If you love Paris but despise the crowds, then August may be the perfect time to travel to The City of Light. Yes, it’s true that many restaurants, businesses, and cafés shut down during this month, but with half of Parisians leaving the city for annual vacations, you may just enjoy the extra leg room. “In August, a sense of serenity settles over the city,” recalls James Morgan in the recent National Geographic Traveler. Surprisingly, there is still much to see, eat, and admire in a quieter Paris, and you may even find that escaping the pressures of completing a “must-see” list is quite liberating.

Instead you can appreciate the city with a simpler, more Parisian saunter, enjoying the many parks, Sunday museums, flea markets, and breezy cafés.  Morgan advises — as is usually always a good bet — venturing off the tourist track, suggesting a stop at the Pére Lachaise cemetery where visitors should avoid the crowded resting place of Jim Morrison, purchase a map for two euro, and search for other “evocative antiques” like, Honoré  de Balzac, Frédéric Chopic, Eugéne Delacroix, Georges Bizet, Sarah Bernhardt, and Colette.

If one opts for a cruise up the Marne and Seine, Morgan recommends grabbing lunch at a guinguette, or French “eating-drinking-dancing joint,” hotspots for many free-spirited Parisians during the 18^th century to the 1950′s. Located just east of Paris in the town of Marne, the guinguettes were an inexpensive (they were exempt from the city’s liquor tax) way for the working class to wind down on Sunday afternoons. (more…)

New York to Paris for $587 (r/t incl. taxes/fees): XL Airways continues to undercut the competition on the NYC – Paris flight, one of the world’s most popular routes. This deal’s good until June 30.

Miami to Panama City for $213 (r/t incl. taxes/fees): Miami offers some of the cheapest deals to Central and South America, and this offer’s no exception.

New York City to Reykjavik from $419 (r/t): Icelandair is running this 40% off deal, good through June 24, with flights beginning at $419, and going up to $689 for flights to Copenhagen.

A trip through the shadows of the City of Light

By Anthony Cuthbertson

The surface of Paris resembles that of an iceberg peaking its tip above the surface of the water. Beneath, there lies one of the most extensive and complex underground networks in the world. Alongside almost 300 metro stations and their interlinking tunnels weave a web of sewers, abandoned quarries, catacombs, canals and utility lines. The denser the population has become above ground, the deeper they have burrowed to sustain it. Without this vast infrastructure the city would cease to function, utterly paralyzed.

Since moving to Paris I had come close to exhausting every tourist trail and “gem” that the guidebooks had to offer. So one weekend I decided to heed the advice of some locals that I had met, who suggested that I took a look at the other side of Paris. They advised that I take a “troglodyte tour” of their city, to explore the often overlooked underbelly of Paris.

But where to start? Almost 150 miles of underground train track knit between at least 185 miles of catacomb tunnels and over 1300 miles of sewers, all right under the center of the city. That infernal underground maze, as Gaston Leroux calls it in Phantom of the Opera, stretches down as deep as 112 feet in places, ten stories below the surface. It is the result of 800 years of digging. The buildings, bridges and monuments that now sit on the surface are built from the limestone and gypsum that was excavated from the quarries and tunnels below. (more…)

New York to Paris for $493 (r/t, incl. taxes/fees): Hello cheap euro. Could this sub-$500 deal, during high season no less, be a sign to come for the newly somewhat strong dollar? Who cares, just jump on it. Sale ends June 30.

L.A. to San Salvador for $468 (r/t): This one’s good through May 24. You know you’ve been just waiting for an excuse to go on that volcano-themed trip.

New York to Hawaii for $540 (r/t, incl. taxes/fees): Okay, this one kind of goes against my mantra, “Don’t travel anywhere that doesn’t require a passport.” But Hawaii for under $600 all the way from the East Coast? Hard to resist. Plus “Lost” is wrapping up. Maybe’s now a good time to start getting nostalgic?

I have a friend who bumped into a couple at a bar. They were drinking pints and discussing points over, what appeared to be, a map. And, it was: A map of the Buenos Aires underground-Subte lines. When asked whether they needed help getting somewhere, they simply replied,  no, thanks. Apparently, every city this couple travel to they take a full day to experience the underground transit lines.

Nothing could be more strange, yet appropriate. The different levels of a city reflect different sides of its culture. Above ground is the skin, the aesthetic of a city, where colonial architecture, green parks, and streets scattered with cafés promote the extroverted cultural vibe. However, the blood of the city, its pulse and life, occurs below the surface. The underground-train is how the commoners commute and how the locals get around. The lurkers of the underworld hustle and bustle below leaving the above ground for foreigners and tourists.

