France Travel News 09/27/2010

Are you a U2 fan? Check out these awesome Flickr pix from user elsa11, who photographed the U2 360° Tour in Paris at the Stade de France. By the way, the French say it like we do – yoo-too – not euh-deuh.

A new train taking rich Russians to the French Riviera in style and luxury arrived in Nice on Sept. 25, some 53 hours after it departed from Moscow. The new service launched by Russian Railways is a once-a-week run for those with money and time. In the era of bullet trains and air travel, this train travels at a sedate 63 kph (40 mph), and just slightly faster on the return.

The greatest assemblage of surfing talent in history has converged on the European continent for Stop No. 7 of 10 on the 2010 ASP World Tour, the Quiksilver Pro France from September 25 through October 5, 2010. With excellent swell projected for the beginning of the waiting period, the ASP Top 34 could begin battle as soon as tomorrow in the punchy beachbreaks of Southwest France.

France’s economy has expanded for five straight quarters after a yearlong recession that was the worst since World War II. Total investment by companies and households increased for the first time in two years.

Residents at Europe's largest nudist holiday resort at Cap d'Agde in the south of France have been protesting about an influx of so-called "libertine" nudists. You can't make this stuff up, people.

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(A Parisian exhibition closing October 20th, 2010) At the tail end of their 1969 U.S. tour, Mick Jagger, 26, says to Stanley Booth: "Got to think about the future because obviously I can't do this forever. I mean we're so old." It didn't quite work out that way, as now we know.

Not the best wine review I've ever read, but it's worth a gander and Grenache deserves a shout-out as often as possible. Pick some up today!

At a time when French entrepreneurs were starting to get all anxious about there being so few acquisitions by French companies in the local hi-tech market, Voyages-SNCF.com kicked it up a notch and announced that it was acquiring travel search engine Liligo.

For 30 years, Thierry Meaudre's family bookshop has been protected from competition from big retailers, thanks to a law that bars heavy discounting on books. Now he is hoping the French government will protect him from a new threat: the electronic book. "I have been having nightmares about digital books for years," said Mr. Meaudre, 50 years old, surrounded by piles of colorful art books. "It's not just looming on the horizon. It's slowly becoming a reality."

Brad Van Liew, the only American in the Velux 5 Oceans, is now in France for the October start of the around-the-world race. His team announced that he arrived in France on Thursday after the 4,000-mile voyage from Charleston. Van Liew sailed "Le Pingouin'' – French for "The Penguin'' – with three others, but he will be alone at the helm when the Velux 5 begins on Oct. 17.

A family from Arborfield has told of the heart-wrenching moment they had to leave their dog in a French kennel after its pet passport microchip failed on their way home from holiday. Matt Roberts and his family had to say a tearful goodbye to two-year-old Shih Tzu Indy when four scanners failed to read the dog’s microchip as the family returned from a two-week holiday in the south of France on Saturday. Mr Roberts, who was on holiday with wife Dorota, six-month-old daughter Harriet and their other dog Buzz, had to pay £1,000 for a surgery to remove the faulty chip from Indy.