International Travel News

Travel Briefs

October 2010 issue | Appears on page 78

Germany event tragedy

Nineteen people died and more than 300 were injured on July 24 in Duisberg, Germany, when a crush of people panicked during the annual Love Parade.

Billed as the world’s largest techno music party, the Love Parade was first held in 1989. With about a million people attending this year, officials closed off one end of an access tunnel to the site to avoid overcrowding. The press of thousands of people entering the tunnel was not diverted, however, and a stampede resulted. The festival...

October 2010 issue | Appears on page 79

Mauritshuis to renovate

Starting in mid 2012, the Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery in The Hague, Netherlands, will be closed for about a year as part of a four-year, €22-million renovation that will nearly double the exhibition space.

Much of the collection will remain on display in other locations in The Hague, but 40 works — including Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring” — will travel to Japan to be shown in museums in Tokyo and then Kobe.

October 2010 issue | Appears on page 79

Gmail international calls

Users of Google’s free e-mail service Gmail, with accounts registered in the US or Canada, now can make free or low-cost calls. (Log in to your Gmail account and use the “call phones” button on the left side.)

The service allows free calls to the US and Canada as well as rates as low as two cents per minute to landlines in France and the UK and six cents per minute to India, etc.

Credit can be bought in increments of $10 via a credit card, and calls are conducted through one’s...

October 2010 issue | Appears on page 79

Buskers festival, New Zealand

The 18th annual World Buskers Festival takes place in Christchurch, New Zealand, Jan. 20-30, 2011. More than 35 musicians, jugglers, acrobats, comedians and other acts from eight countries will provide free entertainment on city center squares and streets plus indoors. Performers accept donations.

Among artists in 2010 were the Daredevil Chicken Club from the USA and Cirque no Problem from Israel. For a schedule, visit www.worldbuskersfestival.com.

October 2010 issue | Appears on page 80

Waterford Crystal anew

A brand-new House of Waterford Crystal (The Mall, Waterford City, Ireland; phone + 353 [0] 51 317000, fax 351937), with a visitor center and retail store, offers tours on which visitors can observe factory workers blowing glass and engraving crystal items.

The flagship factory, in Waterford City’s Kilbarry area, was shut down in early 2009. Its 1,000 workers were fired along with about 500 at an ancillary factory. The new factory employs about 100.

A tour costs €10 ($13) adult...

October 2010 issue | Appears on page 80

Tour under Colosseum

In Rome, after a $28-million renovation, part of the Colosseum’s underground system of tunnels and galleries was opened to the public late this summer for the first time in decades.

Small groups of visitors, accompanied by a guide, now can enter the underground complex through the Porta Libidinaria, the gate that gladiators once walked through to meet their fate.

Under the partially reconstructed floor of the 2,000-year-old amphitheater, the backstage apparatus is visible that...

September 2010 issue | Appears on page 39

Buzzroam SIMs

Buzzroam (Level 19, Two International Finance Centre, 8 Finance St. Central, Hong Kong, China; phone, in the US, 415/829-5219) offers global SIM cards with attractive rates.

Examples — calls from France to the United States cost 41¢ per minute, while Mobal.com charges $1.36 per minute. Calls from China to the US cost $1.36 per minute with Buzzroam as opposed to $3.59 with Mobal.

Instructions are given on how to forward your mobile phone number in your home country to ring your...

September 2010 issue | Appears on page 39

KeyToss info access

KeyToss is a free, Web-based portal application that allows smartphone users to easily search the Internet for information (news, weather, stock quotes, etc.)

For travelers, the app includes such tools as a 15-language translator, a flight-status finder and access to the Hotels.com database of more than 85,000 hotels worldwide with which travelers can search for available rooms and make reservations. (For example, a search for “Cairo, Egypt,” turned up 22 available rooms, showing...