What’s Been Happening

Photo: At the Insider Paris Guides/Franglo booth, Expatica Expo, Carrousel de Louvre, Oct. 14, 2007, Paris, France

PRACTICAL PARIS BOOK LAUNCH. Oh, how I love French trade shows where wine is served at the booths, so civilized this nation is! This year’s Expatica (i am not a tourist) expo at the majestic Louvre was bigger and better than ever. On the www.InsiderParisGuides.com website, where Practical Paris in now for sale online, Karen writes: Since founding my tour company, I found that I was answering the same questions for visitors over and over again. They wanted to know what the best seasons were to visit Paris… How to pick a hotel… Which arrondissement to stay in… How to painlessly get to/from the airport… What clothes to bring… and numerous other issues that all people need to know when traveling to a foreign land. So, I decided to compile all of this information, culled from hundreds of sources, into one handy guide. I’ve been told that even people who have been to Paris many times, or come on a regular basis, or even live in Paris, have all learned many new things.”

Visit the Nuit Blanche Tours home page portal to buy this guide and other valuable guides such as Good Value Restaurants, where you can discover over 200 restaurants with meals for under 20 and 30 euros. Yes, they are possible to find in Paris, you just have to know where to look!

PARIS PORTAL. Time and again, we are asked for recommendations for hotels, apartments, metro passes, language training, train travel, guide books and other related services for Paris. So visitors can now easily book all of their needs right from the home page of our website! We have carefully chosen our partners to suit the needs of our customers. There are more partners under the Links page, go here. Here you will find links to B&B’s, low-cost hotels and hostels, women’s travel resources, apartments and activities.

TRAVEL AGENCY PARTNERS. Our popular tour concept for women has been embraced by the following progressive travel agencies wanting to provide specialized offerings to the exploding women’s travel market. Contact them for all of your travel needs:

• Totem Travel (Victoria, BC), www.totemtravel.ca. Contact: Cathy Scott, Manager, (250) 595-1181

• Travel by Design (Vancouver, BC), www.travelbydesign.ca. Contact: Carol Sasyniuk, (604) 734-5494

• Uniglobe Whytecliff Travel (West Vancouver, BC), www.uniglobewhytecliff.com. Contact: Naomi Yahav, Manager, (604) 926-6871

• TravelPlus (Cranbrook, BC), www.kootenay.travelplus.ca. Contact: Janis Sawley, Owner, (250) 417-2777
• Mountain City Travel (Kimberley, BC), mtncitytrvl@cyberlink.bc.ca. Contact: Diane Manson, Owner, (250) 427-2233

Says Cathy Scott, Manager at Totem Travel: “The Nuit Blanche Tours offering is a perfect match for our Women’s Travel Club members wanting to travel to Paris. We are thrilled to partner with a BC company who speaks ‘our language’ and can show our female clients the ropes when they are in Paris. We look forward to finding all the great fashion bargains and insider addresses during our June 2008 trip to Paris with Karen and company!”

JANUARY SALES (LES SOLDES) DATES:  A petit oiseau whispered in our ear that les soldes d’hiver will start Wednesday, January 9th. This is the twice-per-year government regulated sale extravaganza that enables Parisians and tourists to flock to their favorite stores for discounts on anything you can buy. Discounts go lower and lower as time goes on during the approximate 6 week sales. This is an excellent time to visit Paris, not only for the sales, but also because hotel and travel prices are slashed. When in Paris during winter, there are also astounding deals on trips throughout Europe, such as flights to Barcelona for as low as 25 euros!

Interestingly enough, the laws governing stores to be able to sell their merchandise at reduced prices, dates back to practices of the merchants guild in the Middle Ages. Guilds settled disputes amongst tradesmen and protected tradesmen against competition from other towns. Provosts, medieval cops, broke guild members’ legs if they broke the guild rules (ouch). Today, the system of policing prices and sales has evolved into Les Soldes, a practice that predates the discovery of America by at least three hundred years!  (Source: Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong,  Jean Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow).

IF THE PANTS FIT, BUY THEM! This fall, I had the pleasure of spending a couple of days with the #1 women’s travel expert, Marybeth Bond (http://www.gutsytraveler.com/). She was in Paris with her god-daughter and best friend and wanted to experience shopping in a Paris street market. So, off we went to one of my favorite S. Paris markets where all manner of clothes, shoes, jewellery, make-up, handbags, scarves and other quality treasures can be found starting at 2 euros and going up not much higher. To say the gals did some serious damage is an understatement and my rolling shopping cart was bulging!  Marybeth taught me a trick that is solid gold and that I will use forever. It’s the ‘how to tell if a pair of pants will fit without trying them on trick.’ This is always a challenge in a street market where, while the French are liberal, there are limits as to how far one can go to states of undress on a public street!

Her picture tells a thousand words. Simply take the pair of pants and fold them around your neck. If you can comfortably pinch the ends together, they will fit. It works every time, she has tested it over and over, and I have now too. We both used the pants-around-the-neck trick that day and went out on a limb and each bought a pair of the same style of jeans. Hers fit her and mine fit me perfectly, thank you Marybeth! Shoppers can’t have enough great shopping tips like this one, and she is full of tips for travelling gals, be sure to check out her website. Nuit Blanche Tours will be mentioned in Marybeth’s new book set to hit the book shelves in March 2008 by publisher National Geographic, titled 50 Best Girlfriends Getaways Worldwide.

