Tag Archives: France

This Week on IBIT

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How one African island nation turned itself into a travel brand. And what may be the world’s most dangerous museum.

Creating this blog is teaching me the importance of organizing a work schedule. It’s also taught me that the pace of events in the world of travel has absolutely no respect whatsoever for my scheduling. So be it.

Pending the inevitable unforeseen events, here’s what’s on tap for the coming week:

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When you think of bicycles, you think of maybe Lance Armstrong, maybe the Tour de France, maybe doping scandals and rumors thereof.

The one thing you don’t likely think about is Africa. And yet bikes mean more here than maybe anywhere else on Earth.

At a time when more and more people in Asian nations are trading in their bikes for automobiles, people across Africa are trying to get their hands on bikes in ever greater numbers.

Why? Because bikes are one of the most important forms of transportation on the Mother Continent.

You can go almost anywhere and carry amazing loads on them, without having to buy expensive fuel for your four-wheel-drive or feed for your donkey.

For people in much of Africa, a bike isn’t just fun. It’s life-changing. And IBIT will introduce you to some of the folks trying to change lives, two wheels at a time.

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Here’s what else is in the works on IBIT:

THE SEYCHELLES
See how one small African nation in the Indian Ocean turned itself into a brand, and a travel destination — and get some insight into the man credited with making it happen.

GANGWON DMZ MUSEUM
Would you visit a museum within easy artillery range of North Korea? The South Koreans have one, right on the 38th Parallel. Check out what could be the world’s most dangerous exhibit hall.

AIRLINES: A SILENT MONOPOLY?
Lodged in a wire service story about airlines cutting back on trans-Atlantic service this summer is a little nugget about the way the airlines, through their burgeoning alliances, are creating monopolies that effectively govern air travel. We’ll unearth that nugget and take a closer look at it.

DAY TRIPPING: Escape from London
Just as there’s more to Britain than England, there’s more to England than London. Hell, even Ireland and France are day trips from here.

BLACK and LATINO
From Mexico and the Caribbean to the tip of Tierra del Fuego, Latin Americans of African descent are finding their voice, affirming their identities and pointing out long-ignored (and in some cases, long-denied) contributions to history and culture. All the more reasons to look south when you think about travel.

Never forget

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Today is Memorial Day, a day we set aside to remember those who served and died for this country.

As Abraham Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address, “It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.”

But my Memorial Day may feel a bit different from yours. There are specific people I need to honor.

Like the ones in the video above, marching across France.

They are the Harlem Hellfighters of World War 1, the all-black, all-volunteer 369th Infantry Regiment, who fought with the French army — after the US Army concluded they couldn’t fight.

In 191 straight days of combat, the most of any American unit in the war, they never took a backward step.

If you ever visit the French Champagne region, stop by Sechault, one of the towns they liberated from the Germans. There’s a granite obelisk there, dedicated to the 369th.

Perhaps their greatest tribute, though, is their nickname, the Hellfighters.

The Germans gave them that.

THE BATTLE OF HENRY JOHNSON
Few soldiers ever win any nation’s highest decoration for valor. Fewer still get a battle named after them.

A member in the 369th Infantry, Henry Johnson and fellow private Needham Roberts were on a two-man sentry post when they were attacked by German trench raiders, numbering between 20 and 24.

With Roberts quickly disabled, Johnson fought on alone, throwing grenades, firing his rifle until it jammed, then clubbing the Germans with it.

When they still kept coming, he reached for his bolo knife. He singlehandedly killed four German soldiers, wounded and routed the rest.

When two German soldiers tried to drag off the wounded Roberts, Johnson, already wounded 21 times, went after them with his bolo until they dropped his friend and fled.

The outpost remained in his bleeding hands.

He was awarded France’s highest medal for bravery, the Croix de Guerre. Back in the United States, however, he was still a second-class citizen who couldn’t get a job.

He died a broken man in a Veterans Hospital in 1929.

Since then, Johnson has been posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Service Cross. A campaign is underway in Congress to award him the Medal of Honor.

The small but desperate night action that brought him fame as a soldier but no respect as a man, has been known ever since as the Battle of Henry Johnson.

He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery with the rank of sergeant. Section 25, Lot 64.

Black Americans fought against Francisco Franco and his Nazi-supported Fascists in the Spanish Civil War.

Others went to Ethiopia to help Emperor Haile Selassie resist the invasion by Italy.

Then there were the 11 black GIs from Alabama, captured by Nazi SS troops in the Belgian town of Wereth during World War 2.

They were mutilated with bayonets, shot and their bodies left in the snow.

For two months.

