What should you do if you’re stuck in an airport for half a day? Well, firstly, let’s dispel the myth about whether you can or can’t leave an airport during a layover. The rules are that unless you’re jumping from one plane straight onto another, all airports will allow you to leave their premises between flights.
With this in mind, so long as you’ve got enough time to play with, there’s nothing to stop you heading out and enjoying some sights and sounds that don’t involve duty free shops and ‘last calls’.
Visitors with a long layover in Paris (the city has two international airports – Charles de Gaulle Airport and Paris Orly Airport) have an added incentive to get out of the terminal and explore. On your doorstep is one of the world’s most visually stunning and culturally captivating urban metropolises.
Of course, with such a limited amount of time, you’re going be on a tight schedule. So here’s my hour-by-hour suggestion for how to make the most of a long layover in Paris:
If you’re arriving into Garde du Nord, you will be in a plum spot to begin your whistle-stop tour of Paris, being within walking distance of many of the city’s main sites and attractions.
Hour 1
From Gare du Nord, take a stroll west down Rue la Fayette. This exclusive avenue is the perfect introduction to Parisian street life and its juxtaposition of traditional and modern architecture. Drop into Galeries Lafayette, a 10-storey department store, for a browse of the latest fashion fads in one of the word’s sartorial meccas.
Hour 2
Once you reach the end of La Fayette, head south and you will eventually arrive at a vast area of greenery called Jardens des Tuileries. This is one of Paris’s most important landmarks, with the world-famous Louvre Museum to the east, the River Seine to the south, and the Place de la Concorde to the west. Spend 45 minutes here, taking in the panoramic views and enjoying refreshments in one of the riverside cafes.
Hour 3 & 4
After that well-earned rest, you’ll be ready to enter one of the world’s most important cultural institutions: The Louvre Museum. Home to nearly 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 19th century, the museum could keep you captivated for hours, but with time of the essence, you’ll have to restrict yourself for just a couple on this occasion.
Hour 5
Walking west out of the Louvre and across the Jardens des Tuileries will land you at the start of the Champs Elysees. This wide and exclusive avenue, lined with fashion boutiques and the cafes that epitomise Parisian street life, is one of the most famous thoroughfares in the world. Here you can stop for food, though you will pay a price owing to the prestigious location. A relaxing amble will lead you to another famous Parisian landmark – the Arc de Triomphe, an imposing concrete arc that looms large over the Place de l'Étoil.
Hour 6
Walk south from the Arch de Tromphe down Avenue Kleber and you will get to Palais de Chailot, located in the Trocadero district. This is the famous back-drop to the Eiffel Tower, which you will now be able to view in all its majesty across the river. Take in the views and enjoy the wonder of the landscape before heading across the river (via the Pont d'Iéna bridge) for the main event.
Hour 7
No trip to Paris would be complete without a trip up the Eiffel Tower. The iconic structure is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world, allowing visitors to take elevators to near the top for panoramic views of the city.
Hour 8 & 9
Now it’s time to experience Paris’ famous metro system. But not just for the experience. You should head north and get off at one of the following stops: Place de Clichy, La Fourche or Abbesses. This should give you plenty of time to explore the bohemian Montmarte district and the nearby Basillica Sacre Coeur.
Hour 10
And that will just about bring to an end your mini Paris adventure. From here you can catch a metro or RER high-speed service back to Charles de Gaulle.
Author Bio
Paul Joseph writes for AirportHotels.com, where you can search, compare prices and book Charles de Gaulle Airport hotels, and 3,700 other airports hotels across Europe and Australia.
This is a Guest post on the Best Travel Deals Blog by Paul Joseph.
10 hours in Paris, France
Lanzarote – The Hot Holiday Destination
Lanzarote has a history that is every bit as hot and fiery as the mojo sauces served in the local restaurants. Thanks to the fact that the island is home to over 300 volcanoes – fortunately all now dormant. And is located off the coast of West Africa – close to the outer fringes of the Sahara Desert.
The island has been a Spanish possession since the early 1400´s and during the days of empire was used a naval base for galleons. 
Which travelled across the Atlantic between the New World and the Old. A trade that attracted the attentions of marauding pirates and buccaneers. Keen to secure a slice of the riches onboard for themselves.
Today, Lanzarote is a peaceful yet popular holiday destination. Around 1.5 million tourists visited the island last year – the bulk staying in one of the three main resorts of Playa Blanca, Puerto del Carmen and Costa Teguise (home to one of the best hotels in Lanzarote, the five star Gran Melia Salinas).
Things To Do
Visiting Lanzarote without taking a tour of the Timanfaya Volcano Park would be like going to Paris and ignoring the Eiffel Tower. More so even, as exploring the volcanic past is they key to understanding Lanzarote today. As the eruptions have had a big influence on many aspects of island life. For example the textures and colours of the scenery are a key theme in the work of the island born artist, Cesar Manrique.
