For travelers to Great Britain, Italy or France, here are a few important changes to be aware of in 2014.
GREAT BRITAIN
• London continues to grow and thrive, post Olympics. Free WiFi is everywhere, bus transportation is more efficient than ever, and the city’s freshly scrubbed monuments have never looked so good.
17-day/15-night tour, departing April 8 and Oct. 21, 2014. Japanese artist Michie Taylor leads tour of several towns focusing on art and culinary delights. Highlights: Visit active Mt. Aso Volcano/organic lunch at 230-year-old private country house/seafood feast on remote fishing-community island/porcelain town of Imari/artists’ studios/outdoor hot springs baths at 150-year-old inn/Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum/Kumamoto Castle. Land plus air, $4,950-$5,450. Single supp., $300. Michie Taylor (Berwyn, PA; 610/644-0402).
I traveled in Ghana, Togo and Benin on a 3-week trip in late November 2012 with a private art group. These countries, on the Gulf of Guinea, adjoining the Atlantic Ocean, are hot and humid most of the year, and it was in the high 80s with 80% humidity most of the time we were there.
Hanging out. . . all over the place!
You’re witnessing “Where in the World?” history, gentle readers. For the first time ever, we’re accepting more than one answer as the correct one!
Riga, Latvia, has more Art Nouveau, or Jugendstil, architecture (about 40% of the buildings in its city center) than any other city.
At the Art Noveau Museum (Alberta Street 12, Riga; phone +371 67181465), located in the architect Konstantīns Pēkšēns’ self-designed house, visitors can see rooms as they looked in Peksens’ time, with dishes, furniture and items chosen to match the Art Nouveau theme.
Admission costs 3.5 lats (near $6.40) May-September or 2.5 lats ($4.60) October-April.
In 2013, Norway is celebrating the 150th anniversary of its most famous artist, Edvard Munch, with painting and photography exhibitions, commissioned works of music, tours of sites where Munch lived and more.
A short guided tour of the first house Munch bought, in Åsgårdstrand on the Oslo fjord, can be taken June 1-Aug. 31 for NOK50 (near $9).
The performance “Of Lifeblood” (NOK480, or $84), combining tableaux, original music and dance, will happen in and around Munch’s Hvitsen home, June 2-23.
My most recent visits to Haiti were made during Royal Caribbean International cruises in 2010 and 2011, but my son and I first traveled there in 1985. Despite its politics and poverty, Haiti has a very special charm, and nowhere in the country’s colorful history and rich cultural tradition is that more evident than in its art.
The main gallery of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum (Jan Luijkenstraat 1, 1071 CJ, Amsterdam; phone +31 20 674 7000), which closed for a €375-million renovation in 2003, will reopen to the public on April 13, 2013. A small section had remained open to display certain works.
The museum’s collection consists of about 8,000 works of art, most notably paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, including Vermeer’s “The Milkmaid” and Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch,” as well as sculptures and decorative arts.
by Lynn Remly; Hudson, OH
They were “only” Stone Age ancestors, yet they produced the most refined art the world has seen within the far depths of winding caves, lighted only by torch and oil. How? Why? When?