One of them was Pvt. Curtis Adams, recently married and with a newborn son.

Pvt. Curtis Adams, 333rd Field Arty Bn | © The Ardennes Group, LLC

The Army forcefully prosecuted the massacre of white American soldiers at Malmedy during the Nuremburg war crimes trials after the war.

Of Wereth, the Army said nothing. Not a word. In published government lists of atrocities committed against American servicemen by the German military, it was not even mentioned.

Today, Wereth survives as one of those picturesque little European villes nestled amid green fields and forested hills, not far from Brussels.

There, you’ll find a memorial to the Wereth 11, placed there by townspeople who didn’t forget. You’ll also find the graves of seven of those Alabama GIs.

Including Curtis Adams.

There are others, of all races, who deserve memory this day — the merchant seamen lost with the more than 2,700 ships torpedoed by German U-boats in World War 2.

They never wore uniforms or fired a shot. But the war would’ve been lost without them.

We’ll never know exactly how many perished; the Pentagon apparently didn’t feel their deaths merited detailed records.

We do know there were an awful lot of them, including my grandfather.

They have few monuments, and no graves except for the bottom of the cold Atlantic.

For me, this is a day to honor men like Curtis Adams and my grandfather, who also died, again in Lincoln’s words, “that freedom might live.”

Someday, God willing, it will.

POSTSCRIPT
Have you ever wondered how the French, especially in Paris, acquired their love for jazz?

It was the Harlem Hellfighters’ regimental band, led by James Reese Europe, who introduced them, and the rest of Europe, to it.

The same regimental band in the video above.

THIS WEEK on IBIT

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Osama bin Laden is history, but like a bad rash, the fallout from his evil lingers over the U.S. travel scene.

It’s been a week now since President Barack Obama made the announcement that America and much of the world have waiting a decade to hear, namely that payback has finally caught up to Osama bin Laden.

Apparently, not everyone got the memo.

Exhibit A: TSA does a pat-down on an 8-month-old baby.

Exhibit B: A Delta Connections pilot refuses to let two Muslim clerics fly, even after the TSA clears them.

The instigator of terrorism against America may be gone, but some of us clearly remain terrified. We’ll examine that this week.

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We also will be talking to the folks at Delta about their hook-up with the Mother Continent.

The Atlanta-based airline seems to be almost alone among the major US-based air carriers in taking Africa seriously.

We’ll take a look at that commitment, see how Delta views the future of the U.S.-Africa travel market and the role for our travel industry to play in developing it.

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One of the myths about Black America is that our focus is entirely urban, and that Nature is of no interest or benefit to “us.”

Hiking? Backpacking? Bicycling? Kayaking? Hunting? Fishing? Sailing? Skiing? Scuba diving? We don’t do things like that, right?

In fact, we do. You’ve already met a couple of examples of that in IBIT’s “Out There” series — and in the coming days and weeks, you’re going to meet a lot more of them.

They’re not only out there doing all those things, but many are working hard to engage black youth in the same kinds of activities, and in the process, re-connect them to the natural world.

What they’re doing is not just recreation. It’s not just “fun.” It’s important — and they’re going to tell you why.

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Here’s what else this week holds in store for you on IBIT:

DAY TRIPPING: Escape from London
Just as there’s more to Britain than England, there’s more to England than London. Hell, even Ireland and France are day trips from here.

BACK on the BIKE
This is the week my bikes and I get reacquainted. Expect a few informative tidbits amid the inevitable whining about sore legs and shortness of breath.

You may also hear from some folks up in the San Francisco Bay area who are organizing the urban cycling scene with the aim of getting more black folks off their butts and on their bikes. They call themselves Red Bike & Green.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

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Art student in the Lovure

Art student in the Louvre | ©Greg Gross

A roundup of the good, the bad and the bizarre from the world’s best travel media

One of the truisms we live by is that there’s safety to be found in numbers. When it comes to travel, there are bargains to be found there, too.

You’ve already got lots of reasons to travel with family and friends. Camaraderie, shared experience, the special bond that grows from tasting new flavors of life with people you know and trust.

I’ve traveled to Europe twice in my life — once to London, once in France. I’ve also gone with a handful of friends on baseball trips to Arizona, the Midwest, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

Those were some of the best travel experiences of my life.

But if you play the travel shopping game right, it also can save you a nice chunk of change.

Billie Cohen of the New York Times has some tips on how to save when it comes to group travel, whether you’re looking for bargain airfares, cruises an hotels or tour packages.

Just on general principles, you should always ask about group discounts whenever you plan or book travel, even if you have no immediate plans to put together a group trip. The knowledge could com in handy later on.

