Intelligent Travel

Paris Skyline Aims For New Heights, Or Lows?

The view from atop the Eiffel Tower could change dramatically in the next five years, as plans for six skyscraper projects on the outskirts of Paris are currently in the works. Yet another project received the green light recently to begin construction inside Paris city limits – making it the first building taller than 121 feet built in Paris in the last three decades.

Respected Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron (whose past masterpieces include Beijing’s Bird’s Nest and the de Young Museum in San Francisco) will spearhead Le Projet Triangle, a massive 600-foot-tall ultra-modern pyramid structure in southwest Paris (about five miles from the Louvre) that is so thin from the side it hardly casts a shadow. The building will hold offices, a conference center, and a 400-room hotel.

Many people see the project as a throwback to 1972, when the Tour Montparnasse, a generally detested 689-foot-tall structure, was erected, and directly resulted in the city imposing building height limits in 1977. The largest business district of Paris, La Défense, showcases multiple skyscrapers in a compact area, but it's outside official city limits. In fact, only a handful of buildings inside Paris proper are more than 12 stories. And that’s how Parisians like it; 62 percent of residents polled say they dislike skyscrapers within the city limits, according to a poll on the World Architecture News website.

It’s a sentiment shared here in D.C., says Roger Lewis, professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland and practicing urban planning consultant. Lewis has also written the Washington Post column "Shaping the City" since 1984, which focuses on urban design and planning issues. I talked to Professor Lewis about the impending growth spurt in Paris, and how it relates to L’Enfant’s original plan for Washington, D.C.

After the jump: Professor Lewis's thoughts on Parisian expansion.

Cinematic Road Trip: Virginia

John Ur is a lover, not a fighter. So it's fitting that this week's stop along the Cinematic Road Trip is in the great state of Virginia.

I always thought it was strange that, as the saying goes, Virginia is for lovers. If I were not a lover, would Virginia still be for me? If you are a lover, but live outside of Virginia, are you considered an outcast? Isn’t Virginia for recreating history in period outfits? I would love to see some sociological studies on these subjects.

But perhaps Virginia is for lovers because like love, the state is home to many peaks and valleys. It's surprisingly diverse geographically for an Eastern state. Starting at the coastline on the east, the state rises up to the southwest mountains and the foothills of the Appalachians. The highest point in the state, Mount Rogers, is contained in the Blue Ridge Mountains a bit further to the west. It's also home to a wide swath of rivers and forests that make up the Shenandoah Valley, which are easily explored in Shenandoah National Park.

Many women already find the mountainous region of Virginia romantic without even knowing it. This is where a portion of Dirty Dancing was filmed. The Mountain Lake Hotel in Pembroke, Virginia served as “Kellerman’s Resort” in the film (and was once visited by fellow IT blogger Janelle). Cottages and hotel rooms are available at the resort as well as “Dirty Dancing Weekend” packages which include film location tours, trivia and dance lessons. But don’t look to try to recreate the scene where Patrick Swayze lifts Jennifer Grey over his head in the lake… You’d have to drive about 230 miles south from Pembroke to Lake Lure, NC, where that scene was filmed.

National Book Festival This Weekend

If you're in the D.C. area this weekend, make plans to stop by the annual National Book Festival on the Mall. Sponsored by the Library of Congress and hosted by First Lady Laura Bush, the festival features some 70 authors (from children's book authors, to poets, to novelists) who give talks and sign books.

This year's list of authors includes children's book icon R.L. Stein, novelists Philippa Gregory and Alexander McCall Smith, and historian Walter Isaacson.

But for travel enthusiasts like myself, the book festival is hosting Tony Horwitz (Blue Latitudes), Paul Theroux (author of The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia and Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: See the review by our own Don George), and Arthur Frommer (as well as his daughter, Pauline), founder of the famous guidebooks.

Also cool: The festival is free and has tons of activities for children. Each of the festival sponsors tend to have activities in their pavilion (kids can even take pictures with characters like Clifford the Big Red Dog and Curious George). While the authors speak all day, the festival freebies (posters, bags, etc.) go quickly, so try to get there in the morning. If you need a break, you can always pop into one of the Smithsonian museums that surrounds the Mall.

Photo: Book Festival poster designed by Jan Brett

Cinematic Road Trip: Washington D.C.

I often take a little time out of these articles to talk about states with inferiority complexes. Part of this is to stir up conversation ("My state's better than yours!") and part of it is to try to explain the mentality of living in a small state where your local news and weather is overshadowed by your larger neighbor. The District of Columbia is a completely different story. On the one hand, it is not a state and has no representative in Congress; so much for that whole "No Taxation Without Representation" thing. On the other hand, it is one of the ten biggest cities in our country, one of the most visited cities in the world and has a population greater than Wyoming (and only slightly less than Vermont and Alaska).

