Tag Archives: Lyon

NEW ORLEANS: Streetcars and Baby Dolls

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St. Charles Avenue streetcar, New Orleans

St. Charles Avenue streetcar, New Orleans | ©IBIT/G. Gross

A pair of once-familiar sights are set to make comebacks this year in the Crescent City. One figures to delight visitors to the Superdome. The other may turn Mardi Gras upside down.

“Welcome to New Orleans. Come for the Super Bowl. Stay for Mardi Gras.”

That’s the pitch that the Crescent City is making to visitors in February. It’s an offer the city has made before, and one that hundreds of thousands of tourists will find impossible to refuse.

But those who take up that offer this year will be witness to a couple of street revivals.

New Orleans takes its traditions seriously, even the ones it periodically turns its back on, and two good examples of that are poised to return this winter to “the NOLA.”

THE STREEETCARS
The first is a new streetcar line through the city’s Central Business District that links the French Quarter to the Superdome. If all goes as planned, the new line should be ready to roll by Feb. 3, in time for Super Bowl XLVII.

But the importance of this line goes far beyond one over-hyped football game. It’s part of an ongoing effort to undo one of the dumbest things New Orleans city government ever did.

City Hall spent the better part of four decades ripping out streetcar lines — at least 15 of them that I can find — and replacing them with buses. New Orleans has largely regretted it ever since.

Maria C. Montoya of the News Orleans Times-Picayune probably put it best: “Tennessee Williams never would have written ‘A Bus Named Desire.’ ” (emphasis mine)

Preservationists managed, barely, to save the St. Charles Avenue streetcar line (seen above) that runs down through the city’s über-scenic Garden District. It’s now a working icon of New Orleans history, used and beloved daily by locals and tourists alike.

In the late 1980s, the city fathers reluctantly acknowledged what a lot of their citizens had been telling them for years, namely that when it comes to efficiently moving people around a city, buses are no substitute for streetcars. And as the St. Charles line clearly showed, they lend a character to a city that no bus ever could.

So they decided to bring them back.

The first came in 1988 with the opening of the short Riverfront line, linking “the Quarter” to the New Orleans Convention Center. But the real resurrection began in 2004, when streetcars returned to Canal Street, the city’s main downtown thoroughfare.

There are ambitious plans to restore other lines. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 temporarily derailed all of that, but now the revival appears to be back on track.

[ FREE — AND NEARLY FREE — DELIGHTS IN NEW ORLEANS ]

This actually is one of the ways I prefer to get around a major city when I travel. Definitely faster and more comfortable than a bus, and you get to see a lot more than you will on a subway. The streetcars (or as they call them, “trams”) in cities like Amsterdam, Geneva, Switzerland, and Lyon and Strasbourg, France are sleek, state-of-the-art dreams.

The New Orleans streetcars are still largely old-school in appearance. Their two major concessions to modernity are automated fareboxes and air-conditioning, the latter of which you will bless in the summertime. But they’re just as handy when it comes to getting around.

And the way IBIT sees it, any kind of public transit that can save me the cost of a rental car is a good thing.

THE BABY DOLLS
The other comeback this winter involves an all-but-forgotten Mardi Gras tradition — and I’m not sure if even New Orleans is ready for this one.

The Baby Dolls are back.

When the Krewe of Zulu rolls their parade to open Mardi Gras Day, Feb. 12, there will be a troupe of Baby Dolls among them.

Mothers may want to hide their children — and their husbands, too.

When blacks weren’t allowed to take part in the “mainstream” Mardi Gras parades and activities downtown, black communities promptly came up with their own ways to “laissez les bon temps roulez.” The Baby Dolls were one of them.

The original Baby Dolls were a product of Storyville, the infamous red-light district famed equally for its prostitution and its jazz joints.

In a sense, the whole thing grew out of one of those Uptown-Downtown rivalries common to New Orleans. When word got out that some downtown hookers were planning to stage a Mardi Gras parade, the working girls of Storyville took that as a challenge that could not go unanswered.

They took the nickname their pimps had given them and turned it into a fashion statement, literally dolling themselves up in bonnets, bloomers, knickers and what-not, and staged a parade of their own.

But these definitely were no Barbies.

Storyville itself was torn down during World War 1, but by then, the Baby Doll idea had caught on in black neighborhoods. Before long, first-graders, their mothers and even grandmothers were rocking the Baby Doll look.

You no longer had to be an “industrial debutante” to be a Baby Doll.

Soon, they were as much a part of the black Mardi Gras tradition in New Orleans as the Mardi Gras Indians, second-line clubs and Skeletons.

