USO Dance at Fredericksburg Hangar Hotel

by MPI Traveler on May 17, 2013

 Just in time for Memorial Day!

Head out to the Hangar Hotel in Fredericksburg, Texas and help support the United Service Organization (USO) in Ft. Hood by spending part of your Memorial Day weekend dancing to the sounds of a 1940s style big band.

The Hangar Hotel will be hosting another USO Style Hangar Dance on Saturday May 25, 2013.  A percentage of the event’s proceeds will be donated to USO Ft. Hood, which delivers programs and services to more than 40,000 service members and their families.

The Hangar Dance will feature big band music by Fredericksburg local Bill Smallwood and “The Lonestar Swing Orchestra.” Attendees can participate in swing dance lessons from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.; the band will play from 8:00 p.m. until 11:00 p.m. The Hangar Hotel’s Pacific Showroom tiki bar will be available to patrons as well as concessions from the Airport Diner. Those donning a military uniform will receive a coupon for a free drink.

Attendees are encouraged to wear their best 1940s inspired outfit and participate in the costume contest. Winners will receive prizes including a gift certificate to the Hangar Hotel, the Fredericksburg Brewing Company and a gift basket from the Fredericksburg Herb Farm.

The Hangar Hotel, located adjacent to the Gillespie County Airport, was designed to mimic the look of a WWII airplane hangar, providing the perfect setting for a USO style dance. The event will be held in the Pacific Showroom, located next to the hotel, which is decorated in South Pacific/WWII style complete with palm trees and tiki bar. For more information, to purchase a ticket to the dance or make room reservations, contact the Hangar Hotel at (830) 997-9990.

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Feria de Nimes Celebration

by MPI Traveler on May 10, 2013

One of the biggest celebrations in France.

From  May 15 – 20, 2013

Don’t miss out on the Feria de Pentecôte or Pentecost Feria in Nîmes!
Held for the first time in 1952, the five-day festival runs from Thursday to Whit Monday. It’s one of the most popular events in Europe, drawing crowds of over a million bullfighting enthusiasts and merrymakers.

Nimes Pentecost Feria begins with Pegoulade, a huge carnival parade that winds its way through the city streets and culminates in a large firework display in the arenas, launching the mass celebrations.

The world’s best toreros demonstrate their skills in corridas in the ancient Roman amphitheatre, before the streets fill with revellers enjoying the open-air concerts and dance parties that go on throughout the night.

As this is the south of France, there is of course a wonderful variety of local specialities to eat and drink while soaking up the electric atmosphere across the city.

Here are the details:

Les Arènes in Nîmes (amphitheatre)
     boulevard des Arènes
     30000, Nîmes
     Phone : 04 66 21 82 56
     Fax : 04 66 21 82 61
     Program  Les Arènes in Nîmes (amphitheatre)

Rates and schedules:
     From Wednesday 5/15 to Monday 5/20/13
     – From Wednesday to Monday doors open at 11:30

Additional information
Tel. : + 04 33 (0) 66 58 38 00 (Nîmes tourism office)

 

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Enjoying Beer in Paris

by MPI Traveler on April 26, 2013

Two for Brew

Jeffrey T. Iverson

April 19, 2013

“He was a wise man who invented beer,” the great philosopher Plato once said. (Or at least beer lovers like to think so.) While that belief is not so widely shared in wine-loving France, there is indeed a Paris institution to help curious epicureans to see the foamy light.

L’Académie de la Bière is a charming pub and restaurant like those found in Belgium and northern France, with a cozy wood-paneled interior and a large covered terrace outside. A refuge for beer lovers since it opened in the 1960s, L’Académie offers the kind of hearty fare that has no better partner than a pint of serious suds, including some of the best moules-frites in town. The mussels are delivered fresh daily, prepared in all the classic ways—marinières, à la crème, au Roquefort, and à l’indienne (curried)—and served with perfect, steaming hot French fries. Mussels cooked in Gueuze beer are a standout, as are other examples of cuisine à la bière, like carbonnade—think rich but beery beef bourguignon. The lengthy beer menu includes an impressive roster of artisan brews from around the world and a fine selection of regional microbrews that exemplify France’s burgeoning beer culture, from the Ardennes microbrew Oubliette, a hoppy, triple-fermented delight, to Grain d’Orge, made near Lille, with its nose of caramel, citrus and spice.

88 bis blvd de Port Royal, 5th

01.43.54.66.65

www.academie-biere.com

 

To take your brewsing to the next level, head to the nearby Brewberry. This cave à bière was opened in 2010 by Cécile Delorme Thomas, who caught the beer bug herself during a stint working at l’Académie de la Bière. Now an expert taster, she has assembled a collection of 450 references, including dozens from small French brewers. The focus here is on what’s in the glass, and food is limited to small but tasty snacks— charcuterie, Alsatian-style soft pretzels, cheese from the beer-brewing Trappist monks of Chimay. Ask for a Telenn Du, a delicious buckwheat beer from Brittany with coffee and dark chocolate notes; or an Ardèche brew like Bourganel Myrtille, made with blueberries. For a genuinely extraordinary cuvée, choose a Bulles de Vignes from the southwestern brewery Brasserie des Vignes. Aged six months in an oak barrel formerly used for Médoc wine, this vinous beer, with notes of red fruit and bracing, grapefruit-like acidity, is beer like you’ve never tasted. Try one—you’ll feel the wiser for it.

