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Tags: What Not To Do In / Tourists / Paris Travel / Paris / France Travel / Lists / → All Tags

What Not To Do In Paris: The Top Five Tourist Mistakes

Ahh Paris, City of Lights, city of stinky cheese, and city of a million tourists. As much as we love you, we know to be cautious around certain things while visiting. We have been to Paris many times, but for this feature on what not to do, we consulted with a friend who not only lived in Paris, but also studied art and photography there for years. Yes, someone who truly learned what it was to spend an evening in Montmartre and walk by Notre Dame daily.

So without further ado, here is the Jaunted guide of What Not To Do In Paris: The Top 5 Tourist Mistakes.

Check them out, after the jump.

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Tags: Airport Transportation / Paris Travel / SuperShuttle / CDG / Airport News / → All Tags

SuperShuttle Will Now Pick You Up At Paris' Three Airports

Où allez-vous? These are the words you will be hearing from your blue-jacketed SuperShuttle driver when he arrives to pick you up at any of the Paris airports for the trip into the city. That's right—Supershuttle, the shared bus airport transport company, has just opened their first international location, giving you some options for getting between Paris' center and its Charles de Gaulle, Orly and Beauvais airports.

Today in the Sky fills us in that average per-person rates for the trip between Paris and CDG is 27 Euros ($40) and reservations must be made at least 24 hours in advance.

We actually frequently opt to take SuperShuttles to the airport, but warn that being picked up from the airport by them is very iffy and not once have we had a successful pick-up. Once, after a 13+hour flight back from Hong Kong, we spent an hour and a half on the curb at JFK while we waited for our SuperShuttle ride, despite having made reservations online. Oh, there were plenty SuperShuttle drivers there hanging out, it's just none of them had our name on their roster. Moral of the story? Always program SuperShuttle's phone number into your mobile, which was the only thing that eventually saved us.

Related Stories:
· Airport Check-in: SuperShuttle launches first international branch [Today in the Sky]
· On the Road Again: How To Reach Paris-Charles de Gaulle [Jaunted]
· Airport transportation coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: bluespf42]

Tags: Celeb Travel / Justin Timberlake / Eiffel Tower / Paris Travel / → All Tags

Justin Timberlake's New Costar: The Eiffel Tower

A romantic romp under the stars in Paris is the plot of a new perfume ad starring Justin Timberlake, shooting at night around the Eiffel Tower this week. Like an aging diva, the Tower won't travel for just anyone, so the singer/actor had to come to her.

The shoot, for Givenchy's cologne "Play," feature Timberlake and an actress crossing the Champ de Mars and scaling the tower at night. Since an earlier spot for the fragrance included Timberlake on a plane, this must be his destination—which makes sense, given that the brand has called Paris home since its founding in 1952. No sign of on-again off-again girlfriend (and fellow Super World Traveler) Jessica Biel on set, although the pair recently had lunch in Vancouver where she's filming the big-screen "A-Team" remake.

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Tags: Air France / Airlines / Surveys / Business Class / → All Tags

Why, Of Course: Business School Graduates Would Like To Work for Air France

We get a lot of press releases in our inboxes and while most of them are credible, quite a few of them have nothing or very little to do with travel. Depending on our mood, the latter kind either causes us to laugh or to curse the high heavens that created spambots. But every so often there is one from a credible source that makes us go, "Seriously?"

Like this one from Air France which just announced that their airline ranks first "in the 2009 Top 50 Most Attractive Employers for Junior Executives from business schools."

Apparently, over 7,000 junior executives were polled about the most attractive firms they would like to work for, among 136 firms that were proposed. These junior executives were graduates from major French business schools and universities with one to eight years of working experience. (Note: it did not say if they still had jobs in this down economy.) However, when the IT and science engineering school graduates wee polled, they ranked Air France in 8th place.

Perhaps this special announcement was a distraction from the whole pilot insensitivity that made the news last year. And we're not so sure we'd put much faith in these results. Afterall, business class tickets are pretty pricey these days and people would do all sorts of things for a free ride.

Related Stories:
· Air France Pilots Having Trouble Focusing On Priorities After Criticism Over Safety Practices [Jaunted]
· Air France [Official Site]

Tags: Travel Contests / Fashion Travel / Paris / Paris Travel / → All Tags

YSL Will Send You To Paris For New Years, If You Prove 'Parisienne'

Ahh, New Years in Paris, what a fantasy trip that would be. Although we got the dream New Years vacation out of the way a few years ago in Venice, it doesn't mean that we can't lust after the combination of fashion and free travel that the new contest from Yves Saint Laurent offers.

Here's the details, for all you wannabe holiday jetsetters: YSL is launching a new fragrance called Parisienne and they've devoted a mini-site to it, complete with a blog of Paris travel tips. To win a trip for two to Paris for New Years, you must also share a story and photos, specifically "about how you have experienced the spirit of Parisienne in your own life." There's also a chance of winning a YSL handbag and Beaute products, but we'll just take the trip thanks.

