The Torino + Piemonte Card offers free admission to over 160 museums, monuments, castles and royal residences in Turin and Piedmont, Italy; free travel on above-ground public transport; 10%-20% off guided tours and tourist trains, and 20% off Avis car rentals.
Covering one adult and one child under 12, the card costs €20 (near $30) for two days; €25 for three; €31, five, and €35 ($53) for seven days. A two-day pass for those under 18 costs €10 ($15).
In honor of Robert Schumann’s 200th birthday, a concert will take place at Schumann-Haus (Inselstraße-18, 04103, Leipzig, Germany; phone 0341 393 96 20, fax 96 22, www.schumann-verein.de [in German]) on June 8, 2010. Ticket, €12 ($18).
• Schumann-Haus, the 16-year residence of Robert and Clara Schumann, has exhibits on their lives and work. Open 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Friday. €3 ($4.50) adult.
For people of all ages, more than 50 one-week courses are offered at Christ Church College in Oxford, July 4-Aug. 7, 2010. Among them are “Castles in Britain,” “Jane Austen’s Heroines” and “Victorian Scandals.” There are no prerequisites to enroll, and the classes are taught without papers to write or tests to take. No academic credit is offered.
Britain’s National Trust has created a UK version of the board game Monopoly which can be purchased in the US through The Royal Oak Foundation (New York, NY; 800/913-6565).
Half of the price of $100, which includes shipping, is a tax-deductible donation to the foundation, which supports the National Trust in preserving Britain’s cultural and natural heritage.
The company smallcarBIGCITY (phone +44 [0] 7891 998 328 or +44 [0] 2075 850 399) offers six guided tours of London. Up to three people tour in a Mini Cooper driven by a chauffeur/guide dressed in retro 1960s garb, with ’60s music on the sound system.
Tours range from the 30-minute “Royal Tour” for £54 (near $90) per Mini, touring major London landmarks, to the 5-hour “Tale of Two Cities,” which combines an hour’s tour of London and an hour of Paris (with transit between on the Eurostar train), for £299 ($500) per Mini.
With the Jibbigo software application (or app), you can speak/record a sentence or two of either Spanish or English into your iPhone 3GS and it will respond with both an audible and written (on the screen) translation. It cannot be used to translate a conversation on the iPhone.
Jibbigo has a vocabulary of over 40,000 words that are particularly useful to travelers and medical doctors. The software runs on the phone, itself, so it does not need to be connected to the Internet. The app, dictionary included, costs $24.99 from Apple’s iPhone store or visit www.jibbigo.com.
The website www.ihatetaxis.com gives tips on how to pick the right taxi, avoid taxi scams and arrive at your hotel safely. The website covers more than 300 international airports, train stations and ports in 85 countries.
The annual Bach Festival in Leipzig, Germany, is being held this year June 11-20. It will focus on how Bach influenced his musical successors Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms.
With famous artists and ensembles, there will be 113 events in 38 venues, including theaters, churches, museums and historic sites, plus dancing exhibitions and museum tours.
In Paris, the luxury department store Galeries Lafayette (40 boulevard Haussmann; phone 014 282 3456, www.galerieslafayette.com [French only]) opened an enormous shoe department in July 2009.
The basement-level, 34,500-square-foot shop includes hundreds of brands, from simple flip-flops to designer boots, with prices running €10-€1,000. One section offers items to take care of shoes and your feet.
France’s Customs department has placed self-service VAT tax refund kiosks in all terminals at Charles de Gaulle Int’l Airport. The service, PABLO, processes the tax refund forms travelers collect from salespersons.