Manrique designed and built many of Lanzarote´s leading tourist attractions. Most of which also integrate the volcanic terrain – such as his own house in Tahiche. Which was created from five bubbles in the surrounding lava flow.
As well as other worldly volcanic vistas Lanzarote boasts over ninety great beaches. Some of which – such as Famara in the north and Papagayo in the south – are regarded as amongst best in the Canaries. And is also an island of contrasts – as the valleys in the north of the island are as green as verdant as the south is dry and arid.
Getting Around
Lanzarote is one of the smaller Canary Islands – measuring just 58km by 40 km. Which means it’s really easy to tour the island. The best way to do this is by car – as the local bus services don’t service the interior of the island or many of the main tourist sites. Car hire is relatively good value, starting from around €20 per day.
Places To Stay
The best hotels and villas in Lanzarote are located in Playa Blanca – the newest resort in the south of the island. Whilst those searching for apartments should focus on the resort of Puerto del Carmen. Which boasts a wide selection of good quality holiday complexes.
This is the First Guest post on this 'Best Travel Deals Blog' by Nick Ball.
Online Travel Tools, Travel Widgets & Travel Softwares
Hi all,
Do you often surf the net online for your travel needs like travel deals and travel tour packages?? Now as everyone being hi-tech with growing technologies, media, people want to save more and more time utilizing the online world of internet. Today People don't have this much time to wait in queues for hours for their travel bookings. Now People simply surf the net to find out the best travel deals in one minute just on their finger tips.
There are a lot of the websites available who provide the travel deals and tour packages. Some also offer online software for the same. I too found a excellent website www.mytafri.com:[Best Online Travel Deals] which offers a Free Online Travel Tool named 'Tafri'
These Online Travel Tools like Tafri also offer various other facilities like finding the Air Flight Deals, Car Rental Deals, Last Minute Deals, Hotel Packages and Deals and lot more related to you Travel Needs through these small travel softwares. Its work doesn't end here, it also lets you to see and share the related pics and videos of the hotels and places from the deal providers (on availability from the deal providers).
I invite you people to share more tips and thoughts on such travel widgets and softwares here and also share more of these travel tools if you find to let others know about these and utilize these travel utilities to get benefited by them.
UPDATE: The owners of online Tafri tool are now offering this tool in a different way with the name 'BTB Communications Plateform' i.e. 'Beyond The Browser' communications platform which helps you engage your target audience by personalization of the overall communication. Read More.....
UPDATE: (11 - May - 08, 11:52 pm) A question just striked in my mind do every one is aware of this online travel tool thing? i think most of the people in the travel world won't be aware of online travel tools, so i just thought to explain a bit about these travel tools thingy. Travel Tools is basically a travel software which while connected to internet (or online, thats why these widgets are called online travel tools), it searches from the various travel websites on the net for the best travel deals of your choice, and then it compiles all the best travel deals available online and brings all of them to you without any efforts of yours, saving your valuable time. I hope a bit of concept for these online travel tools would have been clear to you., if still not ask me on the comment, will write more about these tools. :)
Cheers,
Kuntal Shukla
Best Hotel Deals, Hotel Packages and Hotels Reservation
Looking for hotel deals and booking a hotel in middle east, gulf in Arabian countries like Dubai, abu Dhabi, go through this... www.thegulfhotels.com go and reserve your hotel in minutes in gulf cities. This website quotes : “Searches multiple hotel reservation
websites simultaneously to help you find the lowest rates
instantly”
I will suggest, in Arab countries some of the best place to visit are Dubai (the shoppers paradise), also have multiple beautiful hotels to stay. The more places in terms of accommodation and hotel the 'Palm Jebel Ali Hotel' is the one worth to visit. and more updates coming soon...
For the deals of US and country hotels plz check out these best hotel deals in Expedia hot hotel deals.
What is Travel 3.0 & Travel 2.0 - on this Travel Blog
New Economics of Tourism N.E.T.: What is Travel 3.0 ?
Hi guys 'm here again on this travel blog with another Travel 3.0 Post!!
You again check out more about this travel 2.0 and travel 3.0 thing including web 2.0 technology..!! I hope you will find it another interesting & informative one :-))
UPDATE: (01 - Jun - 08, 3:45 pm) TRAVEL 2.0 & TRAVEL 3.0 : The reason behind, my discussions of Web 2.0 & Web 3.0 on this blog, was the direct relation in web concepts with the travel websites nature & structure (i.e. their standards & improvements based on web2.0 & web3.)