To read the New York Times story, click here.

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I’ve always known that you could get a good brew and a decent meal in a British pub, but I only recently discovered that you could spend a night in one.

And that’s without falling a drunken stupor at the foot of the bar.

Many pubs actually have guestrooms where you can spend a few nights. By and large, they’re not very big, but they look to be more than adequate for a night or a weekend, whether in London or in smaller cities and towns around the United Kingdom.

In some of the more upscale “gastropubs,” those rooms can be downright posh, in fact.

A London Telegraph story on some of the better pubs with rooms can be read here.

Granted that a place that looks five-star on its Web site can end up earning a five-roach rating when you see it in person, but I’ve seen enough references to snazzy pub digs to conclude that this is one London lodging option that merits more investigation.

Preferably over a good plate of fish and chips and a good British ale (or two) to wash it down with.

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Osama bin Laden may be dead, but the fear, loathing and bigotry his deeds promoted are still alive and well in the U.S. airline industry.

Two Islamic clerics from Memphis were taken off a Delta Connection flight from that city to Charlotte, NC after being told that the pilot was refusing to fly with them aboard.

What made the pilot freak out? Both were Muslims and both were wearing traditional ethnic dress, one Arab, the other Indian. Both had been screened and cleared by the TSA.

Both were on their way to Charlotte for a conference on …

…wait for it…

…Islamophobia.

You can read the Associated Press story about the incident on the MSNBC site here.

The irony alone is staggering.

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And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

AIR
from Smarter Travel
Which American airports do more to help you get through the trauma of today’s air travel experience? The Smart Travel folks give you their list of U.S. air terminals where the stress is less. SLIDESHOW

LAND
from the Guardian (London UK)
If you and your bike can get out of London’s nightmarish traffic in one piece, England has some lovely scenic cycling routes for you to enjoy. here are a few of them.

SEA
from USA Today
When it comes to bargain European cruises, the cruise lines giveth — and the airlines taketh away.

from USA Today
A visual tour of the new Carnival Magic. SLIDESHOW

AFRICA
from the Guardian (London UK)
Lesotho is defined by mountains and water. That makes for long drives, strenuous hiking…and some of the world’s most spectacular scenery.

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the New York Times
Why on Earth would anyone want to spend a weekend in Detroit? The NYT’s Jennifer Conlin counts the ways.

from USA Today
The slow-moving flooding catastrophe rolling inexorably down the Mississippi River is drawing awe-struck gawkers and disaster tourists, even as it is forcing regular tourist attractions to close up and evacuate.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from the New York Times
Silence is golden everywhere. In Java, it also is exotic.

EUROPE
from the Guardian (London UK)
The 500-mile Christian pilgrimage trail across Spain to Santiago de Compostela &mdah; ironically known in Spanish as the “Camino Franc&eacue;s” or “French Road” — has popular with hikers and the faithful for more than a millennium. An upcoming film starring Martin Sheen figures to make it even more so.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

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THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE BIZARRE FROM THE WORLD’S BEST TRAVEL MEDIA

Samoan fire knife dancer, Maui

Samoan fire knife dancer, Maui | @Greg Gross

SPEAKING IN TONGUES
In private business and public service, America has a crying need for people who can speak more than one language. It’s one more good reason to travel.

There’s an old joke that goes something like this:

“If you speak three languages, you’re trilingual. If you speak two languages, you’re bilingual. If you speak only one, you’re an American.”

Sad, but unfortunately true.

As a newspaper journalist, I watched U.S. news organizations trying to cover Mexico with reporters whose Spanish vocabulary couldn’t cope with the menu at Taco Bell.

Few Americans of my generation bothered learning other people’s tongues — and our attitude the most part, was “why should we?”

In the 20th century, America was the planet’s alpha male, the economic and political big dog. If you wanted to run with us, we said, you’d better learn English.

The world’s response: So be it. In nations large and small on every continent, English became a mandatory class subject.

New century, new dynamic. We find ourselves confronting a world increasingly capable of dealing with us not only on our own terms, but in our own terms.

It explains why you can seemingly go almost anywhere in the world and find a local English speaker. And the higher you go on the economic/social/political ladders, the more of them you find.

Meanwhile, the world’s major languages remain a mystery to far too many of us. This has implications for everything from community functions and international business to national security.

In the 21st century, our prideful, chauvinistic attitude toward language simply won’t fly anymore.

Just last week, in fact, First Lady Michelle Obama urged students at the historically black Howard University in Washington DC to join the global community by studying abroad.

