الاثنين، 31 أكتوبر 2011

Paris guide with children

This is a well kept secret. Paris can be a lot of fun for children. There are also possibilities to visit Paris in a way suited for children. Let's turn your create Paris Las Vegas' unique ambiance. Our elegant hotel tower has spacious guestrooms and suites. Sumptuous fabrics, custom European furniture, and marble bathrooms make each room a sophisticated private retreat.

For the ultimate in luxury, check into one of our plush new Red Rooms, complete with marble bathrooms and custom European furniture. These sexy, sensual accommodations combine the distinctive French designs of Cagley & Tanner with the modern conveniences of iHome stereos and HDTVs.xperience everything you love about Paris, right in the heart of Vegas.  It's all the passion, excitement, and ambiance of Europe's most romantic city, in the entertainment capital of the world.  No wonder they say everything is sexier in Paris.

Classic style, fine craftsmanship, and authentic details all combine to create Paris Las Vegas' unique ambiance. Our elegant hotel tower has spacious guestrooms and suites. Sumptuous fabrics, custom European furniture, and marble bathrooms make each room a sophisticated private retreat.

For the ultimate in luxury, check into one of our plush new Red Rooms, complete with marble bathrooms and custom European furniture. These sexy, sensual accommodations combine the distinctive French designs of Cagley & Tanner with the modern conveniences of iHome stereos and HDTVs.

Hotels in Paris

Comfortable mid-range accommodation in the heart of Paris was something of a non entity for many years. However, with the rise in ‘boutique chic’ hotels in Paris, finding a nice place to stay in a convenient location, though still pricey, is becoming less of a headache. You still won’t find cheap hotels in any of the main touristy arrondissements, but the choice of stylishly decorated lodgings with friendly service has grown – and with the consumer in mind.
The Paris hotels below are grouped into three pricing categories:
Luxury (over €600)
Moderate (€350 to €600)
Cheap (up to €350)
The prices quoted here are the lowest standard rates for a double room, including VAT and room tax but excluding breakfast, unless otherwise specified.
Hotel prices generally include VAT and a room tax (taxe de séjour) of between €0.50 and €1.50 per person per night. This tax is sometimes added to the bill at the end of a visit and guests are advised to check whether it is included when making a reservation. Guests are also advised to tip porters €2 for each bag and chambermaids €2 per day.
Jays
Price: Luxury
For elegance, location and personable service, Jays has come out flawless ever since it opened its 19th-century doors in 2006. Amazingly, the Champs-Elysées Avenue, Trocadéro and the Eiffel Tower are all within walking distance of this luxury Parisian hotel. On entering, guests are greeted in a stunning marble-floored reception with a grand iron banister staircase. High-ceiling suites have been given a fresh interior design, complete with all mod cons. A top bracket accommodation filled with personality.
Address: 6 rue Copernic, 16th, Paris, France
Telephone: 01 4704 1616.

Le Bristol
Price: Luxury There’s luxury accommodation and then there’s Hotel Le Bristol Paris. From marble-panelled powder rooms to its regal 1,210-sq-m (13,000-sq-ft) garden, Le Bristol has been Paris’s most prestigious hotel since its inception. A member of The Leading Hotels of the World, all services are naturally state of the art. Foodies will also be happy to hear its three-Michelin starred restaurant continues to stockpile accolades under the guidance

السبت، 30 يوليو 2011

Cultured Traveler: In Europe, Five Libraries That Offer Respite From the Crowds

France Travel Guide

 

logoFrance to Launch New National Gastronomy Festival this Fall

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France is the most visited country in the world. It has everything that you could ever want to see on your holidays: a great city like Paris, good beaches, more monuments than any other country, lovely nature, incredible mountain scenery; need I go on? France is als o a very pleasant place to stay. It has good food, great wines and people enjoy their lives. And the best thing is, maybe apart from Paris, living in France does not have to be expensive. The North of Fran       ce consists of the flatlands around the town of Lille and the English Channel. This area will remind visitors in many ways of Belgium and the Netherlands. The Grand' Place in Lille for example is a lot like the one in Brussels.

Paris, the city of light and its surroundings are some of the most visited areas. Paris is without a doubt one of the most beautiful cities on the planet. With so much to see and do, renting one of the many Paris apartments is the perfect way to enjoy the city. Having the time to enjoy this fantastic location like a true Parisian is an unforgettable experience.

