Every traveller knows all too well about the difficulties of foreign travel today: long security lines, late and cancelled flights, missed connections. But in France, much of the stress of travel can happen after you arrive. Take airport transfers in Paris. Traffic can be brutal on the wrong autoroute. Tourists and business travellers alike have long lamented how hard it is to find taxis in Paris. And once in Paris, you never know when French transit workers will call one of their famous slowdowns or strikes, stranding you–or worse, your clients–in unfamiliar territory.

The good news is, unlike with air travel, there’s a way to avoid all these snafus: hire a chauffer-driven car from a reputable company. For businesses, planning ahead with a chauffer-driven car for Paris airport transfers can help prevent missed flights as well as make a great impression on arriving business associates. Travel agents can offer a great service by proposing airport transfers and a luxury tour of Paris for special clients, or private transport for groups. And tourists can hire a chaffeur-driven car with an English-speaking guide for sightseeing in Paris and beyond, especially handy for families, those with special needs…or for a romantic couple.

It’s essential, however, to choose your car company carefully to make sure it has both the reliablity and range of services you need. Adaïa Services is one such company, with a fleet of cars and complement of bilingual drivers to serve both business and tourism customers alike. For business, Adaïa Services offers airport transfers in Paris to and from Charles de Gaulle, Orly and private airstrips, as well as all train stations, and welcomes your foreign business associates for the signature of contracts or to transport them in comfort to meetings and conventions. Tourists will enjoy luxury tours of Paris and excursions to places of interest within driving distance of Paris such as Giverny, the Loire Valley, Champagne and even the WWII beaches of Normandy, all with an English-speaking guide. And travel agents can offer their clients unique a la carte services such as chauffeured shopping trips, romantic tours of Paris by night and even luxury transport to and from a wedding. Surprisingly, hiring a chauffer-driven car in Paris need not break the bank; in fact, businesses will appreciate the ability to budget their transport costs in Paris in advance, and leisure travellers will find that a chauffeured car can be hired for not all that much more than other less comfortable ways of getting around in Paris. Adaïa Services’ fleet of vehicles include everything from Peugeot and Mercedes sedans to Volkswagen minivans and even Rolls Royce limousines. More than a way to get from point A to point B, Adaïa Services strives to make each trip a pleasant and stress-free one. And Adaïa Services’ drivers know the area, the traffic patterns and the roads, so you arrive wherever you’re headed on time and in style. Whether in Paris on business or on vacation, everyone can relax if they leave the driving to Adaïa Services.

Adaïa Services offers a wide range of chauffered car services in and around Paris, serving both business and leisure clienteles as well as the tourism industry.

Services

• Paris daytrips by chauffeur-driven car
• Luxury tour of Paris
• Paris Airport Transfers
• Limousine service in Paris

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With so much to see and do in Paris and nearby, it’s hard for someone new to Paris to know where to begin. If your time in Paris is limited, it’s even more essential that you plan your tourism time wisely. Big bus tours are not attractive options for most sophisticated travellers, who resent being part of a large herd of camera-toting tourists. But going it alone, it can be frustrating to arrive at the Eiffel Tower at a bad time only to spend hours waiting in line, or to waste valuable travel time navigating an unfamiliar metro and bus system between sights. And if you’ve got your nose in a guide book to try to learn about what you are seeing, you’ll miss half of the experience, no matter how you get there.

A great way to get your bearings in the City of Light is with a private tour of Paris. Being driven around Paris in your own private air-conditioned van may seem like a luxury at first, but if it helps you make the most of your time and get more in-depth knowledge out of your visit, the value is indisputable. With a driver who knows his way around the city, you won’t arrive at a museum five minutes before closing or do a lot of useless backtracking to get to everything you want to see. And with an English-speaking guide, you won’t miss anything once you get there.

One company that offers a wide range of private tours of Paris is Best of France. Comfortable vans with knowledgable English-speaking drivers pick guests up right from their hotel and whisk them to sights all over Paris. In their full-day Paris tour, travellers can get an amazingly comprehensive overview of the city and its most beautiful and important sites. Those who have less time might prefer the half-day private tour, also very complete. There are private tours that center around Paris’ museums or nightlife. Best of France even offers a great idea for jet-setters with only a long layover in Paris: the Paris stopover tour, picking guests up at the airport and taking them on a private guided tour of Paris before bringing them back to Charles de Gaulle or Orly airport to catch their next flight! Definitely preferable to waiting in the airport departure lounge. For those wishing to explore outside of Paris in the same customized and intimate style, Best Of France offers private guided tours of Versailles, Fontainebleau, Giverny and other popular half-day-trips from Paris, without the crowds. Your own English-speaking guide can take you through the chateaux, houses, cathedrals and museums, or you can choose to explore on your own; either way, you are sure of an enriching experience at a flexible and relaxed pace, free from the stress and hassle of getting there yourself or being forced to shunt along with a large group.