“Studying in countries like China isn’t only about your prospects in the global marketplace. It’s not just about whether you can compete with your peers in other countries to make America stronger,”she said. “It’s about the friendships you make, the bonds of trust you establish and the image of America that you project to the rest of the world.”

You can read the entire Washington Post story on Mrs. Obama’s visit to Howard here.

Luckily, there are plenty of language schools out there where students of all ages can learn a new language, in the country where that language is spoken. And the folks at GoAbroad.com have a list. Scores of countries and scores of languages, from Afrikaans and Aymara to Turkish and Xhosa.

Even more luckily for us, the list is in English.

FLASH SALES BY PHONE
Flash sales are invitation-only discounts on everything from clothing and home items to luxury hotel stays. Comes now a British outfit, VoyagePrivé, that’s taking things two big steps further.

According to the folks at Tnooz.com, VoyagePrivé, which bills itself as “a private travel club selling quality holidays at discounted prices, exclusively to its members,” is now setting up an iPhone app to make exclusive offers and add-ons. Available to iPhoners only… and it’s free.

Is this the wave of the future for online travel discounters? Maybe not, but it sure sounds intriguing. This one bears watching.

AND NOW, HERE’S THIS WEEK’S DIGEST:

AIR
from USA Today
All those who suffer a fear of flying, take note: The United States got through all of 2010 without a single airline fatality, the third time in the last four years. Airline safety is one field in which the USA still leads the way.

from CNN
from Budget Travel
QUESTION: What does an airliner have in common with an impoverished developing country? ANSWER: Don’t drink the water from either. Don’t use the ice, either. And in the case of the plane, beware the seat pocket in front of you. It’s a potential hiding place for everything but disco fever.

Delta is gettin’ jiggy with standby flying. They’ve create an online auction system for passengers who volunteer to be bumped from a flight that’s been overbooked, a common practice that airlines do deliberately. The CNN crew thinks this is a great thing, if you play the game right.

from Reuters
SPECIAL REPORT: Did Boeing’s penchant for outsourcing sabotage its new state-of-the-art Dreamliner?

LAND
from Independent Traveler
Eight rail trips with scenery to die for, if the trip itself doesn’t kill you. Some of these are not for faint-hearted tourist types.

from Tnooz.com
Speaking of trains, this will give you an idea of how successful high-speed rail travel is in France: The country’s national railroad has the second most popular travel Web site in France. It was Number One, but slipped last week behind a skiing site. Something tells me that won’t last long.

SEA
from the New York Times
A Caribbean cruise aboard Celebrity Eclipse. When you go to a shipboard restaurant — and the menu comes to you on an iPad — you know you’re not on you’re father’s cruise ship. It’s called Qsine, and Eclipse is the first Celebrity vessel to feature it.

AFRICA
from eTurbo News
February is high season for cultural happenings on the Mother Continent. At the same time that the International Roots Festival in the Gambia in West Africa is winding down, the biggest cultural fest in East Africa, the Sauti za Busara on Tanzania’s legendary island of Zanzibar, will be getting underway. Even if you can’t attend this year’s events, take note for the next time.

from IPSNews
Mozambique braces for the worst flooding in ten years. Roughly 1.3 million people may be at risk.

fromBushdrums.com
An American pesticide banned in Europe and restricted in the United States is killing off lions in Kenya. If you want to see lions in the wild in East Africa, you’d better hurry.

from Time
Meanwhile in Tucson AZ, there’s a restaurant selling tacos made with lion meat. They buy it from a farm in California that raises lions…as food.

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the San Francisco Chronicle
The Obama administration is still tiptoeing around the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, easing travel restrictions for students, religious groups, academics and journalists to travel there legally. Thousands already flout the embargo to visit the island nation every year.

What do the new regs really mean for Americans who want to visit Cuba? The Godfather of Travel, Arthur Frommer, weighs in.

from the New York Times
The Dominican Republic has some of the most inexpensive all-inclusive beach resorts in the world. But if you really want to get away from it all, you can also find some lovely, isolated stretches of Dominican beach that will cost you nothing.

ASIA
from the New York Times
The latest Japanese youth craze (and “craze” is the operative term here): LED lights for your teeth. And you thought gold “grills” were the height of ridiculous! Makes girls look like space aliens. “Take me to your dentist!”…?

from the Japan Times
Exploring the back streets of Tokyo. This time, it’s the Hakusan area. If you love the beauty of autumn leaves, this neighborhood may be your cup of sake.

from the New York Times
An influx of new entertainment, dining and shopping options are turning Tokyo’s Marunouchi district from a staid collection of offices into a happening place. SLIDE SHOW

EUROPE
from the New York Times
Europe’s economic turmoil is good news for travelers looking for bargain vacations.

from EuroCheapo
You’d expect France to produce great street food. A sweet or savory crepe from a good sidewalk vendor will make you forget all about Mickey D’s. A list of five of the best in Paris. (My personal favs come from a cart next to the St. Germain de Pres Church on Boulevard St. Germain in the 6th arrondissement.)