Photo: Marybeth Bond demonstrating how to tell if a pair of jeans will fit, Saint-Germain-des-Pres, Paris

WINDOW-DRESSING: Passers-by stopped dead in their tracks recently to witness a live demonstration of hunks showering, in the windows of Galeries Lafayette Homme. The display had something or other to do with the world rugby championships. Well, lucky us, who were on a tour and just happened to have cameras in hand to capture the captivating display. Gives entire new meaning to the French term for window-shopping: lèche-vitrine, literally ‘licking the windows.’

MEDIA UPDATE: Besides BonjourParis.com, our articles have been featured in the following publications:

Paris in Fall? Oui! [ParisWoman] 

Paris in Fall: Chocolate, Wine, Music & Culture [HoboinParis] 

Insider Paris Guides Launches New “Practical Paris” Guide Book by Canadian Author

Downloadable Guide by Vancouverite-turned-Parisian Karen Henrich Provides “Everything You Need to Know About Paris but Didn’t Know to Ask”

Expatica Expo [Carrousel de Louvre, PARIS, France] October 9, 2007 — Insider Paris Guides, the premiere series of electronic, downloadable guides to Paris and France, will on Oct. 14, 2007 launch Practical Paris: Everything You Need to Know About Paris but Didn’t Know to Ask. Practical Paris, written by Vancouverite-turned-Parisian Canadian author, Karen Henrich, provides a wealth of information about Paris for tourists and travelers, all from an insider’s perspective.

Henrich will be at the Insider Paris Guides stand (#9) on Oct. 14, 2007 at Expatica’s “I am not a tourist” expo (www.expatica.com/welcometofrance/) at the Carrousel du Louvre, from 10 AM to 6 PM, offering specially discounted copies of the guide and answering questions. The Louvre is one of the largest palaces in the world and, as a former residence of the kings of France, one of the most illustrious. 

Beginning Oct. 14, 2007, Practical Paris: Everything You Need to Know About Paris but Didn’t Know to Ask will be also offered as an instant, 100% secure purchase electronic download on the Insider Paris Guides website (www.insiderparisguides.com). All Insider Paris Guides are backed by a 100% money-back guarantee.

“We are thrilled to count Karen among our growing family of Insider Paris Guide authors,” said Insider Paris Guides publisher Lorin Kalisky. “Her Practical Paris guide is highly informative and engaging, and provides unique insight into Paris that only can come from an insider.”

Henrich was struck by the City of Light’s beauty and soul-capturing essence during a holiday in 2004. She was so struck that when she returned to Vancouver, she quickly developed a boutique tour company for women, Nuit Blanche Tours, and then returned tout de suite to experience life as a Parisian.

“Paris is a completely intoxicating city on so many levels,” Henrich said. “However, because of its rich 2,000 year history and some laws and practices that date back centuries, as well as its size, language and cultural differences, it can also be extremely puzzling and intimidating. I wrote Practical Paris because it is the guide book that I had always hoped to find on the market but never could.”

Henrich’s experience and enthusiasm as a tour guide for English-speakers in Paris comes through clearly in her book, and provides the tips, tricks and practical information that is vital to visitors, and is often missing in traditional guides. The book’s advice, based on Henrich’s popular Paris orientation tours, has routinely saved visitors heaps of euros, time and hassle.

Practical Paris: Everything You Need to Know About Paris but Didn’t Know to Ask provides a wealth of information not covered in traditional guides, such as:

·          Peeing in Paris

·          Top myths North Americans have about Paris

·          How to have a local experience

·          The top ‘Get Over It’ things about Paris

·          Best ways to get to/from the airport

·          Paris bargains (and yes, there are many!)

About Karen Henrich

Karen Henrich spends her time between Paris, France and Vancouver, Canada, running her unique tour company for women (www.NuitBlancheTours.com) and writing about joie de vivre. She is constantly on the look-out for cool Parisian sites to see and memorable experiences to be had. Karen pens an internationally popular newsletter, Paris Café, where readers get to live vicariously in the City of Light, and is a contributing writer for TripAdvisor.com, Journeywoman.com, Bonjour Paris, HoboInParis and Paris Woman. Karen can be reached at karen@insiderparisguides.com.

About Insider Paris Guides

Insider Paris Guides are the premiere series of electronically published, downloadable guides about Paris and France, written by journalists and writers who live and work in, and love Paris. The guides cover specific, niche-interest topics that are difficult to find anywhere else, and offer an insider perspective that you only get from being local.

Because Insider Paris Guides are updated regularly, the information is fresh and timely while printed guide books take at least six months to reach the bookstore shelf. All Insider Paris Guides are backed by a 100% money-back guarantee, and when you buy two or more guides you will automatically receive a 15% discount on your entire purchase. For more information, see www.insiderparisguides.com.

Author, Karen Henrich in Paris, France. Photo: Lindsay Brown