Leipzig, Germany, will honor the 200th anniversary of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s birth with a series of musical celebrations around the city in 2009.
Performances will include the Emerson String Quartet, Thomas Hampson and the Basel Chamber Orchestra with Paul McCreesh. Several composers, including Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, will present newly composed pieces.
Two underwater archaeological parks have been set up in the bay off of Angra do Heroísmo, Terceira Island, Azores.
At Naufrágio do Vapor Lidador, scuba divers can tour the wreck of the Lidador, a steamship from the 1800s. The passengers survived, but the ship was pushed against the shore and sank into 30 feet of water. Divers can read underwater plaques and follow a line around the Lidador.
In Langkawi, Malaysia, a 125-meter-long pedestrian-only sky bridge is suspended 2,300 feet above a valley between two mountains. It is curved to accentuate the view, and there is a platform at each end for viewing the surrounding rainforest, the Andaman Sea and Thailand’s Tarutao Island.
A system of cable cars lifts passengers to the top of the mountain for RM25 (near $7.60) adult or RM18 ($5.50) child. At the middle cable car station, a 20-minute hike can be made along the valley floor.
Bonza Bike Tours (30 Harrington St., The Rocks, NSW 2000, Australia; phone +61 2 9247 8800, www.bonzabiketours.com) offers daily bike rentals plus four bicycle tours of Sydney.
Most popular is the 3½- to 4-hour “Sydney Classic Tour,” visiting Sydney Opera House, Royal Botanical Gardens, Chinatown, Sydney Harbour and more. At AU$89 (US$84) per person, including bike rental, it is available Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
Renting a bike on your own costs AU$15 (near US$14) per hour; AU$35 for four hours, or AU$50 for 24 hours.
The gentle whale shark, the world’s largest fish, is seen each year off the southern coast of Kenya. Researchers tag them on expeditions from October through March, but peak season is February-March and visitors may watch.
Visitors stay at beach resorts and can join the almost daily 4-hour trips leaving from Pinewood Village in Diani. Whale sharks stay near the surface, and snorkelers can swim nearby during the tagging process.
Departing from the Royal Livingstone Hotel at Victoria Falls, the antique locomotive Royal Livingstone Express offers a 6-course dinner aboard and chances to spot elephants, buffalo and other wildlife on a 12-mile, 3-hour trip along the Zambezi River and through Mosi-Oa-Tunya Game Park in Zambia.
The train has a lounge car, an observation car, a kitchen car and two dining cars with wooden interiors plus tables with damask linens, crystal glassware and silver cutlery.
In Stratford-upon-Avon, the Stratford Butterfly Farm (Swan’s Nest Lane, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, CV37 7LS, England; phone +44 [0] 1789 299 288, fax 1789 415 878, www.butterflyfarm.co.uk) is an indoor tropical garden with many butterflies.
Other exhibits show leaf-cutter ants, caterpillars, spiders, scorpions, etc. Open 10-6 in summer and 10 a.m.-dusk in winter. £5.50 (near $9).
Twenty-one toilets in the U.K. with enough space for disabled people and their caregivers, and with the right equipment, including a height-adjustable changing bench and a hoist, are shown on a map produced by the Changing Places Consortium.
Visit www.changing-places.org/map.asp for news of the campaign and to ask questions and exchange ideas. Call 0808 808 1111 (Mencap), www.mencap.org.uk.
The website www.thebathroomdiaries.com lists over 12,000 public restrooms in over 120 countries and allows searches for specific amenities such as “handicap access” and “changing tables.”
To revive ancient culture, the government of China last December revised the nation’s official holiday schedule to include three traditional festivals.
• Qingming, or Tomb-Sweeping Day, takes place every April 4 or 5 and centers around honoring ancestors’ graves and memories.
• Duanwu, or the Dragon Boat Festival, takes place on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar year. (In 2009, the holiday falls on Thursday, May 28; many businesses and workers are expected to take a 4-day weekend.)