Passports: The 63 Percent Solution

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©Quinton Davis photo

Two out of three Americans don’t have a valid passport. We have the power to change the world, maybe even destroy the world, but two-thirds of us can’t even legally step out and see the world?

That’s just embarrassing.

The good news from our State Department is that after the number of American passport holders dropped by nearly 3 million in 2009, the numbers began to creep upward again last year, albeit by a measly 400,000.

About 114 million of us have passports, which makes us about 37 percent of the population, well above the 25 percent mark that stood for years.

The bad news: That means that 67 percent of us are without a passport. We still have about the lowest per capita rate of passport holders of any nation in the developed world.

In some respects, we may not be as “developed” as we think.

CAN’T GO ANYWHERE
Nowadays, the lack of a passport can be pretty limiting to a person. Forget about seeing any part of Europe, Asia, Africa, Central or South America.

Forget about taking a cruise anywhere, except Hawai’i or maybe one of our quasi-colonies in the world: Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa.

In today’s post-9/11 world, you can’t even drive across the border into Mexico or Canada without a passport or a passport card.

What’s up with this?

We’ve long been living on a kind of cultural island, protected by friendly neighbors north and south, buffered by the world’s two largest oceans to the east and west. Behind those shields, the American nation grew powerful and rich.

We also grew isolated, and a lot of us were just fine with that, so long as we remained powerful and rich.

STUCK ON THE PORCH
One decade into the new century, things are a bit different. Waves of technology — from the telegraph and the airplane to the telephone, the computer and finally the Internet — send information, culture and people back and forth across the planet almost as easily as air travels over water.

No place is out of reach anymore. The world is well on its way to becoming one large neighborhood, joined by commerce and communications.

But here we sit, two-thirds of us afraid to venture off our sheltered cultural porch, fearing and loathing large parts of a world of which we know little or nothing.

Is this how a great nation behaves?

It’s holding us back economically. A lot of the great opportunities today are turning up beyond our shores, but only those who are culturally agile will be able to make the most of them.

It’s also endangering our safety, because our lack of understanding of the world we live in makes it harder for “we the people” to make smart decisions about our dealings with other nations.

OUR PLACE IN THE WORLD
Whether we like it, understand it or not — and let’s face it, we often don’t — we are a part of this world. We need to be able to function it, thrive in it, get along with others in it, take our full and rightful place in it.

And after four centuries of second-class citizenship, that especially applies to black Americans.

There are places in the world where an ambitious young man or woman who’s got the skills and the drive can find success, regardless of their “paint job.” And if you do a little traveling, you’ll see that for yourself.

That’s why I love seeing see talented young black 20somethings and 30somethings making their way out into that world with determined hearts and passports in hand, making names for themselves as students or professionals in virtually every corner of the globe.

In the process, they’re finding that they can more than hold their own, anywhere.

Writing this blog has afforded me the chance to connect with some of them, and through my Out There series, you will, too. They inspire me, and I hope they inspire you. I’m proud of them.

I just wish there were more of them.

Time to step into the sunshine, America…and step off the damned porch.

GET YOUR PASSPORT!
The State Department has a Passports Page with all the information you need to get you started on the process of obtaining a passport. If you have a computer and printer at home, you can print out the application and mail it in, along with a regulation-size photo of yourself and the required fee.

This link from State will show you where you can apply nationwide. You can search by state or city, or just enter your ZIP code.

You also can apply at your neighborhood Post Office, the advantage there being that their fee includes taking your passport photo on the spot, instead of forcing you to make a separate trip.

If you need a passport in a hurry, there are passport agencies that will expedite the process for you — for an additional, naturally. The bigger your rush, the bigger the fee.

TRAINS: The TGV

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Third in an occasional series

TGV Est train, Paris

TGV Est train at Paris CDG airport, bound for Strasbourg | © Greg Gross

If Amtrak is all you’ve ever known when it comes to passenger trains, you are not ready for what awaits you in France.

The letters TGV stand for Train à Grande Vitesse, which is French for “high-speed train.” When your top “cruising” speed is 186 mph, the name fits.