  FRANCE TRAVEL INFO
France Travel
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France Real Estate
Education in France
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Hotels in France
Paris Apartments
Travel Insurance France
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The West of France is facing towards the Atlantic Coast. In the north Normandy & Brittany have rolling hills, sandy beaches and quiet little harbour towns. Normandy & Brittany have a more rugged coast and many neolithic sites. It has quite a distinct atmosphere from the rest of the country; you can still sense the Celtic origin of the region in its inhabitants.

The eastern part of France consists of the Alsace, Lorraine, Franche Comté and Burgundy regions. The landscape has rolling hills and many beautiful cities, such as Metz, Strasbourg, Nancy and Dijon. This region produces many famous wines, including magnificent pinot noirs and chardonnays valued the world over, as well as the famous "Yellow wine" from the Jura mountain vineyard.

 

Paris Bed & Breakfast Hotels in Paris

New Caledonia Sui generis collectivity Nouméa
 Réunion Overseas region and department (DOM) Saint-Denis
 Saint Barthélemy Overseas collectivity (collectivité d'outre-mer or COM) Gustavia
 Saint Martin Overseas collectivity (collectivité d'outre-mer or COM) Marigot
 Saint Pierre and Miquelon Overseas collectivity (collectivité d'outre-mer or COM). Still referred to as a collectivité territoriale. Saint 
 
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Pierre
 Wallis and Futuna Overseas collectivity (collectivité d'outre-mer or COM). Still referred to as a territoire.         Mata-Utu
Overseas collectivities and territories form part of the French Republic, but do not form part of the European Union or its fiscal area (with the exception of St. Bartelemy, which seceded from Guadeloupe in 2007). The Pacific Collectivities (COMs) of French Polynesia, Wallis and Fortuna, and New Caledonia continue to use the CFP franc[94][95][96] whose value is linked to that of the euro. In contrast, the five overseas regions used the French franc and now use the euro.[97]

Politics

Government

Logo of the French Republic
The French Republic is a unitary semi-presidential republic with strong democratic traditions. The constitution of the Fifth Republic was approved by referendum on 28 September 1958.[98] It greatly strengthened the authority of the executive in relation to parliament. The executive branch itself has two leaders: the President of the Republic, currently Nicolas Sarkozy, who is head of state and is elected directly by universal adult suffrage for a 5-year term (formerly 7 years),[99] and the Government, led by the president-appointed Prime Minister, currently François Fillon.
Nicolas Sarkozy has been the President of the French Republic since 2007
The French parliament is a bicameral legislature comprising a National Assembly (Assemblée Nationale) and a Senate.[100] The National Assembly deputies represent local constituencies and are directly elected for 5-year terms.[101] The Assembly has the power to dismiss the cabinet, and thus the majority in the Assembly determines the choice of government. Senators are chosen by an electoral college for 6-year terms (originally 9-year terms), and one half of the seats are submitted to election every 3 years starting in September 2008.[102]
The Senate's legislative powers are limited; in the event of disagreement between the two chambers, the National Assembly has the final say.[103] The government has a strong influence in shaping the agenda of Parliament.
French politics are characterised by two politically opposed groupings: one left-wing, centred around

Monarchy to Republic French Guiana Designated as an overseas land (pays d'outre-mer or POM), the status is the same as an overseas collectivity. Papeete French Southern and Antarctic Lands overseas territory (territoire d'outre-mer or TOM) Port-aux-Français Guadeloupe Overseas region and departmen BasseTerre Martinique

countries. As the threat of a foreign invasion receded and that France became mostly pacified, the Thermidorian reaction put an end to the Terror and to Robespierre's dictature.
Metropolitan France is situated mostly between latitudes 

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France was one of the first countries to create a Ministry of the Environment,

