Beyond Airports

It is New Year’s Eve, and time for 2007 Travel Resolutions and Destinations. Here are mine:

2007 European Travel Resolution – Boycott Airports and Airplanes

Airports Suck. Flying Sucks. Not nice language but, hey, neither is the experience. I will remember 2006 as the year that every time I went to an airport, it was like Dante’s third circle of Hell. Weather delays. Security delays. Confusion. Cancellations. Chaos.

I love to travel and I even used to love to fly but this love affair is so over. For 2007, I’m going to think car, boat, train, horse, feet, anything but plane and if you think that will limit how far I can get for a weekend, consider this. I can catch the Friday 3pm Eurostar from London to Paris (£59 return), catch the 8:32 pm over night to Barcelona (£143 round trip with private cabin) which will get me into Barcelona on 8:24am Saturday morning. Return travel is equally civilised departing Barcelona at 9:20pm on Sunday arriving back in London on 11:55am on Monday. Et voila, a great weekend in one of Europe’s hippest and happening cities minus the horrible airport bit. When you consider that for £202 you get travel plus two nights accommodations, the economics work as well. If you’re interested, you can book this and other rail travel on http://www.raileurope.co.uk/.

2007 European Travel Destinations

Bearing in mind my 2007 Travel Resolution, here are the destinations I have on my radar for the next year that I can get to without an airplance with a short explanation of why they interest me.

Islands - Harder to get to and better off for it

Ile de Re – France’s version of Nantucket (my friend Claude says nearby Ile d’Oleron and Ile d’Yeu are less crowded and even better)

Fano – Denmark’s version of plush primitive, stay at Sonderho, Denmark’s oldest inn

Sylt – Germany’s version of the wild but well bred retreat

Herm – 3 miles off the coast of Guernsey, family owned and only a mile and a half long

Ponza – Capri-like but less crowded

Ile de Porquerolles – the Cote d’Azur without the hoi polloi

Isle of Wight – to scratch my itch for an old fashioned holiday plus Osborne House

Corsica – France’s “mountain in the sea”, untamed and un-Gallic with great long distance hiking

Cities

Paris – because I can’t get enough

Rome – for the trattatorias and the churches

Venice – an off season gem

Vienna – music, history, whipped cream

Budapest - ditto

Berlin – hip, happening and relatively inexpensive

Salzburg – perfectly proportioned

Copenhagen – for Eloise (Mermaid, Tivoli)

The Great Outdoors

The Lake District – Landscape and literature

Wales – For a holiday on horseback

Maishofen – So I can hike from my favourite Austrian hotel, Landgasthof Schloss Kammer

Cornwall – to see what all the buzz is about

Hadrian’s Wall – all 78 miles of it

Slovenia – like Austria but less crowded and expensive

So there you have it, a short list of places I'd like to see in 2007. As you think about your own travel plans for this year, I encourage you to take the advice of my favourite philosoper, Yogi Berra:

"When you get to the fork in the road, take it."

A Seductive One Day Christmas Shopping Spree

London’s Daily Telegraph recently published some scary statistics stating that the average mother (always the mother) spends 315 hours preparing for Christmas broken down into:

288 hours shopping
4.19 hours wrapping presents
3.03 hours decorating the house
4.27 hours preparing Christmas lunch
4.38 hours cooking Christmas lunch
11 hours cleaning up the mess

Just the thought of spending 288 hours shopping would send anyone, except my Aunt Gail and Mama Beuna, right around the bend, so here’s an idea that can help you desperate mothers out there cut down the time and increase the pleasure of the annual Christmas shop – abandon your family and head quickly for the Left Bank of Paris.

I can almost hear the intake of breath. Isn’t Paris expensive? Crowded? Aren’t the French difficult? What could you possibly buy in Paris that you couldn’t find in London or anywhere else? Well, here’s the thing. In Paris, it is the “experience” which makes the difference. In Paris at Christmas, women don’t look harassed. In the 6th District, at least, they look like Catherine Deneuve and the stores look like something out of the recent Sofia Coppola movie about Marie Antoinette and the food, don’t get me started on the food. Best of all, in the same amount of time the Telegraph’s survey was allocating for Christmas clean-up, you will be able to get most of your shopping done and eat a great meal. Et voila, your Joyeux Noel is ready to go.

Having been Christmas shopping in Paris every year for the past decade, I now have it down to a fine science and the key learning can be summed up in the names of two stores, Le Bon Marche and Monoprix. The first is a temple to what is chic and luxurious, while the second is the master of value for money. I love them both. Here’s why.

