WOWTours.com Blog

By D’Arcy Kavanagh

You’re off to Paris and looking for something different to do.

Think flea markets – and book stalls. Sound silly?  It’s not if you consider you’ll encounter some of the city’s history, meet interesting people and do it close to wonderful architecture.

The city’s biggest flea market is actually several combined markets in the northern edge of Paris by the Porte de Clignancourt. You can encounter up to 3,000 stalls offering everything from  clothing to antiques, junk to small treasures.  Nicknamed #Les Puces (the Fleas), it’s open Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

But I have a better plan for you and it keeps you in the historic part of Paris.

On a Saturday morning, starting in the Marais district on the right, walk toward the Palais-Royal not far from the Louvre. Pretty soon you’ll start bumping into one flea market after another.

The last time I did the walk, I found a leather-bound Jules Verne novel dating back 120 years. I paid 5€ for the book which was in pristine condition. More little treasures followed.

Hundreds of locals were walking about, chatting merrily away, everyone seemingly in a good mood.

Another couple of blocks, another flea market.  More great surprises – hundred-year-old pendants, old albums, a gramaphone, all kinds of trinkets dating back to 1900.

It was a great way to get a little exercise and be entertained.

And when I chatted with some of the folks behind the stalls, they didn’t give me the hard sell. In fact, a few were more interested in relating the history behind an item than making a pitch for purchase. They might have been anxious about making some needed money, but they didn’t show it.

When I reached the Seine, it was time to wander by the stalls on the river’s edge.

These stalls on both left and right banks have shown up in endless photos and movies about Paris. Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris showed the Seine stalls to great effect.

They’re part of the city’s cultural fabric. The prime locations are handed down generation to generation although increased taxes are threatening some stall owners.

For many years, the stalls featured only books. Now, besides books both hard and soft-covered, you’ll find new and old posters, records, CDs, and tourist items such as key chains and postcards.

Take your time. The stall folks don’t mind you poking about.

And look around while you’re strolling. You’ll be right by some of the city’s architectural treasures.

When you’re finally tired of all your shopping, find a nearby café and relax with a glass of wine or a pastis or a beer. And watch the world go by.

You’ll be glad you took the less hectic shopping path.

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By D’Arcy Kavanagh
A few years ago, Jim Carrey lost his mojo with audiences in a bid to be recognized as a serious screen presence. While he demonstrated his talents extend far beyond Ace Ventura-type of efforts, his audiences stayed away in huge numbers. Now the original Carrey is back, over the top, zany and rubbery in Yes Man, a comedy that strikes the funny bone just enough to make the movie a decent viewing experience.
Carrey is Carl Allen, a bank loan officer who takes out his depression over a broken marriage on just about everyone in his line of sight, especially folks seeking some financial aid. He’s basically given up on life, content to watch old videos until he has to go to bed and start another dreary day. These first few scenes provide the story backdrop, but are so heavy with negativity that they come perilously close to turning off an audience.
But then Carl is dragooned by an acquaintance to a self-help seminar where he accepts that the key to life is to say “yes” to life – all the time. At this moment, the movie switches into gear and the laughs start with Carl doing anything but say “no” to an experience. While clearly preposterous in some of his actions, Carl’s new love of life is energizing. Unleashed, Carrey turns Carl into one of his pantheon of Most Goofy Characters.
The plot is predictable as Carl meets and falls for a scooter-riding, avantgarde musician-artist, delightfully portrayed by Zooey Deschanel – remember the name because she’s destined for bigger things – who becomes a little overwhelmed by Carl’s wacky qualities. You know the bit – boy finds girl and so forth.
Carrey is like Robin Williams, another film comedian with a hunger for dramatic recognition. In a comedy, they can go far beyond the “danger zone” in what to try on screen. But thank goodness that the two of them occasionally try because the state of screen comedy otherwise is at a painfully low level with movies fixated on an abundance of coarse language and an overload of jokes involving bodily fluids. A throwback Carrey comic character is a welcome sight even if the cinematic fare he’s in isn’t anything special.
Travel Tip: Carl and his lady love head out for a wild weekend to Nebraska. Yup, the American heartland. That part of the world doesn’t have the cache of Paris or the French Riviera, but it shows you can have fun even in places where there’s not a hill to be seen. Southern Alberta, where this review is being written, has a ton to offer the truly curious – special carriage museums, dinosaur riverbeds, ghost towns.

By D’Arcy Kavanagh

Tom Cruise has done period piece films before (Far And Away, The Last Samurai) and he’s made the mistake to tackle the past again with the Second World War thriller Valkryie. The problem isn’t that he doesn’t try; instead, he works so hard in Valkrie that his earnestness dominates the screen. It’s just that Cruise, who has undeniable talents, is a truly modern actor, someone who provides nuances from the digital, politically correct world of today and not from the cultures of different times.

Cruise is at the epi-centre of this well-produced, real-life story about a 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Cruise is German war hero Col. Claus von Stauffenberg who has lost an eye, a hand and his loyalty to Hitler’s cause. So, taking enormous risks to not just himself but to his family, he meets with like-minded German officers in a bid to kill Hitler and start peace negotiations with the Allies who are on their way to final victory. While he’s a colonel surrounded by more senior officers, Stauffenberg is the most relentless in pursuing the plan and he becomes the unofficial leader of the plotters. It all happens with so much speed that Stauffenberg seems surrounded by fellow officers who seem more than happy to acquiese to anyone with a decent idea.

The challenge in such a film is everyone coming into the theatre knows the plot didn’t work. So, how do the filmmakers build the action when the conclusion is foregone? In 1973, another film facing a similar challenge, Day of the Jackal, had the same task; it told the supposed real-life story of a plot to knock off Charles de Gaulle. That production was so tautly directed and acted that it stands up as one of the great political thrillers ever made.

But Valkyrie, though, just doesn’t muster the same energy as Jackal. It does a good job of recreating the era, but, in the end, it’s sabotaged by too much Cruise and not enough of the other actors who include such formidable talents as Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson and Terence Stamp. While the historians might conjecture what would have happened if the plot had been successful, audiences could easily wonder how this movie might have turned out with someone else in the lead role.
Travel Tidbit: Germany has distanced itself politically from the horrors of the Second World War, but there are still places that deserve a visit. For example, the scores of military cemeteries Germany and the Netherlands tell how great were Germany’s losses. Then there’s the Dauchau concentration camp site that is devastating in its story.