So while we may not get our representation in Congress, one point of pride for D.C. is its widespread representation in the film world. The city is one of the two or three most iconic in our country, and though the U.S. Capitol can on occasion be faked with the Arkansas Capitol building, there are no obvious replacements for the White House, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial or many of the other neoclassical buildings. To make a D.C. movie, you inevitably have to include shots of D.C. But that's where the rules seem to end.

To the average movie-going public, once you see one of the establishing shots of the monuments on the Mall, a sweeping aerial over the Reflecting Pool, or a look through the iron gates at the White House, you know you're in D.C. and you accept that the filmmakers know what they're doing with the location. To D.C. residents, every little geographical twist is blasphemy.

Cinematic Road Trip: Maryland and Delaware

This week, John Ur heads south to explore the cinematic offerings from Delaware and Maryland.

I consider myself a movie snob. But even I give in occasionally to the hilarious lowbrow humor in some comedies, and I have to admit that Wayne's World is one of my guilty pleasures. One of my favorite scenes is where Wayne and Garth stand in front of a green screen “which magically allows them to travel through time and space.” The screen flashes a photo of New York. “I got a gun. Let’s go to a Broadway show,” Wayne jokes, in an atrocious New Yawk accent.

They crack lines on Hawaii (“Mookalakeheemee, cmonyawannaleime”) and Texas (“let’s raise and rope broncos”) and then comes the line that cracks me up every time I see it. “Imagine being magically whisked away to… Delaware,” Wayne says, as a postcard from the state flashes up on the screen. He loses all humor in his face, and deadpans: “Hi, I’m in Delaware,” with zero enthusiasm. Anytime I’m in Delaware or passing through, I repeat that line to myself and I laugh a little…usually to the bewilderment of any traveling companions.   

This may be Delaware’s seminal film moment. Looking at their filmography, few famous movies crop up. The one notable exception is Dead Poets’ Society. This Oscar winning film, starring Robin Williams, presents an unorthodox English teacher trying to help his students buck the trends of conformity. Drama ensues between the students, their overbearing parents, the administration and Williams’ character, John Keating. Though set in Vermont, the film was shot at St. Andrews School in Delaware, a Christian college prep school, and many of the students were used as extras in the movie. And although the school has exactly the look necessary for the film – antiquated Gothic architecture that has become a signature trope in academic movies – I have to wonder, were there no schools in New England that also could have fit the bill?

50 Years of Ben's Chili Bowl

The weekend marks the 50th anniversary of a venerable D.C. institution, Ben's Chili Bowl, which has long been the hub of Washington's U Street Corridor. The slingers of half-smokes and chili dogs are celebrating big this weekend by holding a series of events, including a gala hosted by Bill Cosby tonight at the Lincoln theater (Cosby fell in love with the sausages while serving in the Army - he apparently could once eat six at a time), a block party out in front of the shop on Friday, and a tribute concert at the 9:30 Club on Saturday.

Ben's Chili is run by Ben Ali's two sons Kamal and Nizam (Ben and wife Virginia retired last year), and the storefront has a storied history. Located on the center of "Black Broadway," D.C.'s jazz district, it was one of the few buildings on U Street to survive the race riots that burned out sections of D.C. after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. Its role in the community was unique: Local organizer Stokely Charmichael held his meetings at Ben's, and firefighters and police officers would also frequent the shop in the aftermath of the riots. Today the restaurant is in the center of the revitalized U Street Corridor, and a wide cross-section of D.C. comes in to order milkshakes, chili, burgers, cheese grits, and fries. Last year, the self-proclaimed "greasy spoon" even got environmentally savvy, joining a renewable energy collective of local businesses in the D.C. area.

So if you're in D.C. this weekend, order a half-smoke to celebrate five delicious decades of Ben's.

Read More: The Washington Post has a great gallery of photos highlighting the history of Ben's Chili Bowl.

Photo: Karen Ballard, via Traveler's Washington D.C. Places of a Lifetime photo gallery.

Smith Island Bake Sail

Tiny Smith Island in the Chesapeake Bay is Maryland's last remaining offshore inhabited island, and the home of Maryland's state dessert, the magnificently multi-layered Smith Island Cake. So I got it in my head to sail there on our friend's boat and taste this baked extravaganza at the source. There are easier ways to do it (i.e., by ferry), but not as fun. It's a ten-hour sail from the town of Oxford, which is where the sailboat lives, and the folks at Smith Island Marina advised us to come on a rising tide to avoid getting stuck in sand. That meant sailing at night, which I love, and arriving at 2 a.m.