A recent article in the Financial Times explores the lifeblood of Paris, the underground train called the Métro. Contrast to London´s Tube, the Métro is a ¨more grown-up¨ transit-system that the French take pride in. The stations are cleaner, extravagantly themed, comprehensive and reliable. And, why not? The very essence of a city is the movement of its people.

My biggest pet-peeve in a city is a transit fail. Although accidents do happen and delays cannot be predicted, I find myself frustrated by chronically tardy, thus unreliable, metropolitan transportation.  A city only thrives and grows when its people are doing things. Due to population density, primary and secondary industries are impossible in a city which make tertiary services, an industry that requires mobility, the only option. I know that a city is going to be boring when its transit is crap.

Perhaps the Métro is the very reason that Paris persists as the number one tourist destination in the world: the people can move throughout the city with ease. Even Julian Pepinster, a devout Métro-rider followed in the article, takes the underground ¨just to relax¨. Wouldn´t that be nice?

* Disclaimer: As is becoming the norm with Luke’s contributions, TheExpeditioner.com hereby takes no responsibility for your imprisonment, injury or death as a result of mimicking any of the following actions described in this article

People say that the land beneath Paris is like Swiss cheese. Outside the frequented subway, most tourists and residents spend their lives aware of only the Paris aboveground. But beneath the thin slice of city on the crust is a vast city below known only to a few.

Since the start of the Middle Ages, Paris has been built just as much underground as it has above. As deep as 30 meters below the city, subways, sewers, telephone grids, quarries, water lines, bomb shelters, crypts and tunnels for both the living and the dead form one of the largest man-made underground networks on the planet.

Just before the 19th century, Paris public health officials ordered all the cemeteries inside Paris closed. The remains of some six million dead, three times the current living population of Paris, needed to find a new final resting place. A network of quarries below the city was the decided destination for the bones.

If you have ever wondered now much space six million skeletons take up, the answer is a massive amount. Le Tombe-Issorie, now simply known as Les Catacombes, is a city for the dead below the city for the living. These anonymous bones are stacked underground in macabre arrangements.

Visitors are welcome in select areas of the catacombs, but because of its massive size, most of it remains forgotten. Or at least, forgotten to public. (more…)

New York to Paris for $475 (incl. fees/taxes): For some reason when I read this deal I think to myself, if I had my own show, one where for some reason I had to announce good travel deals, I would introduce this one by yelling out in that two-tone Oprah-like manner: Parrrrrissssss! You know, like as if I was introducing Julia Roberts onto the show. Book this one before April 14.

Dallas/Raleigh/Nashville to Tokyo for under $700 (incl. fees/taxes): Much love to our readers down South whom we rarely extend deal shout-outs too. Delta’s offering this one, and for those of you in Dallas, the price is actually only $605 ($666 for Raleigh/Durham, $692 for Nashville). As noted, this price is off about 30% from normal, and God knows you’ll need that dough once you’re over there.

$89 Boutique Hotel in San Francisco: Located in between the Embarcadero and Union Square, Travelzoo describes the joint as a 3.5-star “Art Deco-influenced property features a fitness center, rooftop garden with views of the downtown skyline.” Three and a half stars? Can someone please explain how they came so exactly in between three and four stars? Were their thread counts just oh-so-close-but-not-quite up to four-star level? Is there some homeless guy that likes to sleep near the lobby entrance? Has Jack Nicholson never gone mad here? I’m just saying . . .

Mexico for Cheap: AeroMexico is offering some great deals for travel through June if you book by the end of April, including  San Francisco to Cancun for $212, New York to Mexico City for $281, and Denver to Mexico City for $315.

New York to Paris for $476 (with taxes/fees): This one’s through XL Airways, an airline I had to Google to figure out who they were. At that price, I’m buying even if the plane is named after a shirt size.

L.A. to Newark for $212 (with taxes/fees): What a glorious feeling it is to board a plane in sunny, palm-tree strewn L.A., only to find yourself, several hours later in New Jersey. Northern New Jersey no less. Not to worry, New York’s a short train ride way.

With over 29 million visitors a year, Paris is the most visited city in the world. With that number of visitors, truly it must be impossible to find your own little nook of the city where you can blend in and experience the city like a local. Right?

