Travel Briefs

The Villa San Michele School of Cookery is located in Villa San Michele (Via Doccia, 4-50014 Fiesole, Florence, Italy; phone +39 055 567 8200, fax 567 8250), an Orient-Express luxury boutique hotel in a former monastery overlooking Florence.

The school’s half-day cooking classes, “Morning with the Chef,” are offered to villa guests Mon., Thurs. & Sat., April through Oct. (except Aug.). The basic course costs $200 per person or, with six to ten people, $180 each.

Additional...

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In three private locations in the Netherlands (De Heen, Marnemoende and De Cleypoel) and one in Belgium (De Wissen), you can stay in a 42-square-foot cabin aboard an 82-square-foot raft that you have rented. Each raft is accessible only by canoe.

Aug. 29-Sept. 22, two nights’ raft rental costs €146.50 (near $200) and three nights, €199.50 ($272). Sept. 23-Oct. 30, two nights cost €139 and three, €193.50. November-April, two nights, €100, or three, €150. 

Only the De Heen and...

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On Paris, two metal grills along the walkway of the Pont des Arts bridge collapsed under the weight of “love locks” on June 8, causing the bridge to be closed for a day while the grills were removed and replaced with nonpermanent wooden panels.

In a tradition that started only five years ago, lovers place a padlock on the bridge with their initials and throw the key into the Seine. An estimated 700,000 locks have been placed on the bridge. Officials have not determined whether the...

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A 460-foot Ferris wheel began operating in Helsinki’s Katajanokka harbor on June 3. The Finnair SkyWheel (Katajanokanlaituri 2, 00160 Helsinki, Finland) offers panoramic views from climate-controlled gondolas. A ride costs €12 (near $16) for 15 minutes (€9 for Finnair members). A VIP cabin can be rented for 25 minutes for €195 ($266), including a bottle of champagne. 

The SkyWheel runs year-round, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Sun.-Mon., 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Tues.-Thurs., 10-11 Fri.-Sat.

A play about Anne Frank entitled “Anne” premiered in May 2014 at the Theater Amsterdam (Danzigerkade 5, Westpoort number 2036, 1013 AP Amsterdam, The Netherlands; phone +31 88 123 2411). 

The play is set on a panoramic stage with replicas of the house Anne Frank grew up in and the attic where she and her family hid from Nazi persecution in WWII. The play is performed in Dutch, and viewers can rent a translation-system tablet for subtitles and headphones for dubbing in seven languages...

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In February, the US and Chilean governments reached an agreement to ease travel between the two countries, and the US designated Chile a member of its Visa Waiver Program. As of May, Chilean nationals can travel to the US without a visa, and US travelers are no longer being charged a “reciprocity fee” of $160 to enter Chile.

In May, the city of Palma on the Spanish island of Mallorca (Majorca), in the Mediterranean, enacted laws requiring that appropriate clothing be worn in public areas. Men and women caught wearing swimwear around town or going shirtless will be assessed fines of €50 to €200 (near $68-$272). The areas where fines can be given do not include the beaches, boardwalks or adjoining streets, where swimwear will still be considered appropriate. 

The ordinances have also banned drinking on the...

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French national train operator SNCF discovered in May that 2,000 new trains it had ordered were built about 7½ inches wider than the older trains, making them too wide for some stations. SNCF had been given station dimensions from France’s rail operator, RFF, which had neglected to measure stations built more than 50 years ago.

The new trains cost SNCF about $20.5 billion. RFF is spending about $68.4 million to adjust stations to fit the new trains, with more than 1,000 stations yet...

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