My family was up for the challenge, and our neighbor and his friend as well, so we set off on a warm Friday afternoon, after momentarily forgetting one of our teenagers on the dock. As we entered the bay, a trio of ospreys flew around the boat, and one of them landed on the mast and hitched a ride for a while, which we deemed a good sign. The kids grilled hamburgers on the barbecue cantilevered over the stern, and after dinner the stars came out and bioluminescent dinoflagellates sparkled in the waves as we zipped along. The kids were sleeping when we entered the channel and slowly motored through the hazards, using spotlights and flashlights to illuminate the navigational aids in the dark, tricky channel, and we tied up at the marina with relief. 

Exploring D.C.'s Natural Charms

The dollar is plummeting. Our planet is imploding. The polar ice caps are melting and our grandmothers keep nagging us to visit but there are no flights to Florida under $500. Maybe what we all need is a good escape to nature—a chance to put all that summer reading we did as kids to good use and go Walden for a while.

But we at IT know not everyone has the time or inclination to build a tiny cabin alongside a snowy pond and live in it for two years. Sometimes we only have a few days, a week at most, to commune with the Earth Goddess. For these travelers, the eco-friendly nature lovers with full-time jobs and family members who would be a little upset if they disappeared entirely, there’s Fodor’s book of 239 Great Places to Escape to Nature Without Roughing It—a thorough (Thoreau? Sorry for the bad pun) directory of places that encourage a return to Mother Nature.

It's a great list, the only problem is the places are mostly a sizable distance from the nation’s capital. In a recent article by USA Today, Fodor's Travel editorial director Laura Kidder shared her favorite selections from the massive list. Colorado, Washington state, Connecticut, Texas—all the regulars are represented; but, as seems to be a recurring theme throughout America’s history, the District of Columbia is sadly deprived of representation.

So we put together a little list of places for D.C. nature lovers to explore when civilized society gets too taxing (get it?). Maybe D.C. doesn’t have acres upon acres of Wild West land like that of Cibolo Creek Ranch in Texas, or the pine, cedar, fir, and stone lodges that define the Sundance Resort in Utah; but that doesn’t mean we’re completely devoid of natural charm. Nope, for the budget-conscious and Disctrict-loving folks among us, there are plenty of woods in which to retreat.

Crabcakes and ... Buggy Rides

My mom grew up in Pennsylvania, so when my boyfriend and I spent some quality time with my parents a few weekends ago, it only seemed right that the setting was a verified Amish market.

Just outside historic Annapolis, in a little shopping center called Annapolis Harbour, we found hordes of Marylanders taking a break from crab cakes and football to indulge in shoofly pies, handmade pretzels, and more varieties of salad (potato, shrimp, pasta, cucumber, egg, jello…) than seem necessary.

Open Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, the PA Dutch Market is as traditional and authentic as any I've seen in Pennsylvania (aside from the patrons clad in Baltimore Ravens jerseys, of course). According to the market's website, all the merchants are from Lancaster County, PA, and the prepared dishes are made from heirloom Amish recipes.

Walking into the store, you run into wooden furniture, but after that nearly everything is edible. Fresh-baked breads crowd the counter next to the ovens where they were baked. Bags of grains, tubs of candy-colored sugars, and jars of fruit preserves line the shelves. The mix-and-match whoopie pies—any combination of six varieties for $5.95—means you can bring home this classic Amish treat in a range of novel flavors: peanut butter, mint, and banana, in addition to the standard chocolate and cream.

Save a Bird, Kill an Island?

IT friend Roger Hamilton just returned from a trip to North Carolina's Outer Banks, where a battle between birds and beachgoers is brewing...

Driving down Highway 12 on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, I sense that something is wrong. “Save a bird, kill an island,” someone had scrawled across an SUV rear window. “Piping plover tastes like chix,” advertises a restaurant on its menu marquee. 

Pretty strong stuff. Better find out what’s up.

My first stop was the legendary Red Drum Tackle Shop, in the village of Buxton. “They” have closed down miles of beaches to off-road vehicles and everything else, says Bob, the owner. All for the sake of three little birds: the piping plover (pictured, above), the least tern, and the American oystercatcher. “They” are conservation groups, a U.S. district judge, and the National Park Service. The conservationists contend that people and vehicles on the beaches prevent the birds from nesting.