For example, in the Versailles guided tour the licensed guide begins with a drive through the park to show guests the little hamlet where Marie Antoinette used to play at being a peasant for fun, as well as the Petit Trianon and the Grand Trianon, before heading inside the royal Versailles Castle to give fascinating background information on the residence built for the Sun King, Louis XIV. Guests hear the inside stories and are able to ask all the questions they like about the magnificent apartments of the King, the Hall of Mirrors, the Queen’s apartments, and the magnificent gardens, in a private tour that really brings history to life. And for those who wish to venture even further, Best of France offers one and two day Normandy D-Day tours and tours through Burgundy, Champagne and more. If you’re new to France, or even if you’re not, a private tour from Best of France is the way to travel and miss nothing except the hassles.

Best of France provides private and shared guided tours in Paris and around France for individuals and groups of up to 15.

Services

• Private Tours of Paris
• Guided Versailles Tours
• Normandy D-Day Tours
• Day trips from Paris

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New passports in France will be issued with RFID technology (Radio Frequency Identification), embedded chips carrying digital images of the bearer’s face and eight fingerprints. Children below the age of 6 will not be photographed digitally. The first of the new biometric passports will be available in autumn 2008, but it not be until June 2009 that this new identity document will be widely offered in 2,000 town halls, that is to say around 20 per French department or administrative district.

The new RFID biometric French passports can be read from several feet away. They will be issued with a ten-year validity.

Since 9/11, the US has been using RFID biometric technology in passport and has been urging other countries to do the same, threatening those who resist with difficulty entering the US. France, along with the rest of Europe, has decided to comply. Since October 2005, the new biometric passports have been required for entry to the Us without a visa; it is only now that they will be widely produced. France is now choosing among consortiums to produce the machines that will create the RFID chips with the digital images of faces and fingerprints for use in the new French passports in accordance with international civil aviation requirements. The new scanners in the Us that will be able to read the chips are installed in JFK in New York City, Washington’s Dulles airport and O’Hare airport in Chicago.

While some believe the new biometric passports will aid in security, others doubt that the new technology will foil ever-more-sophisticated counterfeiters. Others in France have concerns about privacy, with the idea that personal information will be collected in databases and used in unforseen ways in the future.

But for now, RFID passports are the only ticket for French nationals and others into the US, so until a better solution is found, French people wishing to to enter the US are sucking it up and getting fingerprinted and acquiring a digital identity. US homeland security officials point to measure like the RFID passports when discussing foiled terrorism attempts since 9/11.

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An outdoor rave has taken over a cliff in Montpezat-sous-Bauzon in France’s Ardeche region, after having been turned away from its originally planned site in Auvergne. Between 400 and 1,200 people are reported to be present. Local authorites have done fly-over surveillance of the area and so far, no incidents of note have been reported. Police have cordoned off access to the site to new vehicles, but admit that some ravers continue to by coming through the woods.

A spokesperson for Médecins du Monde (doctors of the World), a non-profit medical organization in France, said that his group had been in place since Thursday and so far had only treated minor injuries, alcohol-related conditions and exposure among rave participants. The French medical organization was refused access to the unauthorized rave at first, but eventually was given permission to remain on site.

The rave has thus far been somewhat contained by French authorities both in size and in its activities. About 150 vehicles belonging to ravers are reported to be on the site, but so are 400 French gendarmes. The decibel level is also much lower than it might have been, as six trucks carrying sound equipment for the event were seized during the aborted attempt to launch the rave in Auvergne. Around 60 members of Médecins du Monde are also present, having set up a temporary facility to treat rave participants.

Raves in France have been the scene not only of drug and alcohol use in recent years — particularly the drug MDMA or Ecstasy — but also of health emergencies and tragic deaths, so French police and local authorities are on the alert for safety concerns. The non-profit organization Médecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) have run a program targeting safety problems associated with raves in France since 1997. The program, called Rave Mission, does not seek to stop or discourage raves but to be present on site at raves with first aid, supplies and emergency services should they be necessary. Rave Mission has been controversial as it not only provides care and anti-drug messages but also hands out bottled water and condoms to ravers.