Some time before year’s end — if it hasn’t happened already — the TGV will carry its 2 billionth passenger. After almost 20 years of that kind of popularity, some of these trains are starting to show the strain. But even on their worst day, they’re still light years ahead of nearly every train we have here in the States.

(The one exception, the Acela Express, is a modified TGV, and our lousy tracks limit the train to half the speed it’s capable of. LIkewise, the Chunnel Train, which connects Paris and London via the Channel Tunnel, is a modified TGV.)

The high-speed TGVs are express trains. The regular Corail Téoz trains are more numerous and make more stops. Between the two of them, there is virtually no part of France you can’t reach by rail.

The TGV resembles those sleek, jet-powered racers you see on the Bonneville Salt Flats. It looks fast even when it’s not moving. Even its logo looks fast. Unlike the Bonneville racers, though, it’s pretty quiet. You can hold a conversation without raising your voice.

The ride is extremely smooth. You can walk the aisles without fear of being thrown into some stranger’s lap (although if the stranger’s cute, that might be viewed by some as a drawback).

For those of us who must be plugged in wherever we are, there are electric outlets at every seat, and even a special section where you can use your cell phone without disturbing your fellow passengers. Very civilized.

Of all my trips on the 1,000-mile TGV network, the most impressive was the one between Paris and Strasbourg, the capital of France’s Alsace region.

No need to slog all the way into central Paris from Roissy CDG airport. The airport has its ow train station. Just follow the signs to the elevator, then go down a couple of floors to the SNCF ticket office to buy your ticket or validate your rail pass.

(NOTE: The Sheraton has a sleek hotel directly above the train platform, with a nice lobby bar to kick back in until your train arrives. Just leave your luggage cart outside.)

Ten minutes before your train departs, head down to the train platform. Your ticket shows your seat number and your car. An electronic billboard on the platform shows the position of each car on the train. Find your car and step on board. Drop your bags in the vestibule. Find your seat.

That’s it. You’re off. In a little over two hours, you’re in Strasbourg.

And a lovely couple of hours it is.

CLICK ON THE MAP TO ENLARGE

The gently rolling plains of the French countryside roll by your window — fields of wheat and flax, grazing cows, clumps of woods. You pass small villes, compact clusters of homes with steep, red-tiled roofs and the single church with its spindly steeple at the center of it all, pretty as a postcard. Each one invites you to stop for moment to take a few pics or even break out brushes and canvas and start painting.

But these are local rail stops, which means you won’t be stopping, nor even slowing down through these picturesque little towns.

Blink twice and you may not even see them.

When you arrive in Strasbourg, you arrive in the heart of the city, with your bags already in hand. No waiting at the baggage carousel. No long, cramped, expensive ride into town.

Stress? You left that at the airport.

For the die-hard railfan, the TGV lacks a few things. There is no true dining car. Most TGV runs are too short to treat 500-plus passengers to a formal sit-down meal. There’s are snack cars, but they tend to be pricey and sell out early.

You’re better off bringing your own goodies with you. It’s easy enough to find some a baguette and some cheese, or some quiche or croque-monsieur sandwiches being sold in or near most stations, with some Badoit, Saint-Géron or some French mineral water to wash it down with.

And it’s not as if you can’t find a good bottle of wine to enjoy on the train. This is France, remember?

Likewise, there are no sleeping compartments. When your train is cutting travel times by half or better nationwide, there’s no need for cozy berths.

Technology giveth, and technology taketh away.

What you lose in romance, you gain in saved time, saved money compared with airlines, and a travel experience vastly more pleasant than flying.

I’ll make that trade anytime.

The 4-1-1
TRAIN: TGV Train à Grande Vitesse
OPERATOR: SNCF Société Nationale de Chemins de fer Français (French National Railroad Society)
SERVICE AREA: France, with connections to Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom

You can buy TGV and Corail Téoz tickets at any French train station or online before arriving in France. If you’re planning on visiting multiple cities or multiple countries, a rail p[ass might save you money, but check carefully. Depending on your travel plans, just buying your tickets for each leg of your journey might be cheaper.

TGV railcars come in two classes, First and Second. Within each class are two categories. The differences have to do with minor amenities, not major differences in comfort level. Unless you’re Yao Ming or a sumo wrestler, the legroom and hip room will be more than adequate. Really, the only reason to travel First Class on a TGV is that, unlike the airlines, it’s actually affordable.

AGRITOURISM

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Guadalupe Valley vineyard, Baja California, MX | © Greg Gross

It’s one of those forms of vacation we call “niche travel.” It’s a chance to learn, meet people, re-connect with Nature and see the world at the same time. This niche has gone global, and it’s growing.

But you can get a taste of it right here at home.

