Great travel service for traveling families – Answer their survey
A friend of mine, a French journalist here in France , maried to a Spaniard, with two teenage children, is working on developping a unique web based travel guide service for us, traveling families!
Finally, she’s proposing to offer, for major cities worldwide:
- Travel info suited to families
IE, not your typical: best restaurants and great museums, but rather, restaurants, outings and activites children or teenagers wil enjoy. - Text guides we can print out or have on our mobile devices with child-specific content, to give children and teenagers information and games they’ll be interested in, at last…
She’s asking all international families to answer this survey to help her assess your needs better. It’s here- and its in French. Thanks for taking 5 minutes to respond!
Filed under For international Children and Parents, Vacation time | Comment (0)Buying ski outfits for kids in Aix-Marseille
So it’s ski season, and you’re realizing little Arthur’s ski outfit is too small since last time he wore it, a year ago! Where does one go to find good, good looking ski outfits in the area?
Inescapable Decathlon
One option is the omnipresent Decathlon stores of course.
That’s if you appreciate the design of their kids’ outfits. To me they’ve really lost in stylishness this year. Most have an oblique stripe across the chest and dull colors for boys which I do not really take to.
One great event Decathlon has twice a year is the Trocathlon, ie a second hand sale, right at the store itself. It’s an opportunity to bring in your lightly used sports equipment and clothes to the store and buy used sporting goods as well. You get a Decathlon voucher when your items sell rather than cash.
We bought a complete horse riding outfit for a ridiculous sum there one year. They have it in March and in October. The next one of March 14 to the 21st. Note you can deposit your items during the week prior to the event. See below for a link to Trocathlon details.
Second Hand kids’ clothing Stores ( Depots-ventes in French)
Another option is the ‘ depots-ventes‘ (second hand clothes stores).
There you can find barely used Decathlon outfits from past seasons, when they still had a stylist on staff, or even better, real deals with high end brands like Poivre Blanc.
In Aix, there’s a ‘Depot-Vente’ speacialized in kids’ clothes up to age 10 which is not listed in the Yellow Pages to date. Its rue Granet, behind city hall, and its called Frimousse.
You’ll otherwise find quite a few of them in Marseille and some in Aubagne.
Online second hand destinations: eBay and le Bon Coin
Then you have EBay, or Le Bon Coin, a thriving French native want ads site.
Good luck with your search, and merry skiing, in the nearby Alps or the southern Pyrénées.
– > Trocathlon information
–> Le Bon Coin free want ads site
Trip to Ireland for the summer: some feedback
We went as a couple on a trip to Ireland this summer. Here are some of the feedback I have about tourism in this country.
Pluses:
- Warm, service oriented people, even if sometimes they talk so fast one misses a few things.
- Beautiful landscapes, quaint towns, numerous B & Bs and sports and leisure activities abound.
- Tons of wonderful cozy coffee shops. The Irish have truly taken to the latte and capuccino thing. Coffee is generally excellent. Nothing like the bitter espresso served in many French cafes. And those rhubarb crumbles, cheesecakes and carrot cakes, yum…
- What’s really pleasurable for someone who knows about tourism in France is the attention to tidyness everywhere, from gardens to bathrooms.
- One also gets the impression of newness here, in terms of construction. Even though the style is still very much traditional, paints look perfect, furniture and carpets are in good shape. No feeling of being in decrepit hotels, B&Bs, or restaurants here.
- Ireland has truly preserved itself from the invasion of store chains, thereby keeping its own unique character and charm. One does not have to suffer strips of reactangular giant stores outside towns here, as they do in France. No huge supermarkets like Carrefour here, no Decathlon’s. An Ikea was just allowed to open, after much pressure from consumers, very recently in the Dublin area.
No sign of The Gap in towns either. Dunne’s and Tesco’s are the only ‘large’ stores one has to suffer, which is quite welcome in fact, as large stores go…
- Openness to technology: internet cafes abound! Now compared to technology-challenged France, this is a welcome suprise. No small town here is without its Internet cafe. There are often more than one in larger towns. They are not geek hangouts like a lot of the ones I’ve seen in France, dark places where teenagers play online games next to you. No, they’re normal, well lit cafes, with computers.. They’re not yet gourmet centers, but maybe that’ll come next!
All hotels we stayed at had wi fi connection for those with laptops.
Minuses:
- The roads!! Those %^&*$ Irish roads. Built for horse carriages or single horses, they haven’t been much changed since a hundred years most likely, especially in the western coastal areas, from the Connemara region to Dingle and Killarney. That’s unfortunate because it takes a little of the pleasure out of touring the various regions. In fact, one stays focused on the narrow road and fastly incoming cars, buses and trucks to prevent run ins. They’re also on the bumpy side a lot of the time.
I took to reading the accounts of accidents in the Irish Times daily…Quite a shame really.
Luckily there are some nice highways, as on the Eastern side, from the south to Dublin, and going from Dublin to the western town of Galway.
- Walking and cycling facilitation :
This is in the same vein as the previous comment about roads. There is very little done to provide walking, cycling or horse riding paths in general. So, except for a few nice exceptions, like the Sky Road near Clifden, and the Killarney National park area further south, you are indicated to go take a nice scenic walk.. along the narrow road used by cars, buses, and autos!
Not very pleasurable indeed, and quite surprising given the touristy nature of Ireland and of the Western areas in particular, and given the amount of land available to create separate roads for pedestrians and cyclists. Seems the sheep and cows have priority treatment here, over the tourists and vacationers.
It’s a very beautiful country. I wish there were more opportunities to explore it on foot, horse or bicycle, and to drive in peace- not rest in peace…
Filed under Vacation time | Comment (0)Renting your house during the holidays in the south of France
You own a house in the south of France, in the beautiful Cote d’Azur, Aix en Provence, Avignon or Lubéron regions to name only a few, and you’re going to be away in July or August. How do you go about offering your home as a vacation rental during a few weeks?
Real estate agencies in France, especially in the South, are not really keen on taking care of this for you: too much work for too little pay in their (spoiled) view.
Luckily, I’ve found out concierge services are appearing in France, imported from the UK (and most likely the US), who offer to manage the rental for you in your absence, with a strong sense of service.
For a minimal fee (1 Euro/square meter of house size), they’ll welcome your renters, be there when they leave and have someone clean up the house.
One of these companies I happened to cross recently is Concierge and Co.
- > Concierge and Co: vacation rental management in the Aix en Provence- Marseille area.
A search on Concierge Services on the web or via the Tourism Offices will yield additional results.
Filed under Vacation time | Comment (0)