Has anyone seen this? How does it work?

A new fleet of ‘tuk-tuk’ taxis have taken to the streets of Paris this week, offering free journeys around the French capital.

The service is set to run seven days a week, using 24 tuk-tuks and stopping at 150 points on some of the most popular fixed bus routes in the city.

The service is operated by entrepreneur Kheir Mazri, who aims to cover costs by selling advertising on the side of the vehicles and by selling a variety of pastries, tea and popcorn to passengers during their journey.

To avoid competition with Parisian taxis, tuk-tuk drivers will not accept special destination requests.

Motorbike-powered tuk-tuks are a common sight in many Asian countries. If the service is successful in Paris, there are plans to expand nationally offering the service in cities across France.

[From Free tuk-tuk taxis take to the streets of Paris - The Connexion]

Just when you think Paris has lost its edge, the NY Times proclaims a new ‘it’ neighborhood.  The latest is on the city’s fringes, like Belleville and the former red-light district of Pigalle.  A pop-up restaurant, a taxidermy-stuffed speakeasy.

http://www.lefooding.com/restaurant/

I can’t wait to read the newest book by my friend and writing teacher, Ellen Sussman.   French Lessons is the book, and it’s out July 5th.

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Knowing Ellen, my bet is that this will be a well-told sexy story, with plenty to learn about life and love from the three main characters. Hopefully, she’ll make some allusions to the life we lived in the ’90s when we were in Paris together.

Here’s the official synopsis. More to come after I see her book reading at Booksmith in the Haight on July 13.

French Lessons: A single day in Paris changes the lives of three Americans as they each set off to explore the city with a French tutor, learning about language, love and loss, as their lives intersect in surprising ways.

Josie, Riley, and Jeremy have come to the City of Light for different reasons: Josie, a young high school teacher, arrives in hopes of healing a broken heart. Riley, a spirited but lonely ex-pat housewife, struggles to feel connected to her husband and her new country. And Jeremy, the reserved husband of a renowned actress, is accompanying his wife on a film shoot, yet he feels distant from her world.

As they meet with their tutors—Josie with Nico, a sensitive poet, Riley with Phillippe, a shameless flirt, and Jeremy with the consummately beautiful Chantal—each succumbs to unexpected passion and unpredictable adventures. Yet as they traverse the grand boulevards and intimate, winding streets, they uncover surprising secrets about one another—and come to understand long-buried truths about themselves.

I guess we all needed to be able to turn the hotel amp up to 11, which is essentially what adding “palais” to the old star distinction means. Of all the new “palais,” we’ve only stayed at the Hyatt Vendome, which is certainly a wonderful hotel, but is it a palace? Like any expensive hotel the world over, it has it’s over-priced closet rooms that overlook an airshaft, as well its million dollar a night arena-size apartments.

PARIS (Reuters) – France granted a few top hotels the right to call themselves a “palace” on Thursday, a label which distinguishes them from rivals and is designed to boost the country’s profile as a luxury destination.

The eight winners of the accolade include Paris hotels Meurice and Plaza-Athenee, both owned by the Sultan of Brunei, as well as the Bristol hotel, owned by Germany’s Oetker family.

and 39 rue de Vaugirard…

“We expect significant commercial and notoriety boosts from this accolade,” Didier Le Calvez, head of the Bristol told Reuters.

“Perhaps other countries, such as the U.S. and the UK, might now think of giving the same label, countries which have the same hotel heritage as France….The palace label means winning a prestigious decoration which is valid for five years.”

Criteria to obtain the palace label include the hotel’s location, historical significance, room comfort, personalized service, multilingual staff, health and spa facilities.

The Ritz hotel in Paris, the Four Seasons George V, and the Negresco hotel in Nice all failed the exam to get the label.

The Park Hyatt Paris Vendome, owned by the Hyatt family, also got the right put the palace plaque on its front door along with the Grand Hotel du Cap Ferrat in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.

Other winners include LVMH’s Cheval Blanc and Les Airelles, owned by Stephane Courbit, former chairman of media company Endemol — two neighboring hotels nestled between trees right on the slopes of luxury French ski resort Courchevel.

L’Hotel du Palais in Biarritz, on the French Atlantic coast, also won the right to call itself a palace.

[From France doles out new "palace" label to top hotels - baltimoresun.com]

This looks intriguing, though my iPad is still just too big to carry with me like a a guidebook. When I lived in Paris, I used to have a green hunting jacket with a big pocket in back (for birds?) and I’d stick all kinds of stuff back there (umbrellas, magazines, fruits and vegetable…). I guess I’d need something like that to carry the iPad around everywhere.

Please comment and let me know if you tried this.