Animated map of the growth and decline of the French colonial empire.
After a short-lived governmental scheme, Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of the Republic in 1799, being appointed as First Consul, and later Emperor of the First Empire (1804–1814/1815). As a continuation of the wars sparked by the European monarchies against the French Republic, changing sets of European Coalitions declared wars to Napoleon's French Empire. His armies conquered most of continental Europe, with members of the Bonaparte family being appointed as monarchs in some of the newly established kingdoms. These victories led to the worldwide expansion of French revolutionary ideals and reforms, such as the Metric system, the Napoleonic Code or the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. After the catastrophic Russian campaign, Napoleon was finally defeated and the Bourbon monarchy restored. About a million Frenchmen died during the Napoleonic Wars.[59]
After his brief return from exile, Napoleon was finally defeated in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo, the monarchy was re-established (1815–1830), but with new constitutional limitations. The discredited Bourbon dynasty was overthrown by the civil uprising of 1830, which established the constitutional July Monarchy, which lasted until 1848, when the French Second Republic was proclaimed, in the wake of the 1848 European revolutions. In 1852, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, Napoleon I’s nephew and president of the French Republic, was proclaimed emperor of the second Empire, as Napoleon III. He multiplied French interventions abroad, especially in Crimea, in Mexico and Italy, which resulted in the annexation of Savoy and Nice. Napoleon III was eventually unseated following defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and his regime was replaced by the Third Republic.
Charles de Gaulle took an active part in all major events of the 20th century : a hero of World War I, leader of the Free French during World War II, he then became President, where he facilitated the decolonization, maintained France as a major power and overcame the May 1968 revolt.
France had colonial possessions, in various forms, since the beginning of the 17th century to the 18th century. But in the 19th and 20th centuries, its global overseas colonial empire extended greatly and culminated as the second largest in the world behind the British Empire. At its peak, between 1919 and 1939, the second French colonial empire extended over 12,347,000 square kilometres (4,767,000 sq mi) of land. Including metropolitan France, the total area of land under French sovereignty reached 12,898,000 square kilometres (4,980,000 sq mi) in the 1920s and 1930s, which is 8.6% of the world's land area.
France was a member of the Triple Entente when World War I broke out. A small part of Northern France was occupied, but France and its allies eventually emerged victorious against the Central Powers, at a tremendous human and material cost: the first war left 1.4 million French soldiers dead.[60] The interbellum phase was marked by intense international tensions an a variety of social reforms introduced by the Popular Front government (Annual leave, working time reduction, women in Government...). Following the German Blitzkrieg campaign in World War II, metropolitan France was divided in an occupation zone in the north and Vichy France, a newly established authoritarian regime collaborating with Germany, in the south.[61] The Allies and the French Resistance eventually emerged victorious from the Axis powers and French sovereignty was restored.
The Fourth Republic was established after World War II and saw spectacular economic growth (les Trente Glorieuses). France was one of the founding members of the NATO (1949), which was the Western counterpart of the Warsaw Pact system of collective defence. France attempted to regain control of French Indochina but was defeated by the Viet Minh at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Only months later, France faced a new conflict in Algeria. The debate over whether or not to keep control of Algeria, then home to over one million European settlers,[62] wracked the country and nearly led to civil war. In 1958, the weak and unstable Fourth Republic gave way to the Fifth Republic, which contained a strengthened Presidency.[63] In the latter role, Charles de Gaulle managed to keep the country together while taking steps to end the war. The Algerian War was concluded with peace negotiations in 1962 that led to Algerian independence. France granted independence progressively to its colonies, the last one being Vanuatu in 1980. A vestige of the colonial empire are the French overseas departments and territories that include French Guiana, Martinique and French Polynesia.
In the wake of a worldwide series of protests, the May 1968 revolt, although a political failure for the protesters, had an enormous social impact. In France, it is considered to be the watershed moment when a conservative moral ideal (religion, patriotism, respect for authority) shifted towards a more liberal moral ideal.
France has been at the forefront of the European Union member states seeking to exploit the momentum of monetary union to create a more unified and capable European Union political, defence, and s

France History Etymology Prehistory and Antiquity Middle Age to Revolution 1.4 Monarchy to Republic 2 Geography 2.1 Environment 2.2 Administrative divisions 2.3 Overseas regions and territories 3 Politics 3.1 Government Law Foreign relations Development aid Military

Empire to convert, in 498, to Catholic Christianity, rather than Arianism; thus France obtained the title “Eldest daughter of the Church” (La fille aînée de l’Église) from the papacy,[43] and the French kings would be called “the Most Christian Kings of France” (Rex Christianissimus). The Franks embraced the Christian Gallo-Roman heritage, and ancient Gaul was progressively