Cue The Frugal Traveler, circa summer ’08, who, in the above video, decided the best way to see the city was to shack up in a rented apartment in the 10th Arrondissement he found on one of the rental sites, VivaStreet.fr and pap.fr (it’s not clear which one gave him the the most luck). (more…)

Seeing Paris has always been a dream of mine, as for most anyone I have ever met. The idea of walking along the Seine, sipping coffee with croissants and divulging a bottle of delicious house wine over dinner is enough to make me book a flight tout de suite. I am working on my self-control.

Nonetheless, as a friend just informed me, tourists are pervasive in Paris. To me, tourism is part of what keeps a city financially afloat, yet, it is the underground paths and the off-beat tracks that keep a city alive.

For this reason, I was excited by the NY DailyNews’ look at the “other” Paris . It aims to describe the sights that most tourists don’t get to see, mainly due to the attraction to the more popular attractions like some tower called Eiffel, a gothic-cathedral and a rather large museum used for the set of a Dan Brown movie. This article suggests taking a different route and seeing the churches or regions outside the typical tourist manual.

Nevertheless, I forwarded this article to my friend and he said it was . . . well, he didn’t agree with it. His reasoning was that most of the attractions in the article are outside of Paris, one of which is 200 kms (124.3 miles) away. Although these sights would be interesting, he offered me a list of neighborhoods inside Paris that most tourists have yet to experience:

Butte aux Cailles, Canal Saint Martin, Place Sainte Marthe, Rue de Belleville, Oberkampf, Ménilmontant (rue Boyer), Château Rouge-rue de Montreuil, rue Royer Collard, rue Quincampoix, Parc Montsouris-cité universitaire, Parc Montceaux, Coulée verte, Parc de Belleville . . . (just to name a few.)

He told me there are other neighborhoods even more hidden that are worth a look, but the ones listed above are the more well-known hidden paths. I checked out these neighborhoods online and found lists of things to do and see. There is such a community of information that I can’t help but think: this is where the true pulse of Paris lies.

Okay, Rick Steves may not be my favorite guy in the world (see my last post), but his writing is everywhere, and since the Travel Show (again, see my last post) is going to be Stevesless this year, I thought we’d check in on him today.

This week Rick is giving us the heads-up on tips for France in 2010. For example, the Eiffel Tower has set up a new online reservation system, helping to alleviate line congestion at the most visited monument in the world. Those hoping to visit the Picasso Museum will be out of luck for a couple years while the museum renovates, but Paris’ Catacombs has been reopened after a recent vandal-related closing (come on kids, time to check out some skeletons!) as well as has Versailles after its own multi-year makeover.

Rick warns travelers to Chartres’ cathedral to be prepared to encounter a wall of scaffolding around the iconic church, but don’t worry, the inside’s untouched.

And for travelers in the search of wine on Provence’s Cotes du Rhone wine road, Rick recommends Domaine de Mourchon, the “buzziest” of the vineyards in the area and run by a couple of Scots, which Rick notes “eliminat[es] the language barrier.” Because, you know, incredulously, the French like to speak French.

Asia Beginning at $697: Taiwan-based airliner EVA Air (the name is derived from “Evergreen” and “Air,” hence “EVA” — no relation to “WALL-E”) has some great deals from the U.S. to destinations all over Asia, including Newark to Jakarta for only $902, and San Fran to Phnom Penh for $797.

New York to Paris for $584: This post’s theme? Airlines I’d never heard of until tonight. Air Europa (by far Majorca’s best airliner) has this great deal to Paris from New York — must travel before the end of March.

NYC Boutique Hotel for $99: Did you hear about the impending glut of New York City hotels? Bad news for hotel owners. Good news for cheap travelers. This $99 deal is for the Distrikt Hotel (look how it’s spelled — it must be a boutique!) and is good from Feb. 1 – 11 ($129 thereafter).

Don’t see the Mona Lisa, climb the Eiffel Tower, or grab a coffee at Café de Flore? Well, not exactly, but taken from an expert on Paris, there are plenty of ways to get the best out of Paris, without doing what Paris is best known for.

For example, want a great view of the city without an overpriced ticket to do so? Avoid the Eiffel Tower and take in the sights from Tour Montparnasse or the Arc de Triomphe (or, as one commenter points out, just hoof it to Montemartre).

Or want to fit in a side-trip and are thinking about seeing Nice? Au contraire. Described as a “busy city with terrible traffic, little history or culture, and an ugly pebble beach,” the author recommends visiting the nearby Loire Valley for great sights and unforgettable food and wine. Read the full article here.