An interactive map pinpoints hotels, restaurants and other Parisian accommodations, which is convenient if you’re staying, for instance, in the Marais and want to find a nearby cafe, bar, post office or Metro stop. A tap on a pinpoint reveals more information, like an address, a telephone number and hours of operation. To help navigate the streets of Paris, the iPad’s GPS chip reveals your location on the map, which can flip over to reveal a color-coded Metro map.

A new feature, Paris in Pictures, includes dozens of color photographs of Parisian attractions to provide inspiration for what to do while you’re there. Still can’t decide? The Paris app has suggestions for exploring, including the must-see churches, museums, parks, gardens and 90-minute walking tours.

[From GADGETWISE - The Glory of Your Personal Paris, Glowing on an iPad - Web Log - NYTimes.com]

53% of violent thefts in the Paris métro and public transit involve smart phones, including the ubiquitous iPhone. City officials even call it the “iPhone effect.”

This is easy to understand. My wife lost her iPhone on the Muni bus here in San Francisco. The thief scoped the phone users near the middle of the bus and as the  doors opened, he grabbed her phone and ran out the door. The doors closed and she barely knew what happened. I could see this easily happening in Paris. On the other hand, your odds aren’t so bad. If you’re standing at rush hour, you’re usually surrounded by ten other people staring at their little screens. Still, a word to the wise…

A crime wave involving the devices – has prompted Paris’ transit system to hand out flyers in four languages warning travelers about the risk. French consumers are some of the world’s most prolific users of the iPhone: France Telecom has sold more of the phones than any company other than AT&T.

[From 53% of violent Paris transit thefts tied to phones]

Related articles

• Smartphones Lure Sticky Fingers in Paris (nytimes.com)
• Parisians Told to Hold IPhones Tight After Thefts on Subways (businessweek.com)

Those French, so logical and practical, yet so infuriating to the American sensibility of freedom and waste. Ten years after the Hummer was introduced as the ultimate extension of small apartment masquerading as automobile, this seems like a sensible step, especially in cities where there are no mountains to climb or icy roads to navigate. Bulky, gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles (SUVs) could be banned from the chic but traffic-clogged streets of Paris within 18 months following a resolution passed by the city council.

Denis Baupin, a leading Green party councilor who tabled the resolution, says the designer jeeps are “not suited to towns” and he could not understand why people drove the fashionable “off-roaders.”

“They’re polluters, they’re space-occupiers, they’re dangerous for pedestrians and other road users. They’re a caricature of a car.”

[From Paris bid to ban designer jeeps - CNN]

I would not shed one crocodile tear if San Francisco, the most French of American cities, decided to also do away with SUVs. Our Supervisors are at war, instead, on all cars with a mission to slowly eliminate all parking and give over extra lanes to bicycles. Unfortunately, their brains apparently run on only one track since they don’t ever seem to ponder the mass transit needs to replace cars in a city with many unscalable hills

Huge issue in France and the not surprising effect is that most college grads want safe jobs in the government bureaucracy if they can get one at all. French parents worry they are preparing their kids for a lifetime of unemployment, made worse by a lack of ambition and risk-taking.

PARIS (Reuters) – France’s youth unemployment rate rose to a record 25 percent in the third quarter, well above the European average, and the overall jobless rate remained stuck at 9.7 percent in the latest gloomy news for euro zone growth.

The jobless rate among people aged 15-24 years rose from 24.2 percent in the preceding April-June quarter, the highest level on records going back to 1975, data showed on Thursday.

[From French jobless rate hits 25 pct for young | Reuters]

Yes, it’s true. Soon, skyscrapers will surround Parisians in a concrete maze, just as in many other modern cities struggling to remain vital and livable. Hidden in the fine print of all the articles on this however, is that the development will only be allowed to take place in the 13th arrondissment, leaving almost all of what tourists think of as “classic Paris” untouched. The 13th is the section immediately south of the 5th, and to the east of the 14th.

One of the striking things about Paris is that, for a major city whose metropolitan area includes nearly 12 million people, there are very few buildings more than five or six stories tall. Since 1977, soon after the construction of the 689 foot tall Tour Montparnasse, a building that sticks out like a sore thumb and is widely disliked by Parisians, there has been a height limit of 121 feet on all new buildings. (The Eiffel Tower, at 1,063 feet, is by far the tallest structure in the city.) But on Tuesday, Le Monde reported, the Paris City Council voted to raise the height limit to a revolutionary 590 feet, meaning that in the next few years, the Paris skyline will have a growth spurt.

[From Newly Freed from Height Limits, Paris Skyline Ready to Rise : TreeHugger]

Make sure to read the article since the explanation and vision are interesting. This should create an opportunity for new, ground-breaking architecture, including a planned crystal pyramid (artist’s drawing).