The Skeletons were the first to hit the streets in “the ‘hood” on Mardi Gras morning. Ghostly figures dressed head to toe in black-and-white skeleton suits and fierce-looking masks, they went from block to block, banging on pots and pans and yelling:

“WAKE UP! YOU NEXT!”

Then came the neighborhood parades, following no preset schedule or route, with their Indians and jazz bands and second-line clubs&hellip,and the Baby Dolls.

Over time, as other black Mardi Gras traditions gained recognition and acceptance from the mainstream, the Baby Dolls gradually disappeared from the streets — but not from memory.

Now, they’re making a comeback, updated to include one of New Orleans’ newer creations — “bounce music” and dance.

These days, you don’t have to be a prostitute, or black or even female. But it’s still a reach back in time to acknowledge the city’s baudy, insolent past…which returns to the present every Carnival season. You may be amused or you may be appalled, but either way, you won’t be bored.

And that’s the NOLA for ya.

Learn globally, read locally

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Yuyuan bazaar, Shanghai, China

Yuyuan bazaar, Shanghai, China | ©IBIT/G. Gross

Want to be better prepared for international travel? Make foreign media a part of your research.

How do you research an overseas trip? Talk to friends who’ve been there? Pick up a guidebook or two on your chosen destination? Check out Web sites devoted to that city, that country, that region? Rifle through the blogosphere to get samples of first-person experiences? Read IBIT?

All good. So don’t hate me for it, but I’m about to add to your reading list.

Do you check out local media? Newspapers, magazines, radio stations? If not, you really should. You don’t need to read entire editions of local papers. Just look for articles relevant to you as a traveler.

Is there mention of special events going on during the time you will be there?

Is there some local hotel or resort that looks like a better deal or a more interesting stay than that canned, cookie-cutter, if-you’ve-seen-one-you’ve-seen-’em-all chain hotel you were thinking about booking?

Are there forecasts of bad weather or labor disputes that could have an impact on your trip?

Are there stories about unique restaurants, nightspots, music? Some intriguing aspect of local culture that the guidebook authors haven’t had a chance to catch up with?

You can find any or all of that in the local publications.

Even with all the advances in tablet computers, smartphones and online publishing, it will be a long time — if ever — before any destination guidebook can give you this kind of up-to-date info. Even better, access is usually free.

Several years ago on a GBF (Group of Best Friends) trip to France, a pre-trip scan of French papers warned of an impending wildcat rail workers strike in Paris. That little bit of 4-1-1 led us to get to the Gare de Lyon station earlier than we normally might.

Minutes later, the platform filled with men carrying the fluttering red banners and placards signalling the start of their grève. Any passenger unaware of the strike who arrived a few minutes before departure, as is the norm with European trains, had no chance of leaving Paris that morning.

Our little group? We watched the strike unfold from the comfort of our seats aboard our TGV high-speed train, which pulled out on schedule for Lyon — the last train that would do so that day.

Say what? The national language in your destination is French? German? Portugese? Japanese? Anything other than English? Believe it or not, that really isn’t a problem.

You simply connect to the foreign Web site in its native language and run it through an online translator like the one built into Google. The bad news there is that they really aren’t very good.

The good news is that you may not need it.

A great many of the world’s major publications produce Web sites that publish their offerings in clear, smooth, mentally digestible English, and the Web makes it easy for you to find them.

The first step is to do a Web search for newspapers in your destination country. That will produce sites providing a list of papers.

Some of those sites will include the languages in which those individual sites are published. Others provide links directly to the English-language editions of those newspaper Web sites.

You’ll find examples of both types of Web listings at the end of this blog post.

In addition to Web versions of traditional newspapers, several major countries have their own news Web sites, which are major media in their own right.

The BBC from the United Kingdom, France’s Agence France-Presse and France 24, and AllAfrica.com are all examples of national media Web sites that offer a huge range of material a traveler can use. Believe me, there are plenty more, all over the world.

In addition to local or national news, they also offer current weather info, up-to-date bulletins on traffic or transportation delays, and may even have whole sections devoted to travel.

In the world’s major cities — which, like ours, often suffer from major traffic congestion — they also include Webcams featuring live real-time images of various parts of town.

Even if you have no plans on driving “over there,” you can use those Webcams to your advantage.

You know that vaguely uneasy feeling you get when you’re walking to your hotel in a neighborhood/city/country you’re hitting for the very first time? London is a city of monstrous size, which can make that feeling even worse.