Winery tours and dude ranches were among the earliest forms of agritourism. You could argue that farmers markets fill a part of that niche, too.

These days, though, it’s gone much further. The number of things lumped under the agritourism banner is incredibly broad; I couldn’t begin to list them all. Everything from horseback rides and corn mazes to agriculture fields where visitors can pick their own produce and “entertainment farming.”

Those are farm stays that not only give the visitor an education on how their food is produced, but lets them get hands-on in with the process.

You can see where your coffee comes from on Hawaii’s Big Island, and why it costs so much. You can see what it takes to make your favorite glass of wine from France or Italy or Argentina or South Africa. You learn what milk tastes like after you get it from the cow yourself.

These experiences can be as brief or as lengthy, as laid back or as strenuous, as you like. And when you tell folks back home that you got some international “flavor” on your vacation, you’ll be speaking literally.

Indeed, some of the most unforgettable memories of any trip are the ones you bring back on your tastebuds.

Being from New Orleans, I thought I knew a thing or two about shellfish, until I tasted fresh oysters harvested off the Normandy beaches in France. Ohhhh my…!

That’s one of the beauties of travel. There’s always something else, something more, out there, waiting to take you farther — and further — than you thought you could go.

But you need not travel long, far or expensively to get a taste of agritourism. America’s farmers and ranchers, especially the little guys, are warming up to this concept.

Odds are, a check with your local county government or farm bureau will yield plenty of agritourism opportunities within an hour’s drive — or maybe just a health walk or bike ride — from your own doorstep.

IBIT guest columnist Tracy Gross was interviewed on the subject of agritourism by travel writer Rudy Maxa on his radio show. You can hear it here.

There’s a very cool little synergy that takes place in all this.

On one side, you’ve got small farms, dairies and the like, run by families who often can trace their labors back through generations. Many of those families today are struggling to survive in the suffocating shadow of corporate agribusiness, which is daily driving under small family farms around the world.

On the other side, you’ve got a lot of consumers out there who want to know more — a lot more — about where their food comes from. Some of them are “foodies” or people into the Slow Food Movement, but many others are just regular consumers trying to safeguard their long-term health.

They’ve heard a lot about the chemicals, hormones and genetic modifications in the foods we all eat — and it scares the hell out of them.

Agritourism has become the tie that binds — and benefits — both.

The family produce grower who can’t hope to compete with the corporate mega-farms can turn their farmhouse into a bed-and-breakfast that includes a close-up look at the operation, demonstrations, cooking classes — all of which helps them to keep going.

In turn, the visitors can learn and see firsthand how their food becomes “their food,” what it takes to bring it from a seed in the ground to a meal on their plate. They can get to know some of the people behind all those faceless product labels, which is always a good thing.

And they can remind themselves what real, fresh, unaltered food tastes like.

For those who’ve spent their lives eating whatever came out of a can, a bag from a fast-food joint or chemically treated supermarket produce, the flavor shock at a farm or a farmer’s market can be almost overwhelming.

In some countries, agritourism is viewed as a way of keeping not merely family traditions, but whole cultures, alive — to the point that the United Nations is starting to offer financial support to major agritourism projects around the world.

So if you’re looking for a travel experience that active, affirming and tasteful all at once, especially one that gies you almost endless options, consider giving yourself a taste of agritourism. Your palate will thank you.

IF YOU GO
Agritourism World has an extensive list of locations and activities from which you can choose.

Perfume and racism, en français

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Something stinks today in the French perfume industry. It’s the stench of bigotry.

If you doubt the power of words, consider the discomfort today of a man whose name itself is a household word in France, Jean-Paul Guerlain.

The patriarch of the French perfume house that bears his name has managed to briefly distract the nation from the impending national strike that threatens to shut down much of the country, and he did it with two words.

One was Samsara, one of the perfumes he created during his career, which went on to become of the world’s most popular fragrances for women.

The other was the N-word.

It happened as Guerlain, 82, was giving an televised interview on the national France 2 television network. It started out as what you’d have to consider to be a classic French story, about how he created Samsara to impress a woman. When he asked the lady what kind of fragrance would seduce her, he said, she suggested a blend of jasmine, rose and sandalwood.

“And for once, I started working like a nigger,” he said, smiling.

He could’ve cut his losses and stopped there. He chose instead to dig the hole a little deeper.

“I don’t know if niggers ever worked that hard.”

The YouTube video cuts off before we see how the woman conducting the interview reacted to this, if at all. But the smile never seemed to leave his face. Judging by the look on his face, he seemed to think he was being charming, even un petit peu seduissant.