Some areas of France, such as Auvergne, ban raves, but Médecins du Monde says on their website that the practice of banning raves “forces participants into clandestine behaviour with all the related risks: poor security conditions, no medical support, nobody present from associations or institutions to provide prevention messages.” Médecins du Monde insists their efforts during raves in France are all in the interest of public health and safety in France.

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The Poitou-Charentes region of France is in the western center of France, between the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Loire country to the north, Limousin and the Centre regions to the east and Aquitaine to the south. Formerly the provinces of Poitou, Angoumois, Saintonge and Aunis, this part of France became an administrative area under Vichy and now includes 4 departments: Charente (16), the Charente-Maritime (17), Deux-Sevres (79) and Vienna (86). Poitou-Charentes sits on 25,810 km2 and is home to 1,640,068 inhabitants. The town of Poitiers is the area’s prefecture, or capital.

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52% of France now uses the Internet, the first time that level has been reached in France, according to a new survey by Mediametrie, a media ratings company in France. The study reports that 13.5 million French households have Internet access, a 15% jump in French internet penetration in just one year. Almost all of the households in France that have internet (93%) surf the web with high-speed Internet services like ASDL cable rather than the antiquated dial-up. The number of French Internet users overall (quantified as people over 16 in France who have gone online in the last month, either at home or elsewhere) was over 61%.

France still lags behind most of Europe in Internet use, however. Spain, the UK and Germany had slightly more users, with Italy being the only European country with fewer Internet users than France. But with over half of France now connected and growing fast, and wifi popping up everyplace in Paris and across France from cafes to public parks, it will soon be hard to find anywhere offline in France.

The most popular sites in France for web surfers? Google, Yahoo, Orange (the French mobile phone and media company) and the French Yellow Pages.

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On June 6, 1944, 150,000 American, Canadian and British troops landed in rough seas along a 60-mile string of sandy beaches on the French coast at Normandy. The liberation of France and Western Europe was under way. It will soon be 64 years since U.S. troops stormed the beaches at Omaha and Utah in Normandy and fought in places like Saint-Mere Eglise and St. Marie du Mont to liberate northern France. And while some complain of strained relations between the US and France, in Normandy, the French welcome Americans on their soil now just as they did June 6, 1944. US veterans with their grandchildren, military history buffs and fans of WWII movies all flock year-round to this meaningful and beautiful location so pivotal to the fortunes of both the US and France. With good planning, Normandy can be reached as a day trip from Paris, making it a popular destination for Americans wishing to tour the Normandy beaches. But many tourists find it complicated to rent cars in France or navigate their own way through a foreign country, wasting valuable time. At the same time, they don’t want to be part of a cattle-car-style bus tour full of strangers that doesn’t afford any flexibility to explore Normandy at their own pace.

The solution? A private Normandy beaches tour by hired car or van. Visitors can re-experience D-Day with a Normandy beaches tour, complete with their own knowledgable English-speaking guide, all in about 12 hours door to door from their own Paris hotel. Free of the responsibility of driving, they can relax and take in the sights of the Norman countryside along the way, enjoying the company of friends or family instead of poring over a road map.

One company offering a quality and competitively-priced version of this service is Best of France. Their full-day Normandy beaches tour covers all the most important stops and still has you back in Paris in time for dinner. Best of France offers a very reasonable two-day tour as well, with an overnight in Normandy. The first stop on the Best of France Normandy beach tour is the 82nd Airborne museum at Sainte Mère Eglise, followed by a drive along Utah beach and a stop at Pointe du Hoc, where American Colonel James Rudder and his US rangers scaled the cliffs to achieve a heroic and near-impossible mission. The Normandy D-Day tour continues with a drive along Omaha Beach and a visit to the American cemetery, invariably a moment of intense emotion and contemplation for US visitors. Unlike big bus tours, Best Of France tours can be customized for those with special interests. A visit to the Bayeux Tapestry or the Canadian Sector, including Juno, Gold and Sword Beaches or Pegasus Bridge in Benouville can be worked in to the Normandy Beaches tour at the request of guests. As there is plenty to see and do in Normandy, Best of France even offers a Normandy guided tour that doesn’t include D-Day-related sites, focusing instead on other beautiful historic and cultural spots in Honfleur, Deauville and Rouen. At lunch, why not enjoy a glass or two of good red wine, or the strong apple Calvados, the classic “trou normand”? After all, you’re not driving! Each of the Normandy guided tours from Best of France can accommodate from one to 15 people and guests can choose from a range of vehicles to suit their groups. Prices are amazingly reasonable for the value; full-day tours range from 170 euros per person on a shared tour organized by the company to around 1700 euros for groups of up to 15. Overnight 2-day tours are also available and are an even better deal. Already in France but haven’t booked? It’s not too late! Smart travellers can snap up amazing bargains with Best of France’s last-minute deals on private tours to Normandy.

