Best of France This Weekend in NYC

This weekend, Times Square in Manhattan will be transformed into a huge French marketplace called Best of France.

The September 26 and 27 event is organized by the non-profit group of the same name, whose purpose is to promote the image of France and "French expertise and savoir-faire" abroad. The event is presented in conjunction with Atout France.

Entrance to Best of France is free, but tickets must be purchased for special events such as the VIP Opening Night Reception and the Grand Wine Tastings presented by top NYC sommeliers. 

Event exhibitors and programs are organized by themes: Cuisine, Lifestyle, Travel, Fashion, Culture, Technology and Innovation.  

The list of exhibitors and sponsors includes Air France, Back-Roads, Club Med, Clarins, Croisi Europe, Delta, Diptyque, Galeries Lafayette, Laguiole, Lancome, Le Boat, L'Oreal, Moulin Rouge, Parfums de France, RailEurope, Sofitel, Tartine et Chocolat, Valrhona, YSL and many more. The cities of Cannes, Lyon, Toulouse and Paris will be on hand, as will regional tourist offices (Bordeaux/Aquitaine, the Rhône Alpes the Midi-Pyrénées, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, etc.) and the islands of Martinique, Guadeloupe and Saint Martin. The full exhibitor list is here.

At the Inauguration on Saturday at 11 am (Broadway between 46th and 47th Streets), 130 French and American kids will be unraveling huge US and French flags. Following the two national anthems, they'll also unravel the largest “marinière” (the iconic striped, knitted sweater) in the world. How large you ask? It's  22' long by 44' wide.

The show highlights are listed here. On the Culinary Stage all weekend, chefs--including Christian Tetedoie, Eric Kayser, Michel Bras and others--will be doing demos.

On the main stage (Times Square at 46th St.), Francophone singers and French artists (such as 16 Moulin Rouge dancers, a first in NYC) will perform. Other offerings include art exhibits, a French book store, book signings, fashion shows on a 45-foot runway, a kids fashion show casting call, live demos by French craftsmen making artisanal products, a French market and "bistro areas."

Volunteers are still needed and can compete to win a trip to Paris; info on volunteering is here. 

The public is invited to enter to win a week in luxury rental in Chamonix (with a six-day ski pass) and a week-long French river cruise. Anyone can enter...you don't have to attend the event to win...just fill out the form here.

For all the details, visit the Best of France website here...and follow them on Facebook, Twitter,  Instagram and Pinterest.

A Kinder, Gentler Way to Book Flights

Planning any travel? Then check out Hipmunk. It's a huge improvement over the other popular travel booking sites--a much quicker and more-organized experience. "Our goal is to build the best travel site on the Internet," Hipmunk co-founder Adam Goldstein said in a recent article in Fast Company. "And by 'best' I mean the site that helps people find what they're looking for with a minimum of agony." Unlike other sites, Hipmunk has tabs to let you compare multiple searches at the same time. It hides flights "that no intelligent person would take." Plus, they just added a little WiFi indicator directly onto flight search results so you can see easily who offers internet up in the sky. Thank you, Hipmunk! Hip, hip, hooray!

Prepare for Takeoff and Landing Please

Flying from San Francisco to Paris recently on a Boeing 747-400, Nate Bolt  took 2,459 photos--that's one photo about every two miles for 11 hours--and turned them into this remarkable two-minute video. (If you click the link here rather than the arrow on the video above, you can watch the video full screen and also read some info from Nate about how he did it.)  To see Nate interviewed on the Today Show, click here. Bravo to Air France for saying yes to this endeavor and to Nate for making it happen!

Air France to Take On Ryanair and EasyJet?

La Tribune reports this morning that Air France is planning to go head to head with EasyJet and Ryanair by launching a range of low-cost domestic flights linking French cities. The plan is to use Nice as a base for the operation. I checked in with my contact at Air France who said the company had no comment at this time.

The story says Air France will use its sister brand, Transavia, to offer cheap flights linking Nice with the rest of France, using 186-seater planes. Until now, Transavia has specialised in European short-haul tourist services from Orly. Air France is understood to have picked Nice as the base because EasyJet of the high numbers of leisure travellers who pass through the airport to visit the Côte d'Azur. EasyJet already has a strong presence there, with flights to Paris, the UK and Geneva.

The low-cost plan is part of a series of measures Air France is looking at to save money on its domestic flights by bypassing Paris. It wants to improve efficiency by about 20% at the regional airports it serves--with faster flight turnarounds, fewer check-in staff and more outsourced work.

EasyJet and Ryanair are both well-established in the French domestic flights market. Ryanair uses Marseille as a base to serve Biarritz, Tours, Lille, Nantes and Beauvais, while Easyjet offers flights from its Lyon base to Bordeaux, Toulouse, Biarritz and Nantes.

LUXE IN THE LUBERON

The French soap maker L’Occitane (and two investors) have opened the 46-room Couvent des Minimes Hotel & Spa in a restored 400-year-old stone convent outside Mane, in the Luberon. (It's about an hour from Avignon.) I haven't been there yet but I hear, from well-traveled friends, that it's amazing. The four-star hotel is home to the first L’Occitane Spa in France. Chef Philippe Guerin, 38, trained with top chefs such as Alain Chapel and the Pourcel brothers in Montpellier; he also worked at the Negresco (Nice) and the Château le Domaine Saint Martin, a Relais & Châteaux in Vence. General manager Pierre‐Alexandre Francin moved over from Villa Gallici in Aix--and was at the Meurice in Paris for more than a decade--so you can be sure the service is every bit as great as the setting. In November, doubles begin at 205 euros and special fall/winter packages are available. For readers of my blog, Pierre-Alexandre is offering an elegant L'Occitane Gift Set as a welcome treat. www.couventdesminimes-hotelspa.com/; reservations@couventdesminimes-hotelspa.com