(For her part, the France 2 interviewer seemed not the least bit discomfited, either.)

You French speakers out there can hear the interview for yourself here. English speakers can read about it on CNN or France24.

Of course, expressions of racism are nothing new in France. The ultra-right National Front headed by Jean-Marie Le Pen has been notorious for it for decades.

But that’s politics. This is perfume. Doesn’t seem to matter, though.

If the videos of this interview have gone viral on the Web, the reaction in France to Guerlain’s comment has gone volcanic. Twitter and the French blogosphere are boiling with outrage. People are calling for a boycott of Guerlain products, a boycott of French products, even a boycott of France altogether. And French media are tearing Guerlain to pieces.

Guerlain has already issued those now-standard backhanded post-racist-comment-apologies — which someone else read on his behalf on French television — apologizing for the harm he may have done to the company’s image with his remarks and pointing out that he’s no longer directly employed by the firm.

(Interestingly, he did not apologize for the remarks themselves, also standard these days.)

Apology or not, the damage has already been done — and the damage could be considerable.

Anti-racism groups in France, specifically SOS-Racisme and Le CRAN, the Representative Council of Black Associations, may take Guerlain to court over his comments, which French law would permit them to do.

The flap has reached as high as French finance minister Christine Laguarde, who called his remarks “pathetic.”

“I simply hope this is just senile and grotesque,” she said, a reference to his advanced age.

As repugnant as his comments are, I feel a certain gratitude to Monsieur Guerlain. His remarks are a reminder that words have power, and that not all attitudes of Europe’s colonial past have faded with the passage of time.

He’s also added a word to my French vocabulary: “nègre.”

Merci beaucoup…

Trouble near and far

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In Mexico, the abduction of 22 Mexican tourists has sets off alarms nationwide, while Washington is set to issue a terror alert for Americans traveling in Europe. But all may not be as it appears.

So which do you want first, the bad news or the scary news?

The bad news comes from just south of the border, where authorities are trying to find 22 tourists reported to have been kidnapped in the Mexican seaside city of Acapulco.

Read about the kidnapping in this Los Angeles Times story.

The scary news is coming out of Washington. The New York Times is reporting that the State Department will issue an alert Sunday, urging Americans traveling in Europe to be on their guard against possible terrorist attacks.

Specifically, the warning raises the possibility of commando-style terror attacks within European cities, modeled after the 2008 Mumbai attacks in India.

There, small teams of heavily-armed gunmen, taking orders via cell phone from a shadowy terrorist leader in neighboring Pakistan, stormed two luxury hotels, a popular restaurant, a hospital, a crowded train station and a Jewish community center — setting fires, hurling grenades and firing AK-47s as they went.

The current plots, also said to have originated in Pakistan, are believed to target Britain, France and Germany, but authorities across Europe are raising their alert levels, as well.


Read the New York Times story here.

Let’s take the Mexico report first. The little gray hairs on the back of my neck tell me there’s something fishy about this one.

According to the LA Times, the 22 missing tourists were a group of men who were abducted while looking for lodging.

First, when tourists travel in a group, even in Mexico, they usually consist of both men and women. Second, Acapulco has been a major tourist destination for decades, and Mexican travelers know how to make reservations as well as anyone else.

Anything is possible, but for a group of guys to suddenly show up in a busy tourist venue like 22 Biblical Josephs, looking for room in the inn during the off-season, simply does not compute.

And third, spontaneous abductions of a group this size are about as common as an honest politician.

“Oye, muchachos! There’s a groups of hombres wandering around, looking for a place to stay! Let’s go kidnap them, compas!”

Possible? Yes. Likely? Not really. Somebody knew these guys were coming.

I can’t help but wonder if the person who reported this incident to the authorities described the victims as “tourists” because he didn’t wanted to say what they were really up to. There may be a lot more to this story than we know so far.

The European situation is another matter altogether, especially with the threat said to be coming out of Pakistan.

Al Qaeda is operating more or less with a free hand in the lawless northern regions of Pakistan, but they’re not the only player in the terrorist game. They may not even be the biggest threat right now.

The Mumbai attacks were organized — and pulled off with gruseome effect — by a homegrown Pakistani terrorist set called Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Like al Qaeda, they are considered to be Islamic extremists. And like al Qaeda, they’re not playing. Even after Mumbai, few Americans are really aware of them, but Indians can tell you all about them.

Their beef is more regional than global, and at the heart of it is Kashmir. India has it, Pakistan wants it.

Could it be that these guys want to make an al Qaeda-sized splash somewhere in the world?

We’ll see what State has to say on Sunday.