At Bon Marche, you can find something fabulous for everyone on your list. Back in 1870, Aristide Boucicaut, the founder of the world's first department store, stated that his aim was to “seduce the clientele” by presenting the newest products in the most stylish surroundings. Over one hundred years later, the store continues to deliver on that grand promise. The architecture, once described by Emile Zola as a “cathedral to commerce” is large enough to absorb the Christmas crowds but not so large that one feels overwhelmed. Yes, it is expensive, but no more so than you would pay for the same branded goods elsewhere.

From the excellent luggage, travel and ‘clothing for sport’ departments on the top floor to stationary, toys and glamorous children’s clothes in the basement, everything in Bon Marche seduces. In Housewares, even pots and pans look like art work and the area devoted to cleaning products and dustbins feels drop dead elegant. The Lingerie Department has everything from armament for buxom grannies to the flimsiest and most beautiful “what nots”. Throughout the store, people who serve you are, for Parisians, rather nice and decent linguists. Best of all, Bon Marche will wrap everything for you and the presentation is very smart.

After spending a morning in Bon Marche, I recommend that you head for Monoprix for food, stocking stuffers and lots of great inexpensive stuff. With outlets throughout Paris, the nearest Monoprix to Bon Marche is near St Germain des Pres at 50, rue de Rennes. Don’t let the tiny woman’s accessories area upstairs fool you. All the action is in the basement below.

If Le Bon Marche is all about luxury then Monoprix is about value for money and even though the food halls at Bon Marche, called La Grande Epicerie de Paris, are the finest I know and you shouldn’t miss taking a look, I always buy my Christmas food items at Monoprix. Over the years, financial constraints have taught me that you can purchase excellent quality Foie Gras, Marron Glace, Pain d’Epices, Pates de Fruit and all the elements for an elegant Christmas Eve dinner at Monoprix for considerably less than Bon Marche and I don’t think anyone has ever spotted the difference. Monoprix is also great for cheap but chic children’s clothes, socks and stockings and all kinds of “mess” that you need for Christmas. If Walmart were a manageable size and had some style, it would be Monoprix.

Having raided these two dramatically different stores, or perhaps in between raiding, it is time for a reward. There are lots of first class places to go for a drink and something to eat, but I always head for the Nemrod. It may look like just another brasserie, but the food, service and atmosphere are, as Patricia Wells wrote in the IHT “well above par”. Just around the corner from Bon Marche at 51 Rue du Cherche-Midi, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, the atmosphere is bustling and very Left Bank. Everything is good, but the salads exceptional, especially the Salade Auvergnate. Lunch should set you back about €60 for two.

So there you have it, a one day Christmas shopping spree where at least you will enjoy your financial demise. If there is one thing the French understand better than anyone else, it is luxury goods and the one department store that has more luxury than all others is Le Bon Marche. If you fill in the gaps with goodies from Monoprix, Christmas, to paraphrase Marie Antoinette, is a piece of cake.

Le Bon Marche
24, rue de Sevres
Tel: 01 44 39 80 00
Customer Service: 01 44 39 82 80
Metro: Sevres Babylone

Hours: 0930-1900 Monday through Wednesday and Friday. Open until 2100 on Thursday and 2000 on Saturday

Monoprix Dragon

50, rue de Rennes
Tel: 01.45.48.18.08
Metro: St Germain des Pres

Hours: Mon – Sat from 9:00 to 22:00

Le Nemrod
51, rue du Cherche-Midi
Tel: 01 45 48 17 05
Open Mon – Sat from 6:30 to 23:00
Reservations at lunch and dinner recommended

How to Slow Down Christmas

At this time of year, I envy Eloise. For my nine year old daughter, Christmas comes too slowly and is filled with magic. Not for Eloise the seasonal “to do” list which seems to take over the experience and always ends in panic. This year, I am determined to recapture the Christmas that feels like Eloise’s, which comes too slowly and is filled with good cheer.

In London, I can think of no better way to get into the Christmas spirit than by paying a visit to the Geffrye Museum’s exhibition of Christmas Past. Now in its seventeenth year, this exhibition provides masses of interesting information about 400 years of English Christmas traditions and decorations. This scrupulously researched exhibit shows Christmas in all glory and depravity and drives home the point that, as the Guidebook to the exhibition states, "people have been complaining for centuries that Christmas isn’t what it used to be.”