Now Americans of all ages can return to Normandy or experience it for the first time without either stepping behind the wheel of an unfamiliar car or joining a large, impersonal cookie-cutter bus tour. A Normandy beaches tour from Best of France gives the American liberators and their loved ones a well-deserved welcome to the place that forever symbolizes the relationship between the US and France.

Best of France is a tour company specializing in private full and half day tours in Paris and France for individuals and small groups.

Services

• Normandy Beaches D-Day Tours
• Private tours of Paris and Versailles
• Fascinating day trips from Paris
• Visit Champagne and Burgundy

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Around two and a half years after the European Union launched its first test satellite in the field of global navigation, a second experimental satellite for the EU’s Galileo project was launched early Sunday. The European project, which has suffered delays since its inception in 2005, is meant to compete with the US’s Global Positioning System (GPS), which is widely used in satellite navigation devices in both motor vehicles and boats, not only in the US but all over the world. Visitors to France would have seen US-built GPS systems in Paris taxicabs as early as 2002. The European Parliament finally gave approval on Wednesday to the sweeping EU Galileo project, in the hopes it will combat US dominance in the field.

The new European satellite, a 500-kilogram cube builts by the private companies Astrium and Thales Alenia Space, is to take over from the first test satellite Giove-A, launched in December 2005. Astrium and Thales Alenia Space were originally part of a provate consortium that had planned to finance the project, but the consortium pulled out, leaving the EU to pay for Galileo and the two companies to produce it.

The Soyuz rocket bearing the Giove-B satellite lifted off as planned on Saturday night at 10:16 PM GMT local time from Baïkonour, in Kazakhstan. Four hours later, at 2:16 a.m the Giove-B satellite was successfully placed in orbit, specified the European Space Agency and Jean-Yves Le Gall, president of Starstem, the Russo-European company in charge of the launch. “The satellite separated” from the launcher, making the launch a success, Le Gall said. The satellite then “reached its nominal orbit and the orbit’s parameters were excellent,” the navigation department chief of the ESA Didier Faivre said.

The Giove-B satellite has two solar panels, each about 14 feet long, that will contirubte power to the satellite. Giove-B correctly deployed its solar panels, Faivre said.

The EU navigational satellite also has an atomic clock which loses less than a nanosecond a day. The clock is the most precise on Earth but never before sent into space. Such precision is vital for the global positioning technology, based on calculating time elapsed between the emission and signal reception.

The EU Galileo network when completed will comprise on the whole 30 navigational satellites, covering a grid of the Earth’s total surface, in permanent orbit at an altitude of 12,400 miles from Earth. The entire project, estimated at 2.2 billion euros (and up to 3.4 billion by some estimates), is being entirely financed by the European Union after the withdrawal of a private consortium. The project has six segments — satellites, launchers, computer programmes, ground stations, control stations and system operation.

The first four of the 30 non-experimental Galileo satellites are to go into space in the first quarter of 2010, using the Russian-developed Soyuz rocket, as did Saturday’s launch.

Europe’s Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot, in an interview in France with French Sunday newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, called Galileo “a tool of sovereignty for Europe.” He said that with global positioning becoming more and more prominent, Europe should not rely for its global positioning needs on one single system like GPS, especially since it is an American one. The launch of Giove-B would allow Europe access to a frequency reserved exclusively for Galileo with the International Telecommunications Union (UIT).

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In Dunkirk, France, French swimmers secured their places for the upcoming Beijing Olympics as they beat swimming records in the next-to-last day of the French swimming championships. Malia Metella beat her own record time in the 100 meters freestyle by 28 hundredths of a second. Metella set the bar at 53 and 99 hundredths of a second, France’s new record. Another beaten record came in the 100m butterfly with Frédérick Bousquet’s 51 seconds and 83 hundredths. The rest of the day saw the victories for French swimmers Christophe Soulier in the 200 meter medley who swam his race in 2 minutes 2 seconds and 37 hundredths and a win for Frenchman Pierre Roger in the 200 meter backstroke in 1 minute 58 seconds and 42 hundredths. Sophie de Ronchi also won the 200 meter breaststroke in 2 minutes, 28 seconds and 20 hundredths of a second.

