In Prague, Czech Republic, Corrupt Tour (phone +420 739 99 00 80) leads day tours to landmarks of corrupt politicians and business owners who have profited at the expense of the city since the fall of the Iron Curtain. The tours visit ornate houses, over-budget construction projects and government offices.
In Athens, Greece, the ruins of Aristotle’s Lyceum (his philosophy school) — a 2,300-year-old complex uncovered by archaeologists in 1996 — was opened to the public on June 4, 2014.
The area is now an 11,500-square-meter park, where visitors can walk among hypocaust chambers (a heating system), the baths and the ephebeum (teaching room), conisterium (where athletes powdered their bodies), elaeothesium (where athletes oiled their bodies) and library. Signs explain these.
In Kigali, the Campaign Against Genocide Museum opened on July 4 in Rwanda’s national parliament building (Boulevard de l’Umuganda, Kigali, Rwanda).
The museum comprises three monuments and an interior section of eight rooms housing artifacts and documents from the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that resulted in the deaths of up to 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus. (The genocide was finally put to an end when the Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by Paul Kawagame, who is now the president of Rwanda, captured Kigali and helped set up a multiethnic government.)
This year, for visitors from China, European countries relaxed the regulations on applying for tourist visas, reducing processing times, eliminating the requirement for travel insurance and introducing a one-year visa for the Schengen Zone. More than one million Chinese tourists applied for visas to Schengen nations in 2013, making China the third-largest source of applications after Russia and Ukraine.
A new high-speed rail link has opened between Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey’s capital. The 409-passenger trains run at a maximum speed of 155 mph, completing the 331-mile journey in 3½ hours, three hours faster than conventional trains.
Six trains per day depart from Istanbul’s Pendik Station and Ankara Central Station. A one-way ticket is priced at TRY70 (near $32) or, for seniors, TRY35. Purchase tickets at the station or online (https://yolcu.tcdd.gov.tr [in Turkish]).
In a service that will be available at 4,000 properties in more than 80 countries by the end of 2014, members of the Hilton® HHonors™ program of the Hilton (800/445-8667, www.hilton.com) group of hotels will be able to check in and select rooms online or using mobile devices.
The structure of the museum Corpus, 21 miles southeast of Amsterdam, near Leiden, incorporates the form of a 115-foot-high seated human figure. On a 55-minute tour, visitors can, for example, climb inside a giant nose, smell fresh hay and feel a blast of wind from a giant sneeze.
Tours depart every seven minutes, with exhibits demonstrating digestion, neuron function and more. 9:30-5:00, Tuesday-Sunday. €16.50 ($22). No children under eight.
Britain’s largest nationally protected wetland, The Broads, offers bicycling, boating and fishing on its shallow lakes and waterways.
The website www.thebroadsbybike.org.uk offers 11 printable bike routes, from five to 23 miles in length. Bikes can be rented from centers around the lakes for from £7 ($12) for two hours to £14 for all day (discounts for more bikes or child’s rental).
Contact Broads Authority (18 Colegate, Norwich, Norfolk, NR3 1BQ, U.K.; phone [01603] 610734, www.broads-authority.gov.uk).
When it was decided to pull down a little-used baseball stadium in Osaka, Japan, city planners and the site owner instead converted it into an unusual park space.
On Bazaruto Island, Mozambique, guests at the Indigo Bay Resort can swim in the Indian Ocean with some of the resort’s six South African Boerperd horses, floating on their buoyant bodies.
Usually offered once a week (at high tide) with a horse trainer and subject to weather and tide conditions, the activity is complimentary to resort guests, both novice and advanced riders. Regular trail riding in forest and on dunes is also available.