As opposed to running around stores and getting anxious, I found it hugely instructive and entertaining to spend a couple of hours last Friday looking and thinking about our changing attitudes to Christmas. I was amazed by the Tudor’s enthusiasm, the Parliamentarians disdain (From 1644 to 1660, Christmas was outlawed by an Act of Parliament) and the Georgian’s disinterest. Equally engaging were the nostalgia of the Regency period and the family focus and revived musical interest of the Victorians.

In each of the twelve rooms, which are decorated in the festive style of the period, you get a wonderful sense of how people felt about Christmas and what it meant to them. As I wandered through the Post War rooms, I was charmed by the older visitors who were sharing with each other what Christmas had been like for them during the period. “Well, in those days, we didn’t have a fridge or a washing machine so …”

The Geffrye Museum of English Interiors, located in Shoreditch near the City is always an uncrowded and pleasant place to visit but never more so than at Christmas. The “Christmas Past” Exhibition makes you happy to be part of age old traditions and customs that reach far beyond frenetic shopping and partying. Each of the twelve rooms gave me at least one good idea of something I could do in my own home to make the holidays more beautiful and special. The gift shop has lovely books about Christmas plus plenty of tasteful and well priced decorations. Best of all, on a busy afternoon in the run-up to Christmas, my life really did slow down for a while and was filled with good cheer.

The Geffrye Museum
136 Kingsland Road
London E28EA
Tel: 020 7739 9893

Open Tuesday – Saturday 10 AM – 5 PM
Sunday and Bank Holidays 12 – 5 PM

Christmas Past: 400 Years of Seasonal Traditions in English Homes will run from 28 November 2006 – 7 January 2007

Picture of Elizabethan strips of "bacon" made from sugar and served as a delicacy at Christmas from the Geffrye Museum Advent Calendar for December 4.

100 Today

Today marks the 100th post for NoCrowds. Such a metric might not mean a lot to Matt Drudge, but it means a lot to me. Over the 1 ½ years that I have been at this, plenty of people have been highly encouraging, about the same number have, with little success, tried to get me to focus on some kind of business model. I have shamelessly used my family and friends as narrative devices. I have exhausted the good will of my husband/editor for this time consuming “not-yet-for-profit” project and my children, some grown, some not, who look for ways to describe what I do to their friends - “Aging hippie, former Corporate Communicator is now a Blogger. Don’t ask.”

I hold the travel industry responsible. If they had done a better job at protecting the experiences they were hawking, then I wouldn’t have a job. But they don’t, so I do, and now I am completely fired up with ideas for the next 100 posts.

At the moment, like everyone else, I am focussed on Christmas and for the next few weeks I’ll be covering how to put authentic experiences back into the holiday season in London, Paris and Rome. For desperate last minute shoppers, I’ll also be offering some ideas on how to choose the perfect trip for that special someone.

But before closing this 100th post, I want to thank some of the people who have kept the faith, forwarded ideas and supported me in this hare brained but beloved project. Here you are:

The thousands of readers I haven’t met who love to travel but hate crowds
My long suffering but fabulous husband/editor
My children – well at least the ones who read my stuff – you know who you are
My father who gets it
My sister who sends me ideas and her husband who, in the nicest way, tries to get me to think a bit bigger and a little bolder
My loyal friends, who, along with the porn spammers, were my earliest readers

And to travellers everywhere who insist on "taking back" travel from the forces of evil, one experience at a time.

London - the Ultimate Destination for America's Best Holiday

As I mentioned in my post from last year, we run the best Thanksgiving Soup Kitchen in London. This year we fed thirty-three pilgrims hailing from France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, the UK and all parts of the United States, even Montana! And I’m confident that everyone who celebrated with us this year would agree, London is the ultimate Thanksgiving destination.

For the uninitiated, London might seem like an unlikely place to eat turkey with friends and family but in fact, with roughly 150,000 hungry Americans living in greater London, along with tourists and curious Londoners, it is relatively easy to find an excellent turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Villandry in Marylebone, Christophers in Covent Garden and the Chesterfield Hotel and Athenaeum Hotel in Mayfair all had special Thanksgiving menus last week with more informal places like the Arkansas Cafe and Bodeans (with live NFL action for diehards) offering more down home options.

