Buzzroam (Level 19, Two International Finance Centre, 8 Finance St. Central, Hong Kong, China; phone, in the US, 415/829-5219) offers global SIM cards with attractive rates.
Examples — calls from France to the United States cost 41¢ per minute, while Mobal.com charges $1.36 per minute. Calls from China to the US cost $1.36 per minute with Buzzroam as opposed to $3.59 with Mobal.
Football (aka soccer) fans can take a 90-minute tour of Wembley Stadium in London anyday except Christmas, New Year’s or during major events. Check out the Changing Room, walk through the Players’ Tunnel, hang out in the dugout and climb the Winners’ steps. A video presentation of highlights is included.
£15 (near $23) adult or £8 child (16 and under) or senior. Free with a London Pass. For tickets, call 0844 800 2755 or visit www.wembleystadium.com.
Select Italy (303 W. Erie St., Ste. 410, Chicago, IL, 60654; 800/877-1755) offers after-hours guided tours of the Sistine Chapel. The two-hour visit also includes the Raphael Rooms, the Galleria of Candelabra, the Gallery of Tapestries and the Hall of Maps.
Offered a day or two each week throughout 2010, the group tour (10 people maximum), in English, costs $449 per person, including taxes and entrance fees.
Sponsored by the Wing Wah Cake Shop, Tasting Hong Kong (basement level, 478 Nathan Rd., Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China; phone [852] 2374 6001, www.tastinghk.com) is a tourist attraction near Kowloon’s Temple Street shopping area.
With its exhibits and cooking demos focusing on local culture and customs, multilingual guides lead food tours. Souvenir shop. Free classes (up to 10 people) in making Chinese-style cakes are offered in multiple languages; book ahead. Open 9:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m.
Wicklow Head Lighthouse, by the Irish Sea about an hour’s drive south of Dublin airport, was built in 1781. The interior of the 95-foot-tall stone tower was remodeled by the Irish Landmark Trust (25 Eustace St., Temple Bar, Dublin 2, 50 Bedford St., Belfast, BT2 7FW, Northern Ireland; phone +353 [0] 1 670 4733) and now contains six octagonal rooms and a kitchen.
Dating from the 15th century and a convent for 150 years, historic Gillis House (phone 0131 623 8933) in Edinburgh, Scotland, is now a guest house.
Set in the Bruntsfield area, it offers three-star bed-and-breakfast accommodation with 19 bedrooms, all with bathrooms en suite. £40 (near $60) for one person or £60-£70 for two.
In 1834 the building was extended to include St. Margaret’s Chapel, and there is a large garden full of apple trees.
The “Otto Wagner Vienna Map” shows the locations of 26 buildings in Vienna, Austria, designed by the architect, who was influential in Art Nouveau and Modernism.
The exhibit “I, Augustinian: Woman of Action, Sister of Faith,” celebrating the contributions of the Augustine religious community to Quebec’s health care system, runs to March 20, 2011, at the Musée de l’Amérique française (2, cote de la Fabrique, Québec City, Québec, G1R 3V6 Canada; 866/710-8031 or 418/692-2843, www.mcq.org/index_en.html).
Predating Angkor Wat by 500 years, the Sambor Prei Kuk archaeological site — halfway between Phnom Penh and Angkor Wat, Cambodia — contains over 100 temples and other structures dating from the seventh century AD.
Located in Kampong Thom province, the complex consists of three groups of temples spread over a three-square-mile area. The temples are dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. The site, once called Isanborei, was the capital of the kingdom of Isanapura.
Over the protests of Spain’s scientific community and preservationists around the world, the Spanish Culture Ministry announced that it plans to reopen the Caves of Altamira to tourism, possibly by the end of this year. The caves, discovered in 1868, contain prehistoric art estimated to be from 14,000 to 20,000 years old.