From 1953 to 2014, I visited Venice, Italy, eight times. Here is a memory dump of a few things that I think are nice to know if you’re planning to go there.
Hotel Danieli (Castello 4196, Venice, 30122, Italy; phone +39 041 5226480, www.danielihotel
venice.com) has charm and location. From the fourth-floor terrace, the reflection of a full-moon streak on the water of the lagoon after dinner can’t be beat.
The world's largest mailbox, dedicated to mail addressed to Julenissen (Santa Claus) and seen in our October 2016 mystery photo, appeared in the town of Longyearbyen on the island of Svalbard, Norway, a few days before Christmas 2013. Local tour operator Po Lin Lee said she had the red, 9.3-meter-high box installed to “inspire people to share their inner thoughts and hopes.”
More than 200 gardens across London’s 25 boroughs open to the public during Open Garden Squares Weekend, held the third weekend of each June (in 2017, June 17-18). There are private gardens and rooftop, museum or barge gardens, etc. Some offer amenities such as food, music and guided tours.
With more than 350 Roman funerary urns and architectural items on display, the catacombs at Sir John Soane’s Museum (13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, England, WC2A 3BP, UK; phone + 44 [0] 20 7405 2107, www.soane.org) finally opened to the public, 180 years after the death of Sir John Soane.
You can purchase self-guided food tours of Berlin with the app bitemojo, free on iTunes and Android. Once you activate a tour, selected eateries are notified that you will arrive in due time to receive “bites,” specially designed small entrées, served with chef’s commentary (sometimes in English).
Airlines and cruise lines banned passengers from traveling with Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones after that model exhibited a tendency to burst into flames, as one did on a Southwest Airlines plane on Oct. 6, forcing a landing and evacuation.
Samsung enacted two recalls of the phone, the second after reports that some replacement units also had caught fire. Samsung then announced it would no longer produce the phone and would be giving refunds to all owners.
Iceland (Third of three parts)
Top tips for traveling light
The world’s least-salty seawater is found in the Bay of Bothnia, where Sweden meets Finland.
