The FIFA World Cup Brazil — organized by the Fédération Internationale de Football (soccer) Association — will be held June 12-July 13, 2014, at venues in various Brazilian cities, with the penultimate game in the capital, Brasília, and the final game in São Paulo. When details about tickets are announced, they will appear on FIFA’s website.
Online, a new guide for the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia, “Definitive Saint Lucia” (2013, Definitive World Guides, $8.78), is available on the Amazon Kindle Store and the Apple iBookstore. The 158-page guide offers sections on the island, itself, where to stay, local food and drink and what to do plus five maps.
At Stockholm’s new ABBA The Museum (Djurgårdsvägen 68, Stockholm, Sweden; phone +46 8 12 13 28 60), devoted to the 1970s Swedish pop group ABBA, you can don a digital replica of a costume, sing and dance with holograms of the band and have photos and video of your experience to keep. Memorabilia, gold records and exhibits, including a helicopter and a mixing board, are on display.
In the Krabi province of southwestern Thailand, signs posted on popular beaches warning visitors of aggressive monkeys have had a positive effect. The signs were placed at Long Beach, Monkey Bay and Phi Phi Island, where bites and attacks have been fairly common.
In 2012 more than 600 people were treated at Phi Phi Island Hospital for monkey attacks, and 75% of the cases were tourists. Since the posting of the signs, the incidents have decreased, with only 50 cases in the first three months of 2013.
In South Korea in April, two central inland region tour trains of Korail began providing access to the mountain areas of Chungcheongbuk-do, Gangwon-do and Gyeongsangbuk-do, formerly accessible only by twisting, sometimes unpaved roads. Purchase tickets on site or at www.korail.com/en.
The Spanish rail company Renfe has announced the Renfe Spain Pass. The pass, valid for six months, is activated on the first rail journey. Within the next month, travelers can make 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12 more trips, depending on the type of pass chosen. It can be purchased online or at stations. A 4-trip pass costs €163 (near $215) and a 12-trip pass, €392 ($515).
As India expands its “Visa on Arrival” program, the VoA booths in the Immigration areas of international airports in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Goa and several other cities in India may confuse some arriving air travelers.
Only citizens of 11 countries currently qualify for the VoA program: Cambodia, Finland, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Luxembourg, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam. Visitors from other countries still must procure their visas prior to arrival. Negotiations are under way to add up to 15 more countries to the program.
Riga, Latvia, has more Art Nouveau, or Jugendstil, architecture (about 40% of the buildings in its city center) than any other city.
At the Art Noveau Museum (Alberta Street 12, Riga; phone +371 67181465), located in the architect Konstantīns Pēkšēns’ self-designed house, visitors can see rooms as they looked in Peksens’ time, with dishes, furniture and items chosen to match the Art Nouveau theme.
Admission costs 3.5 lats (near $6.40) May-September or 2.5 lats ($4.60) October-April.
In China’s Heilongjiang Province, 800 miles northeast of Beijing, the Ice & Snow World Theme Park is open every year from late December through February in the capital, Harbin. It features ice carvings and sculptures by artists from around the world. Among structures built from ice and/or snow for 2012-2013 were a 157-foot-high palace, an ice maze, an ice hotel and an ice bar.
Visitors also can enjoy rock (ice) climbing, skating, skiing, ice golf and ice archery. At night, multicolored lights illuminate the park.
The tour company China Travel Guide has launched a new free app for iPhone, China Trains, which allows users to check China’s train schedules, plan trips to many cities, look up trains by number and check ticket availability, all in English.
Tickets cannot be purchased from the app, but the schedules can be downloaded for offline use. The app is available on the Apple App Store on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.