If you were to rent an apartment and prepare your festivities yourself, the best butchers such as Lidgate in Holland Park and Randalls in Fulham can source you a fabulous turkey at even more fabulous prices that puts the American butterball to shame. Just be careful about size, most English ovens are smaller than in the States. Cranberries and sweet potatoes are in the supermarkets and Harvey Nichols has drop dead gorgeous pecan pies. Molly Blooms, also in Fulham, can supply you with a fantastic Thanksgiving-themed table arrangement. This year mine contained Indian corn, peppers, apples, orchids, oranges, nuts, berries and cotton (they know about my penchant for the South). To look at it, you’d think you were Williamsburg.

If you are not yet sold on the idea to come to London for Thanksgiving, here is some more ammunition. Late November is a relatively inexpensive time to fly to London. By contract, moving around the United States over Thanksgiving is congested and expensive. In fact, being at least 5,000 miles away from the 25 million Americans who travel on Thanksgiving Day is a pretty good idea. Also, the day after Thanksgiving is a quite normal shopping day in London. You can have a very pleasant time wandering around the stores which are already beautifully decorated for Christmas and not particularly crowded. Compare that to the riots taking place in malls across America.

In addition, you will receive the warmest welcome from your London hosts. Londoners are rather intrigued with the whole notion of Thanksgiving and they are a bit envious of the fact that Americans take the day off just to ”count their blessings” with family and friends who eat themselves silly and all of this without having to buy any presents. In the run up to Turkey Day, UK papers are filled with articles pointing to the advantages and benefits of our great American holiday. Of course, there is always the story that the Friday after Thanksgiving is the only day a poor Brit with a hyper-active, vacation- hating American boss won’t notice if he is late to work. Well, you can’t win them all. In my experience, just like the original pilgrims, if you invite representatives of the indigenous people to join you, they are always happy to oblige.

And finally, you can achieve the ultimate Thanksgiving experience by paying a visit to the Mayflower Pub in Rotherhithe in southeast London from which the original Pilgrim Fathers set sail for Plymouth in 1620. This historic pub is authorised to sell both British and US stamps so come armed with postcards to confuse your family and friends.

After hoisting a pint at the Mayflower, pay a visit to Southwark Cathedral to see the new memorial where Queen Elisabeth recently paid tribute to the Mohegan tribal chieftan, Sachem Mohamet Weyonomon who had travelled to London in 1736 to complain directly to George II about British settlers encroaching on tribal lands. Sadly, Weyonomon died of smallpox before getting to see the King and was buried in an unmarked grave on the banks of the Thames near John Harvard and William Shakespeare. Weyonomon’s letter to George II finally reached the hands of a British monarch on Wednesday, November 22, 2006. Yes, one day before Thanksgiving.

So forget the traffic jams, the football games, the shopping malls and the Butterballs. For free spirits who want to “connect to their inner Thanksgiving”, next year, go back to where it all really started and have the time of your life celebrating America’s greatest holiday - in London.

Photo Credit of Queen and Indian Chief at Southwark Cathedral: AP

Kenwood House: Spend a Day in English Arcadia

Certain artists attract huge crowds. Right now in London, Velasquez packs them in at the National Gallery while Leonardo da Vinci and Rodin reek similar havoc at the V & A and Royal Academy. But if you are fed up with all that craziness (after all, it is only art) thirty minutes from central London, in a particularly lovely corner of Hampstead Heath, you can stand in one of England’s finest stately homes and admire the work of superstars such as Vermeer, Rembrandt, Gainsborough and Turner completely and utterly by yourself.

In fact, Kenwood House, established as a museum by an Act of Parliament in 1929, offers visitors to London the ultimate English experience: world class art in a premier country house with loads of history and atmosphere unmarred by crowds. On a weekday, you might encounter the odd group of school children and the random tourist touring the house but for the most part, the place belongs to very English looking ladies in sturdy boots walking their very English looking dogs around the grounds. Even if you have only a few days in London, I recommend that instead of fighting it out in the centre of town, take the Northern Line to Golder’s Green tube stop, hop on the 210 bus and spend a blissful day in English arcadia.

The story of Kenwood House begins with its remodelling between 1764 and 1779 by the pre-eminent architect, Robert Adam, who transformed the original brick building into an impressive country villa for Lord Mansfield, a prominent judge. The house was later bought by the brewing magnate Edward Cecil Guinness, the first Earl of Iveagh, in 1925 and upon his death in 1927, he gave the estate and a portion of his pictures to the nation. The fact that these pictures are magnificent and look all the better for being displayed in a stately home rather than a purpose built gallery is, for my money, the icing on this wonderful cake. And if that weren’t enough, unlike most English Heritage properties which can be quite expensive, this one is absolutely free. For hunters of tasteful souvenirs to take home, the Gift Shop has plenty on offer.