18 rue du Pot de Fer, Paris 5th

01.43.36.53.92

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Introducing the Languedoc-Roussillon Region of France

by MPI Traveler on April 19, 2013

Languedoc-Roussillon

Départements: Aude, Gard, Hérault, Lozère, Pyrénées-Orientales Principal cities: Carcassonne, Montpellier, Nîmes, Perpignan

Sweeping along the Mediterranean coast from the west bank of the Rhône River to the peaks of the Pyrenees, surprising Languedoc-Roussillon encompasses the vineyards of Minervois and Corbières, the highlands of the Cévennes and the mysterious Grands Causses—wild, windy and arid plateaus studded with strange rock formations.

The Romans arrived in the 2nd century BC, leaving behind at Nîmes the exquisite, perfectly intact temple now called the Maison Carrée and a splendid amphitheater still in use today. The nearby Pont du Gard aqueduct, a masterpiece of ancient Roman engineering, was built to carry water to Nîmes from springs near Uzès, a wonderful small town that was once the “premier duchy of France”.

Assailed by Crusaders, the heretical sect called the Cathars, or Albigensians, held out until the mid-13th century in the magnificent double-walled city of Carcassonne and the mountaintop castles of Peyrepertuse, Puilaurens, Lastours, Puivert, Quéribus and Montségur.

Annexed to France in the 17th century, Roussillon and its capital Perpignan still fly the red-and-yellow striped Catalan flag beside the French tricolor; the Catalan language is still spoken, and it’s not unusual to see local residents forming an impromptu circle to dance a traditional sardane.

Regional specialties: Roquefort cheese, made in Roquefort-sur-Soulzon; fresh anchovies from Collioure; oysters from Bouzigues; Corbières, Minervois and sweet Banyuls wines; Noilly Prat, vermouth made in Marseillan; and Byrrh, a wine and quinine aperitif.

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Wine and Wildflowers Trail

by MPI Traveler on April 5, 2013

Texas Hill Country Wineries “Wine & Wildflower Trail”

Apr 05 2013 to Apr 14 2013

Come out and take a self-guided trip to as many of the 32 participating Hill Country wineries as you can during this picturesque trail - taking in the beauty of the Texas Hill Country while enjoying yummy, award-winning Texas wines.  Enjoy a minimum of one and up to three complimentary tastes from each winery and a 15% discount on 3 bottle purchases.  Pickup your packet of wildflower seeds from designated winery of your choice and you can bring the beauty of the Hill Country home with you.  Tickets are limited and must be purchased online. 

During regular winery hours.  $25 per person or $40 per couple.

Address: 32 Participating Hill Country Wineries Phone: (512) 914-5561

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Chocolate Festival in Bariloche

by MPI Traveler on March 28, 2013

 Bariloche, Argentina shows off it’s famous chocolate heritage with the annual Chocolate Festival beginning on La Pascua (Easter) March 31 till April 8.  The town chocolatiers construct fanciful creations out of the rich, dark sweet treat with the center piece in the town square of a huge Easter Egg.    The multistory egg takes days to assemble, and leaves the chocolate lovers weak in the knees when it is unveiled.

Felices Pascuas!  Happy Easter from Argentina!

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Gourmet Travels in the Camargue

March 19, 2013

Gourmet Travels in the Camargue by Agnès Lascève March 16, 2013 The Camargue—that wide strip of land between sky and sea that stretches across arms of the Rhône—is not just a paradise for birds and white horses. Its marshes are put to work producing crystalline salt, its broad flatlands produce some of the world’s finest [...]

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day

March 16, 2013

  Wherever you are this March 17th, put on your green, raise a pint and make a toast to Ireland Forever!

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Easter Fires in Fredericksburg

March 15, 2013

Incorporating the Saxon custom of the Easter Fires, the City of Fredericksburg will perform its annual pageant commerating the founding of the town complete with 1840′s costumes of the settlers and the Comanches and yes, the Easter Bunny.  The German settlers incorporated the Easter bonfires with the signal fires that the Indians used to communicate that a [...]

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Course Camarguaise

March 8, 2013

 With Easter near the Course Camarguaise, the Bull Fighting tournaments of the Camargue region of France, have begun!  Every Spring, the Camargue, an  approximately 350 square mile area of fabulous small towns between Arles and the Mediterranean Sea, hosts the French version of bull fighting.  The difference between it and the Spanish version is that the bull [...]

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