Look at Mr Omneo getting all multi-lingual, or at least trying, there is a reason I tend not to travel overseas. When I get to France, I don’t so much speak Franglais as manage to blend English, French and Italian and to the untrained listener you would think I was a native Japanese speaker trying to practise all three after locking myself away in a darkened room with nothing but the BBC website for company
In actual fact, my inability to speak a foreign language is not through lack of trying. Over the years I’ve invested heavily in books, cassette tapes (remember those?) and compact discs in an attempt to learn French, Italian, Japanese, Czech and Arabic. Strangely I was told my Arabic and Japanese pronunciation was better than my French…go figure!
When I was 19 I went on a mini-adventure that took me to France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco and 1 hellish night and day in Gibraltar. I returned to the UK with extremely fond memories of Portugal and I’m sure a girl called Virginie from Avignon still has a sliver of what passes as my heart, but that’s another story. I ended my trip with a six week stint in Paris, or more accurately a suburb called Saint Michel sur Orge. It wasn’t until much later I realised just how far away from the centre of Paris I really was so I left with pretty non-memorable memories. Paris? I thought, Nothing special, what’s all the fuss about? On the recent Eurostar sponsored day trip I went on my opinion changed a little. What little of Paris I did see, I saw through different eyes and I made a mental note to return, after all it’s less than 3 hours away from London which is about 2 hours less than a trip to Glasgow (my home town), another city where the natives speak a foreign language
Paris got bumped up my must visit list when I discovered a new website called Le Nouveau Paris which is a dream come true for a lazy planner like me. Quite simply it’s a selection of over 250 venues: museums , monuments, unusual places and more than 700 events per year: festivals, concerts and exhibitions. It also has a series of guides and routes to help you discover Paris according to your interests. I love the personal folder option. As you browse the site and see places you like you can add them to your folder so you don’t forget them and then create your own personalised itinerary. The site also encourages your language enhancement, although I signed up in English, some of the emails and on site messages are in French. No problemo for Mr Omneo and his vast collection of dictionaries
The Comité Régional du Tourisme of Paris Ile-de-France asked a selection of bloggers to conjure up their vision of that New Paris and to stop us going crazy set an imaginary budget of €1,000. Now, I could probably spend that all by myself having dinner but they want it stretched out a bit further than the 20 meals I’d have in honour of Mr Jorrocks! So using their site I planned a weekend break for myself and my imaginary partner where we’d spend our imaginary €1,000. Read the rest of this entry »