International Travel News

Travel Briefs

April 2008 issue | Appears on page 91

Podcasts on London

Visit London is hosting links to free podcasts about the city. For example, if you want to visit “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age,” at the hall O2 in Greenwich through Aug. 30, 2008, you can download a 14-minute commentary featuring interviews with an Egyptologist, the exhibit’s designer and actor Omar Sharif.

For fans of theater, art, outdoor activities, children’s attractions or exploring London by bicycle, there are specialized podcasts as well as links to maps and detailed...

April 2008 issue | Appears on page 91

Venice vs pigeons

In yet another crackdown in Venice, Italy’s, St. Mark’s Square, the sale of pigeon food has been banned, this against the objections of vendors of bird seed and corn in the piazza.

Officials hope to drive the birds out of the city. Not only are the birds’ droppings a health risk, particularly during periods of high water, but they are etching away at monuments and flagstones.

Several European cities prohibit people from feeding pigeons.

April 2008 issue | Appears on page 91

‘How to Drive on the Left’

The Ashford Castle hotel (800/346-7007, www.ashford.ie), near Galway City in Ireland’s west country, offers the program “How to Drive on the Left.”

Including an hour of instruction and an hour of behind-the-wheel training in a manual or automatic car, the class focuses on concentration, navigating roundabouts and judging distances plus offers info on remote road signs in Gaelic.

The package costs €180 (near $270) per couple. Including breakfast, dinner and taxes, room rates at...

April 2008 issue | Appears on page 104

Midway Atoll reopens

After six years’ closure, the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, over 1,100 miles WNW of Honolulu, once again is admitting visitors. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is allowing Oceanic Society, a nonprofit marine conservation organization, to offer educational tours during the months November to July.

In 2008 there are several week-long tours for groups of 16 people. $4,890 per person, double, includes the flight from Honolulu, guided natural history expeditions, bird-...

April 2008 issue | Appears on page 104

Chopper over Rome

The Hassler Roma hotel’s “Roman Skyline Package” includes a helicopter ride in Rome over the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica, the Colosseum and the Pantheon.

Until Dec. 31, 2008, the package cost of €6,570 (near $9,800) per room, double occupancy, includes three nights in a Classic Suite, airport/hotel private transfer (a charge of €50 applies 9 p.m.-7 a.m.), dinners (excluding beverages), buffet breakfasts, a 30-minute helicopter ride (additional time with supplement), hotel/...

April 2008 issue | Appears on page 104

Tree tips at Kew

At the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew (Richmond, Surrey TW9 3AB, UK; phone 02 8332 5655, visit www.kew.org), in Greater London, two new installations open May 24, 2008.

• At the Rhizotron, an underground display, visitors will enter through a “crack” in the earth and watch a changing LED light mosaic that depicts the interactions between tree roots and soil microorganisms such as fungi. Animated wall displays further carry out the theme.

• Eighteen meters (59 feet) above ground...

April 2008 issue | Appears on page 104

Quick, catch your dinner!

At the restaurant ’s Bagger’s in Nuremburg, Germany, the food is sent to you directly from the kitchen without waiters. It comes stashed in large pots which slide down 15-foot steel spiral ramps, slowing to a stop at your table.

You order and pay on a touch screen at your table. Entrées, salads, desserts and drinks are sold à la carte and cost €3-€8 (near $4.50-$12). Busboys clean up, but no waiters hover and recite the “daily special.”

Open 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Sunday-Thursday...

March 2008 issue | Appears on page 19

Roman villas restored

Two Roman villas and private baths dating from the second to fourth centuries have been restored and opened to the public in Rome, Italy.

Excavated under the 16th-century Palazzo Valentini, the 19,375-square-foot complex, which probably housed a Roman senator and his family, features well-preserved marble floors and a mosaic. Glass catwalks above the villas’ remains are combined with 3-D light-projection reconstructions showing how they originally may have looked.

Near Piazza...