[Please Refer -> for more on Web 2.0 & Web3.0]
Travel 2.0 describes the second wave of travel information Web sites. Web 2.0’s collaborative nature are many of what people call Travel 2.0 sites, They focus on shared, collaborator-authored information to feed the growing trend for free & independent travel and travelers’ preference for creating their own tailored itineraries. Adding an improved consumer UI using AJAX or Flash to a Travel 1.0 platform may change aspects of the application to be more engaging, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the software or tool is Travel 2.0 throughout its underlying code. A Travel 2.0 site is structured to allow users to easily contribute words and images, reviews and travelogues. Consequently those who visit a Travel 2.0 site can glean multiple insights about a destination, hotel, or other aspect of travel. This directly implements the Web 2.0 concept for the evolution of travel2.0 .
There are various examples of Travel 2.0 sites:
Trip Advisor, Tripmates, IgoUgo, Turn Here, Flickr Travel, Gusto, Travel the World Wiki, Hotel Chatter, Real Travel, Travelistic, YouTube Travel, WAYN, Where's Yours?, WikiTravel, and many more.
Travel 3.0 : Hold your breath for here comes the 3rd wave Travel 3.0 - riding high on the success of the Web 2.0 - Its is something more like you can have the cake and eat it too. But travel3.0 is as of now i know is more a buzz than a reality, infact I'm still wondering, does it, the Travel3.0 thing, have some substance? However, i feel travel 3.0 may emerge to be a bit advance & more convenient than that of travel2.0 . Travel 3.0 have more inclination towards commercial purpose. Travel 2.0 sites currently offer a seamless, directly integrated booking and transaction facility. And probably, Travel 3.0 sites will harness the proven capability of dynamic packaging to enrich buyer choice and so build sales, value and margin.
However, Enabling a Travel 3.0 site, with its rich content, choice and book-ability, requires close collaboration between the travel site, like-minded suppliers and a technology partner with the platform, capabilities, data structures and vision to pull it all together. so this conceptual things seems to be a bit far and may involved various risk factors if the wrong technology is selected.
Hope this topic on my travel blog is of a bit help to the people searching for Travel 1.0, 2.0 & 3.0 things.
Cheers ~
Kuntal
Web2.0 Travel Tools -Web2.0: Too much of a good thing? - Or Not Yet Enough
Hey guys another blog discussion on Web2.0 thing. find the whether web2.0 is good enough or still something new in this technology is required ? check this out.. :-)
Giving you a brief here about web2.0 concept. the Web2.0 as well as Web3.0 concepts lay the base for the websites and tools that will have more user involvement & better user experience. Web 1.0 was the static, expert knowledge web. Web2.0 is the interactive, user knowledge web.
You can visit here-> for more on Web 2.0 & Web 3.0 Concepts, within my travel blog.
Web 2.0 Travel Tools: "Web2.0: Too much of a good thing?" - Or Not Yet Enough?
Web 2.0 Travel Tools: What is Travel 3.0?
and if you want to Know exactly what this Web2.0 thing is then -> see Web2.0 on Wikipedia.
Web2.0 travel tools are simply as you can now understand are the travel tools developed using the web 2.0 concept and evolving the travel 2.0 thing. Travel Tools help you being connected when you travel locally to work, to the grocery store, to the gym, as well as on business trips and family holidays.
Please Visit-> For more on Travel 2.0 & Travel 3.0 things, within this travel blog.
Cheers,
Kuntal
Web 2.0 & Web 3.0 Travel Tools: What is Travel 3.0
You can find information on what this web 2.0 thing is and more on such travel tools or travel softwares following the concept of web 2.0, also about the travel 3.0. Check it out guys, i found this one an interesting topic, for travel geeks ;-).
UPDATE: WHAT IS WEB2.0 : Web 2.0 is a perceived or proposed second generation of the web. This is were the web has evolved and improved over time and now offers better and more up to date services like blogs, wiki’s, communication tools, folksonomies, social networking sites etc. Obviously the user interaction or you can say user involvement has been a important factor in revolutionizing the world wide web. The Travel 3.0 is considered as the future of online travel, which, whereas i understand utilizes the Web 2.0 concept.
UPDATE: (02 - Jun - 08 : 00.05am)
For most of the online users today Web 2.0 has done a lot of good with Dynamic Packaging. Just think for a moment - if you would have to do things sitting in a place like booking air tickets on lowest fares, ensure that you have an advance Hotel Reservation(s) and a car bookings, pick up and drop included.
Web 3.0 : "Web 2.0 was very exploitative of user generated content. "Web 3.0" is engaging more professionals to create user-generated data/content communities by compensating them"
cheers,
Kuntal
Travel Blogs, Travel Sites and Travel Related Links
Hey friends here are some online travel deals related blogs, travel directories and travel sites i've found online on the net. Lots of travel related stuff is there, I'll try to keep posting links of more travel sites, directories and travel blogs here, i hope this will help gathering more travel information at one place ie on this blog. Check these out, i hope these will be useful for you:
- Travel Blogs
http://www.bootblog.org/
- Travel Web-Sites
http://www.fodors.com/
- Travel Directories:
Air Travel Directory:
Enjoy Your Travel here,~ Kuntal
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