Travelogue 360 Paris

Travelogue 360 Paris is an I SPY – like game that has you hunting for clues in Paris neighborhoods. The graphics are beautiful and the life-like scenes will remind you more of a gritty Paris experience than images scraped off a postcard.  I haven’t tried it yet with the kids, but I’m sure our 7-year old will love it.  You can try a 60-minute demo at Macgamestore.  Versions exist for both Mac and PC.

 

Restaurant Find – Rotisserie du Beaujolais

Here’s what appears to be a good one, though we got serious about it too late to get reservations. The Rotisserie du Beaujolais is right across the street and run by the Tour d’Argent. Food is simple bistrot, but the setting overlooks Notre Dame and the menu looked tasty though Patricia Wells didn’t like it too much. Address is: 19, Quai Tournelle, 75005 Paris, 01 43 54 17 47 Website supposedly is La Tour d’Argent, but I couldn’t find any details anywhere on this site.

 

‘This is Paris,’ ‘This is San Francisco,’ but where is ‘This is Tokyo?’

I searched and searched for travel books to excite a two year old kid as well as inform me as to what are best things to do when we traveled. I found these, written by Sasek in 1959! With a minimum of words and a maximum of illustrations, ‘This is Paris’ captures the magic of mankind’s capital city. ‘This is Paris’ is a delightful tour of 1950s Paris from a child’s eye view. Sasek had written ‘This is Rome’ and ‘This is London,’ in 1959, but where the heck was ‘This is Tokyo,’ and ‘This is Seoul,’ for the kid of the 21st century?!@* So this is what I’m setting out to do, in 21st century format, in blogs.

“This is Paris (This is . . .)” (Miroslav Sasek)

“This is Rome (This is . . .)” (Miroslav Sasek)

“This is London (This is . . .)” (Miroslav Sasek)

Well, what do you know? As I’m searching for the links, I’m founding out that during the past couple of years, the publishers of Sasek book has figured out the same thing that I have, and have extended the series, using new editors, to create books for other cities, around the world. In fact, there is now, ‘This is Hong Kong!’ and Texas, for goodness sakes! As Paul always says, we’re always about two weeks ahead of the latest trend insight from NY Times!

“This is Hong Kong (This is . . .)” (Miroslav Sasek)

“This Is Edinburgh (This is . . .)” (Miroslav Sasek)

“This is New York (This is . . .)” (Miroslav Sasek)

“This is San Francisco (This is . . .)” (Miroslav Sasek)

“This Is Ireland” (M. Sasek)

“This Is Texas (This is . . .)” (Miroslav Sasek)

 

Birth of ‘Let’s Go, Paris’ pour les enfants…

So I’ve been thinking about writing a series of ‘Let’s Go… to Paris, pour les enfants,’ to Tokyo, to Sydney, for now a couple of years now. Ever since Hadley was born seven years ago and I took her around the world, I saw a need. She was a sport, and is, an inveterate, world class traveler. She had trekked through about 17 countries by the time she was about two. By that time, she wanted a travel book, so she can figure out where she was going and what she could do. Also, she and I developed a little ritual, to provide her with photos and information to get her excited about the voyage she was about to undertake. And then, I started to get calls from friends and strangers who had heard about my travels with my baby to get tips about traveling to distant lands, with different systems, logic, with little kids. An idea was born.

Remember. Travel is not reward for living, but homework for living….

I remember taking her to get her passport photos when she was about a month old. My first business trip back after my maternity leave was to Toronto, Canada, and I had to figure out quickly, all of the tricks of traveling around the world with a little baby. Don’t forget, to get a passport for your kid the minute she/he is born. Better to do this when you can still hold and control them on your lap! And even more urgent, now post 9/11 with all of the new requirements for traveling abroad. Remember, all kids under 14 years of age must apply in person.

 

Hello world!

Finally! After procrastinating on this for about six months, we have a Paris blog. Research seems to indicate that WordPress is now the short-term winner in the blogging world for ease of use and cost (Free!).  I use Ecto to add and edit so full integration there. Only issue is that WordPress doesn’t take Google ads. If you’ve worked with Google though, you’ll agree that Google is no longer the “gold mine” it used to be. Even with a site pulling in 500 uniques/day (like www.GreatDad.com), you still only make $2-$3/day.  As I say, not a gold mine and barely enough to pay hosting costs.  WordPress also allows transfer to our own domain if someday we can get the rights to Paris.com.