has a very matter-of-fact shopping cart approach. FYI our B&B is on the IGN 2613 Est topographic map at 1:25,000. Another company, apparently British based, has a more chic interface permitting you to input the name of the town or feature that interests you and it will find the relevant IGN map for you : http://www.map-guides.com/ign/ TIP If you are traveling in the area of our B&B you will find us on the Michelin 1/180,000 yellow series no. 306, at D8. This map covers about all you might want to see in the Champagne growing region. It shows EVERY road which is not the case with the Michelin red series.
Maps on the web: want to see exactly were our apartments at "27 rue des Bluets, Paris" are located. Type that into maps.google.com. Presto! And it will overlay it with a photo of the town if you want. Zoom out to see more. Same for the B&B in Reuilly.
Paris.org is an excellent information source in English at http://www.paris.org/parisfull.html created by Paris lover, Norman Barth. It now has thousands of pages on many aspects of visiting and enjoying the city such as General tourist information - Métro and buses - Monuments - Museums and much, much more. Don't visit Paris without visiting this site.
Paris restaurant writer: one of our guests called to our attention this link to a gastronomic street of restaurants near our apartments. The writer/photographer, Joe Ray, who lives in Paris, has many more articles on local food and restaurants visible on his site joe-ray.com
Paris Métro map: print this map of the RATP underground métro system (http://www.paris.org/Metro/gifs/metro.map.jpg) on your color inkjet and bring with you. The ones distributed free are usually too small to read. Our apartments are in the triangle between the stops Ménilmontant, Père Lachaise and St.Maur. This is just one of the Paris.org pages mentioned above.
Paris Tourism through the eyes of the Paris Tourist Office is worth a stop at http://www.paris-touristoffice.com/
Père Lachaise Cemetery: This is a "must" visit and only a five minute walk from our apartments. See Norman Barth's list of famous people (including Heloise and Abelard, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf...) and their location in this vast landscaped park at http://www.paris.org/Expos/PereLachaise/
Photographer's Guide to Paris: A great web page, not only for camera bugs. Useful information of all sorts about the city by Philip Greenspun: http://photo.net/france/paris
Tourism - Château-Thierry: Here the Office of Tourism in Chateau-Thierry is developing a comprehensive site for the southern part of the Aisne Department (where we are located), for the most part in French so far, with general information and, most useful for us, a calendar of events such as fairs, flea markets, etc. www.otsichateau-thierry.com The most important historical site near us is the Chateau de Condé-en-Brie, www.chateaudeconde.com. Besides tours they make the chateau available for weddings and events. Ten minutes from our B&B.
Tourism - Aisne: www.aisne.com is a general site with an excellent English version about the whole Aisne Department in which our B&B is located.
Tourism - Marne: we are two kms from this department which contains the champagne cities of Epernay and Reims (Rheims for the anglophones). They have an excellent site in English, German and Dutch at http://www.tourisme-en-champagne.com/cdt/the_discovery_guide.htm
Train times: French train times see www.sncf.com and German train times go to http://bahn.hafas.de If you're going from Paris to Berlin either will work.
Travelling tips: This site by Doug Dyment is dedicated to making you "The Compleat Carry-On Traveller". If you haven't discovered the joys of packing no more than you can carry on the plane with you, stop by here. http://www.onebag.com/. This is another one of those usable sites with extensive references to travel resources and information which has evolved enormously since I put this links page up five years ago. Check it out.
TripAdvisor: I think everyone knows TripAdvisor.com, so useful for planning trips with reviews by "real" travellers of where they have been. The good, the bad, and, well, the other. I was surprised to learn that some guests from July 2007 took the trouble to advise some future Paris visitors for 2008 in such a way they may be taking one of our apartments then. Here is the link to these helpful comments which also go some way to reassuring visitors that the 11th Arrondissement is not the pits. Au contraire.
Trip route planning: See http://mapquest.com/directions/europe.adp for an efficient itinerary routing system which covers all Europe.
Understand France: I discovered this wonderfully informative site by Harriet Welty Rochefort when googling for the conversion from French metric litres per 100 kms to US miles per gallon. My Prius in France gets about 4.6 litres per gallon which becomes about 51 miles per US gallon thanks to the simple formula here.
Weather in France and near the B&B: This handy site at the University of Michigan http://cirrus.sprl.umich.edu/wxnet/ will tell you what we can expect here in Reuilly for the next few days. Just type "Reims, France" in the query space.
Wine Guide : http://www.travelenvoy.com/ is an good source of information about the world's wines and wineries. We used it to help plan our trips to New Zealand, South Africa and Australia. Nor will you be disappointed by its section on Champagne !
World War One search engine. Many come to the B&B because we are in the midst of the battles of 1918 and the famous cemetery at Belleau Wood is nearby. For one-stop-shopping in searching WWI history go to http://www.worldwar1.com/tsearch.htm