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renamed Francia ("Land of the Franks"). The Germanic Franks adopted Romanic languages, except in northern Gaul where Roman settlements were less dense and where Germanic languages emerged. Clovis made Paris his capital and established the Merovingian dynasty but his kingdom would not survive his death. The Franks treated land purely as a private possession and divided it among their heirs, so four kingdoms emerged around Paris, Orléans, Soissons, and Rheims. The last Merovingian kings, sometimes referred as Rois fainéants ("lazy kings"), lost effective power to their mayors of the palace.
The mayor of the palace, Charles Martel, defeated a Muslim invasion from Hispania at the Battle of Tours (732) and earned respect and power within the Frankish Kingdoms. His son Pepin the Short eventually seized the crown of Francia from the discredited Merovingians and founded the Carolingian dynasty. Pippin's son, Charlemagne reunited the Frankish Kingdoms and built a vast empire across Western and Central Europe.
Joan of Arc led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War which paved the way for the final victory.
Proclaimed "Roman Emperor" by Pope Leo III, Charlemagne tried to revive the Western Roman Empire and its cultural grandeur, from its Palace of Aachen. The efficient administration of this immense empire was ensured by high civil servants, carrying the, still non-hereditary, titles of counts (in charge of a County), marquis (in charge of a March), dukes (military commanders), etc.
Charlemagne's son Louis I (emperor 814–840) kept the empire united; however, this Carolingian Empire would not survive Louis I's death. The Empire was divided between Louis' three sons, with the Treaty of Verdun (843), into East Francia to Louis the German, Middle Francia to Lothair I and West Francia to Charles the Bald. Western Francia approximated the area occupied by modern France and was the precursor to modern France.[44] Continually threatened by Viking invasions, France became a very decentralised state: the nobility's titles and lands became hereditary, the authority of the king became more religious than effective and constantly challenged by powerful noblemen. Thus was established feudalism in France. Some of the king's vassals would grow so powerful that they would become a threat to the king. By example, after the Battle of Hastings, in 1066, the Duke of Normandy added "King of England" to his titles, becoming vassal (as Duke of Normandy) and equal (as king of England) to the king of France.
The Carolingian dynasty ruled France until 987, when Hugh Capet, Duke of France and Count of Paris, was crowned King of France.[45] His descendants, the Direct Capetians, the House of Valois and the House of Bourbon, progressively unified the country through a series of wars, such as the Saintonge War, and dynastic inheritance into a Kingdom of France. The Albigensian Crusade was launched in 1209 to eliminate the heretical Cathars in the south-western area of modern-day France. In the end, the Cathars were exterminated and the autonomous County of Toulouse was annexed.[46] Later Kings expanded their territory to cover over half of modern continental France, including most of the North, Centre and West of France. French knights took also an active part in the various Crusades that were fought, between 1095 and 1291, to restore Christian control over the Holy Land. Meanwhile, the royal authority became more and more assertive, centred around a hierarchically conceived society distinguishing nobility, clergy, and commoners.
The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (1572) was the climax of the French Wars of Religion which were brought to an end by the Edict of Nantes (1598).
Charles IV (The Fair) died without an heir in 1328.[47] Under the rules of the Salic law adopted in 1316, the crown of France could not pass to a woman, nor could the line of kinship pass through the female line.[47] Accordingly, the crown passed to the cousin of Charles, Philip of Valois, rather than through the female line to Charles' nephew, Edward, who would soon become Edward III of England. In the reign of Philip of Valois, the French monarchy reached the height of its medieval power.[47] However, Philip's seat on the throne was contested by Edward III of England and in 1337, on the eve of the first wave of the Black Death,[48] England and France went to war in what would become known as the Hundred Years' War.[49] The exact boundaries changed greatly with time, but French landholdings of the English Kings remained extensive for decades. With charismatic leaders, such as Joan of Arc and La Hire, strong French counterattacks won back all English continental territories, except Calais which was captured in 1558 by the French. Like the rest of Europe, France was struck by the Black Death. Around 1340, France had a population of about 17 million,[50] which by the end of the pandemic had declined by about one-half.[