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Tags: Travel Auctions / Air France / A380 / Airline News / Airlines / eBay / → All Tags

Time's Ticking To Bid On The Air France A380 Auction

Time to check the balance in your PayPal account, because there’s only a few days left until bidding ends for the inaugural flight of the A380 on Air France. Prices for the economy seats start at just $380—clever—every day and slowly begin to creep up. However, as of this morning, we were able to see a couple seats that were still $380-ish and several more between $400 and $500. Fares like that are decent deal for a transatlantic crossing on an old plane, but flying across the Atlantic on a jumbo-jumbo makes it almost a steal. Too bad the bids will likely keep on rolling on.

Bidders can choose between the Paris to New York launch on November 20 and the New York to Paris journey on November 21. All proceeds from the auctions will be donated to humanitarian organizations supported by the Air France Foundation. We’re not totally sure if that means you can use your trip as a tax deduction, but we’d definitely check with an authority a little more reliable than TurboTax.

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Tags: Super World Travelers / Celeb Travel / Brad Pitt / Angelina Jolie / Private Jets / Airports / → All Tags

Brad Pitt And Angelina Jolie Have Had Enough Of Commercial Airports

Some of us are looking forward to remodeling our bathrooms, others can't wait to upgrade their laptop, and then there are those who are champing at the bit to get started on building their own personal airstrip in France. Of course we refer to the one and only Super World Travelers, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

According to Private Jet Daily (which is just our favorite daily), Brangelina are sick and tired of paparazzi hounding them from both sides of the airport security check when they fly from commercial airports. Now that they've both got their private pilot licenses and plenty of space on their Chateau Miraval estate in France, an airstrip is the next logical step.

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Tags: Fashion Travel / Fashion Week / Paris Travel / Events / → All Tags

The Top Five Paris Tourist Sites Affected By Fashion Week

The City of Lights will become the City of Photographer Flash Strobes in the next 24 hours as Paris Fashion Week officially begins tomorrow and runs through Thursday, October 8. Although this means that Paris will be on its best behavior with gleaming-clean upscale restaurants, the best window displays, and serious eye candy walking down the street, it also means that private parties and fashion shows will possibly clog up some of the sights that tourists regularly hit.

Since we want you to get the most out of Paris in the autumn, with a dash of the glamor of the Fashion Week thrown in, we'll let you in on the places to either hit or skip—depending on how much you love big crowds of pretentious people—in Paris for the next ten days:

Top 5 Paris tourist sites affected by Fashion Week, after the jump

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Vandals Dare To Disturb Paris Catacombs, Awaken Curse?

Just ahead of Halloween, a creepy disturbance shutters one of Paris' most morbid destinations. Now tourists won't have the treat of walking among the 14th-century dead while city officials find the grave-raiser.

A tourist destination dating back to the 19th century, the Paris Catacombs, resting place of French Revolution figures like Georges Danton, contains bones dating back to the 14th century. Some 300,000 visitors a year trek out to the 14th arrondissement to check out the remains of more than 6 million Parisians, until earlier this month when an unknown number of vandals tipped over several stacks of those remains, making the path through the tunnels impassible.

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Tags: Airplane News / A380 / Singapore Airlines / Airline News / → All Tags

A Singapore Airlines A380 Returns To Paris After Engine Trouble

A Singapore Airlines flight had to turn back mid-trip on Sunday after one of the engines on the plane—a giant A380 originating in Paris—decided to stop working.

The A380 is an ultra high-capacity airliner, designed by Airbus to compete directly with Boeing's 747 and its successors. It has two decks, four engines, and over 500 seats. All of which is a roundabout way of saying that it was loaded with almost 450 passengers and that they were probably not in the best of spirits after this:

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Tags: Paris Restaurants / Paris Travel / Travel News / Food Travel / Quirky Travel / → All Tags

Pop-Up Restaurant Opens On Paris Rooftop, Sends Foodies Swooning

Earlier this year, we pouted and said a sad little "au revoir, notre amour" to the Hotel Everland, a single little hotel room which sat atop Paris' Palais de Tokyo and offered an unparalleled view of the EIffel Tower starting from $488 a night.

After a very successful run of just over a year, the pop-up hotel room left in April, but now Paris is reviving the concept in the form of a restaurant. Fashion Week Daily has the dirt on what's sure to be the next big thing on the Paris cuisine scene:

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Tags: Fall-Foliage-Map / Fall Foliage Travel / Fall Travel / Outdoor Travel / Paris Travel / Thanatourism / → All Tags

Sweep The Autumn Leaves From The Graves Of Proust And Wilde In Paris

Alright, alright—Paris is merveilleuse at all times of the year, but during the autumn, certain sections of the city veritably come alive with the death of the leaves. Heck, the season even inspired a Barbie doll to use a walking stick.

There are the Jardin des Tuileries, Jardin du Luxembourg, Bois de Boulogne, and of course the pathways along the Seine River for premium fall foliage peeping. But for the most unique experience, we're turning a little morbid by recommending a stroll around Père Lachaise cemetery, where the autumnal colors stand stark against the gray and black tombs of figures like Jim Morrison, Marcel Proust, and Edith Piaf.

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