However, Olympic and world champion Laure Manaudou had to struggle to earn her Olympic berth in the 400 meters freestyle. Manaudou came in third, marking her first defeat in a major championship since 2004. Her time of 4:06.57 was far outside the world record of 4:02.13 Manadou herself set on Aug.6 2006 and held until last month when she was unseated by Federica Pellegrini of Italy at the European swimming championship. Manadou, upset, also withdrew from the 200 meters freestyle race. Her coach cited psychological issues stemming from Manadou’s tumultuous love life and recent publication on the internet of nude photos of the French swimming star. France has been pinning its hopes on Manadou for at least one gold medal in swimming for France in the upcoming Olympic games.

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Talk about the French Paradox. No, not the one that says you can consume all the red wine and rich sauces you want and not get fat. The new French Paradox says that the smartest way to vacation to France on a budget in 2008 could be to rent the villa of your dreams in Provence or the French Alps of Haute-Savoie. At first glance, this idea may seem crazy. With the Euro at an all-time high against the dollar plus the rising cost of airfares, the price for Americans going to France — never a bargain — has become even more painful. But for those for whom not going to France or somewhere in Europe this summer is not an option, a holiday rental in France, such as renting a villa in Provence or Tuscany could be a shrewd, creative — and very enjoyable — strategy.

Most tourists to France these days grumble most about the high cost of eating in restaurants. With the Euro at upwards of $1.60, a mere breakfast in a cafe for a family of four could easily cost $50.00, and the cost of dinner in a fine French restaurant is astronomical. Most tourists have no choice– eating while on vacation means eating out. But in a vacation rental in Provence for example, travellers usually have a fully-equipped kitchen at their disposal, making it possible to prepare some meals at home. In Provence, but also in other parts of France and Italy, this is no hardship; with local markets a popular tourist destination, villa occupants can experience the joys of shopping and cooking with fresh local products, and even non-gourmets can appreciate being able to make their own coffee in the morning to enjoy in their bathrobes by their own pool. The money saved can be significant, allowing tourists to budget for other activities or truly special meals out.

For another thing, villas in France and Italy come in many sizes, some housing up to 20 people. For travelers who can organize their vacations with like-minded friends or family members, sharing paradise in a villa in Provence can add up to big savings, even for accommodations that could be considered luxurious. And for those for whom originality in a vacation is priceless, a villa rental in France or Italy offers a truly one-of-a-kind vacation experience that cookie-cutter hotels cannot. Villas for rent in Provence and Tuscany that were secrets to most tourists only a few years ago are now within reach of anyone with a computer. Once the exclusive domain of high-end travel agents, villas in France and Italy are easy for any traveller to find and book in minutes on the Internet.

One of the best sites around for villa rentals in Provence, Haute-Savoie and Tuscany is Coins Secrets, “Secret Spots” in English. Run with care by Anca and Phillipe, the company matches quality villas for rent in Provence, but also in the French Alps and various areas of Tuscany, with travellers seeking a villa rental. Visitors to the site can search by region, price, size and other criteria to find the perfect villa for their needs and budget. Committed to remaining small and personally connected to their customers, Anca and Phillipe, of Coins Secrets personally inspect each property to assure high standards and none of the unpleasant surprises that can sometimes bedevil travellers renting a private home. And what homes! Charming farmhouses, picturesque stone cottages and grand country homes, many with swimming pools, gorgous gardens and spectacular views, housing from two to up to 20 guests. Going through a site like www.coinsecret.com to rent a villa in Provence, Savoie or Tuscany, tourists to the south of France and Italy can find that traveling smart and in grand style don’t have to be mutually exclusive. And if you fall in love with the area and are ever lucky enough to own one of these amazing villas yourself, Coin Secret will also help you rent it out to other lucky tourists when you are not living there.

Coins Secrets is a service that matches vacation properties for rent by their owners with tourists seeking villas to rent in Provence, Haute Savoie and Tuscany.

Services

• Holiday rentals in France
• Villas for rent in Provence
• Villas for rent in South of France and French Alps
• Villas for rent beyond Provence (Tuscany)

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