But thanks to the BBC’s London “Jam Cams,” I got an advance look at the neighborhood where my vacation apartment was located. From my desk at home, I was able to spot landmarks that would guide me unerringly to my destination.

Two weeks later, when I emerged from the London Underground station in the South Kensington neighborhood, I knew exactly where I was and where I was going.

And when you’re setting foot in one of the largest cities in the world for the first time, believe me, that’s a good feeling.

Even those sites that don’t offer a travel section often have sections devoted to culture or entertainment that can be useful to a traveler — not only in their own locales, but other parts of the world, as well.

Several even offer free online tutorials in the local language for the linguistically impaired.

You know, like Americans?

A careful scan of local foreign media can create your own advance “picture” of what awaits you at your destination. and when foreknowledge is part of your carry-on luggage, you can’t help but feel more comfortable when you get there.

WHERE TO FIND FOREIGN MEDIA
world-newspapers.com
The Big Project (UK edition)
Squidoo/foreign papers in English

Edited by P.A.Rice

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.

Dancing with strikes

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How do you travel in countries where work stoppages are practically an Olympic demonstration sport? Be aware, be decisive, be flexible and be willing to roll with the punches.

The continued and worsening labor unrest in France over pension reform is shredding people’s travel plans. Before it’s over, the disruptions could approach the scale of the Iceland volcano eruptions earlier this year.

If you were confronted by something like this, how would you handle it?

The closest I’ve come to facing labor problems was in Paris several years ago with a group of friends. On the day we were supposed to catch a train from Paris to Lyon, there was local buzz about a possible “wildcat” strike.

Most French strikes are usually planned and announced well in advance, designed to inconvenience the public, but not too much. Wildcat strikes are more of an ambush. Get caught up in one of these, and all your carefully laid — and pre-paid — travel plans go down like the Titanic.

We made our way to the Gare de Lyon station early and boarded our TGV for Lyon. As the train pulled out of the station, we looked back down the platform — which was suddenly choked with men carrying large flags and even larger banners, marching toward us.

The strike had started right behind us.

Our escape was not by luck. While in Paris, we’d been keeping up with the local news for anything that might affect our journey. Even on vacation, it’s not a good idea to totally “check out” mentally. BE AWARE of what’s going on.

And ideally, that awareness should start before you leave home. Read up on the happenings in your destination. If you see problems on the horizon that have could play havoc with your trip, plan accordingly.

(NOTE: If you take prescription medicines, have your doctor give your copies of your prescriptions to take with you, so you can refill them in case you run out. Some foreign pharmacies will give you refills if you can show them your prescription bottle(s). Others may not.)

If you see labor trouble coming, you have two choices: Leave as fast as you can or stay and ride it out. Whichever choice you make, you need to make it quickly and then act on it. If you waffle, you’re more likely to get stuck. BE DECISIVE.

Investing in travel insurance that covers trip disruptions or cancellations may be a good idea. Before buying, though, make sure that:

  1. It really is travel insurance, as opposed to “travel protection” or some other nonsense. If it doesn’t say “travel insurance,” it’s NOT travel insurance.
  2. It covers things like strikes, riots and other man-made “mayhem and foolishness.” In general, have a clear idea of what it does and doesn’t cover before you buy.

If you’re traveling on a pre-paid travel package, get in touch with the company and ask what they can do to help you, even if it’s only to provide you with contacts in the country where you are you might be able to lend some assistance.

Travel insurance is a wise move, but not a magic bullet. It may reimburse you for the cost of your disrupted trip, but that’s after you get home. That doesn’t help you when you need it most — right now.

This is why you need to BE FLEXIBLE. Make sure you have a back-up credit card with a healthy limit (and preferably zero balance) to cover expenses that your pre-paid travel package won’t.

If you have an ATM card you can use on this trip, mentally set aside a certain amount of cash for emergencies. How much is enough? Let’s just leave it like this: You can’t have too much.

Figure out how best to take care of the basics in the midst of a work stoppage — food, shelter, transport. If a strike shuts down transportation, you may have to hunker down for a few days until you can get out.

Make friends with the desk clerks, the concierge, the waiter where you have breakfast or lunch. Ask them about what’s going on. Their local knowledge is priceless.

If you’re due to check out of your hotel during a strike that disrupts your travel, ask the management if they will let you stay on, or hold your room long enough long enough to let you come back. Ask too if they will give you a break on their nightly rates, which figure to be a lot higher than your pre-paid package rate.

If that’s not possible, ask them to help steer you a more affordable place to stay, possibly well away from the neighborhood you’d been staying in before. If it’s not as plush or comfy as the lodging you had before, don’t sweat it. As long as you feel safe, just make the best of it until you can either move up or move on. Just ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES.