If you have finished in the house, do not miss the opportunity to visit the grounds with park, lakeside and woodland walks and if you venture farther, you can walk for hours on the immense Hampstead Heath, one of London’s largest open spaces.

I also recommend having a drink or a pub lunch at the historic Spaniards Inn which has been operating since 1585, was mentioned in Dicken’s Pickwick Papers and Bram Stoker’s Dracula and has been patronised over the years by Robert Louis Stevenson, William Blake, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, Hogarth, Reynolds and Constable. The Inn is also famous for having been the hideout of the highwayman Dick Turpin and his equally famous horse, Black Bess during the time that Turpin’s father was landlord. I had a good soup and sandwich there recently for a reasonable £8.50. The Spaniards Inn is about a 10 minute walk from Kenwood House.

To get back to central London, retrace your steps (210 bus to Golner’s Green) happy in the knowledge that while everyone else was waiting in line to see Velasquez, you were alone with Vermeer.

Kenwood House
Hampstead Lane
London, NW3 7JR
Tel: 020 83481286


Spaniards Inn
Spaniards Road
Hampstead Heath
London, NW3 7JJ
020 8731 6571

Responsible Travel

Every year I visit the World Travel Market in London which brings together 50,000 buyers and sellers from every sector in the global travel industry. From a NoCrowds perspective, this business-to-business travel extravaganza typically provides a useful opportunity to see where mass tourism is headed and how not to go there.

This year, there was a very encouraging emphasis placed on the whole concept of “responsible tourism” which aims to minimise the negative economic, environmental and social impacts of travel. But I was interested in the overlap between people who are interested in this trend and the old NoCrowds values of being fed up with mass tourism and travellers looking for more fulfilment and enrichment from their travels.

I was particularly interested in stress testing the usual “blah blah” about protecting environments, respecting local cultures and benefiting local communities, to see if, and how, these ideas were being delivered in the products and services of the travel industry. And I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, there were quite a number of companies at WTM who are practicing what they preach and adding real value for travellers. There are also more and more sources of good information to help all of us make better travel choices and therefore have better experiences. Here is a list of some of the organisations I saw at WTM who seem to be actively making a difference in an interesting way.

An Innovative Tour Operator
Intrepid Travel – an Australia-based small group adventure tour operator established in 1989 and winner of this year’s Best Responsible Travel Company. My sense is that if you want to travel with a group, this outfit does a good job in insuring that you get off the beaten track and have authentic experiences with like minded individuals. You can also take comfort from the fact that this company works hard to benefit local communities.

A Responsible On-line Tour Agent
http://www.responsibletravel.com/ – an online travel agent established in 2001 claiming to have pre-screened over 270 businesses for their “responsibility” credentials. There is a wealth of useful information on their website and they seem to be leading or involved with most of the initiatives that are working to push the industry to clean up its act.

Responsible Ski Resorts
Ski Club of Great Britain’s Respect the Mountain Campaign – The Ski Club of Great Britain takes a serious look at the whole issue of safe guarding the alpine environment and the long-term future of skiing. Included on their site is environmental information on all the major resorts. In a related note, Whistler Blackcomb Mountain Resorts in British Columbia, Canada, won this year’s Responsible Tourism award for Best Mountain Environment, Jackson Hole was nominated for its ISO 14001 accreditation and Aspen in Colorado won the award for Best Destination based on the town’s many green “firsts” which is hard to imagine with all the private jets and mega-chalets, but the award was sponsored by Lonely Planet and they should know.

Environmentally Friendly Train Travel
The Man in Seat 61 – Another winner at the Responsible Tourism Awards, this really engaging site provides everything you need to know to take a train to almost anywhere in the world, and if you think switching to trains won’t make much of a contribution to improving the environment, consider this; one round trip plane journey from London to Barcelona emits 277 kg/Co2 per passenger versus 44 kg/Co2 per passenger by train. Source: the Observer).

Responsible Safari
Ol Malo, Kenya – Based in Samburuland, this lodge and charitable trust offer authentic experiences to travellers while helping to reduce poverty in the local Samburu community. Much grander and more expensive, although also commendable for its work on conservation of endangered species, is the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve in South Africa.

Volunteer Programs
Adventures with a Conscience and a Purpose – Both Biosphere Expeditions and Blue Ventures offer hands-on volunteer conservations expeditions that are highly commended.