You might want your backup hotel to be as close as possible to the airport, seaport or train station, the better to get out of Dodge if you have to move fast. If you do, though, nail down that room in a hurry, because you won’t be the only stranded traveler thinking that way!

Last but definitely not least: If any part of the strike — picket lines, marches and so on — are taking place near you, find someplace else to be. What looks like a harmless street happening and a good photo op can turn ugly in a hurry.

If you’re already “out and about” and you see things starting to develop, find some place to duck into (preferably a cool little cafe) and stay there until it all goes by.

If you’re lucky, your unplanned venture into foreign labor relations will just end up being a minor inconvenience and a mild adventure, one you can laugh about when you get back.

The “awful French”

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It’s high time we sent this myth into retirement, right alongside “surrender monkey” jokes and “freedom fries.”

You get some interesting reactions when you talk to folks about traveling in France, especially from those who’ve never been there:

“The French are arrogant…they’re rude…they smell bad.”

And my personal favorite: “They hate Americans over there.”

Such statements are usually preceded by the words “I hear” or “I heard.” For me, those words are like the flashing red lights and clanging bell at a railroad crossing, a warning that, like an oncoming train, a load of misinformation is coming.

I’ve been to France about a half-dozen times over the last decade — in Paris, in Lyon in the Provence region to the south and Strasbourg in the Alsace to the east. I’m still waiting for compelling evidence that any of the above three statements — especially that last one about the French hating Americans, is true.

WHERE’S THE HATE?
And no, you will not be treated like an attacking Martian if you don’t speak French.

In the hundreds of interactions that I and my deplorable “francais” have had with the French people over the past ten years, there has been exactly one rude episode. One. That was with a woman running a candy shop in Strasbourg during the Christmas market season. Even her own daughter seemed appalled by her mother’s behavior.

And when we mentioned the incident in passing to a Christmas market vendor setting up his stall the next morning, he gave us a pretzel the size of a catcher’s mitt to make up for it.

I’m not that crazy about pretzels, anyway, but that’s not the point. He didn’t have to do that.

All over Paris, and everywhere else in France that we’ve been so far, we have been met with smiles, kindness, patience.

THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
Like the hotel clerk in Lyon who found us a room in her totally booked hotel after Expedia had botched our reservations — and then bought us a box of the most incredible liqueur-filled chocolate to thank us for our patience.

Like the crepe vendor outside the St. Germain de Pres church who gave us a verbal guided tour of the 6th arrondissement in the three minutes it took him to make two crepes.

Like the cafe owner in the 11th arr. who turned us on to the most incredible wine from, of all places, Algeria.

So where are all these American-hating French I keep hearing about? Hiding under the glass pyramid at the Louvre?

Given the number of Americans, black Americans in particular, who have left the United States to live and work in Paris alone, they couldn’t hate us all that much.

SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES
Indeed, Paris has been something of a magnet for American expatriates since the end of World War 1, to the point that an entire American community has taken root there, much of it scattered through the city’s western suburbs. That community may number as many as 50,000 people.

The only consistent negative I’ve ever encountered in France, other than Paris traffic, is the French tendency to smoke. At times, they seem to smoke like chimneys.

When the French government banned smoking in most public places, the smokers simply moved to the outdoor tables of their favorite bistros and cafes. There, they continue to generate clouds of cigarette smoke thick enough to hide an elephant.

Not just any old tobacco smoke, either, but the acrid, penetrating smoke of French cigarettes like Gaulloise, which could easily substitute for tear gas. Perhaps the reason the French so objected to our invasion of Iraq was because they knew where the weapons of mass destruction really were.

In their pockets.

MYTHS AND OTHER BAGGAGE
But wading through the occasional smokescreen is a small price to pay to see one of the most physically and culturally diverse — and most beautiful — countries in the world. Especially one that holds such a place in our own history, literally from its founding.

There’s a reason why France is the most visited country on Earth. Actually, there’s a long list of reasons — gorgeous, varied countryside, one of the world’s great capitals, food, fashion, music, history, thriving cultures from around the world.

Any one of those reasons might well resonate with you. You might even discover one of your own.

Once you get past all the urban mythology, that is.

In travel, as in life, you pretty much find what you’re looking for. If you go looking for the negative, looking for the worst in people, you can find it. Actually, if you carry negativity, stereotypes and “attitude” with you when you travel, “it” may well find you first.

Leaving that “baggage” at home is the first key to enjoying a visit to France — or anywhere else.