Travel Briefs

Throughout Japan, balding guests will receive a discount of ¥500 (near $4.50) at any of the 13 hotels of the Hotel Tetora Group. Upon check-in, front desk staff will determine if a patron is balding (shaved heads also count), instituting the discount if he is. For links to each hotel’s homepage, visit www.e-tetora.com/en and scroll down.

The owner of the hotel group, a bald man, himself, said that he decided to create the discount after hearing cleaning staff complaining about the amount of hair they had to clear out of shower drains.

When visiting Japan’s Saitama Prefecture, fans of pareidolia can visit the Chinsekikan, or Rare Stone Museum (392-1872, Saitama Prefecture Chichibu City, Kagamori 764-5, Japan; phone +81 494 24 7288), where more than 1,700 stones that resemble human faces are on display. The collection, amassed over 50 years by the founder and still growing, includes rocks that have been described as looking like Elvis and Boris Yeltsin.  

Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Mon.,  but call ahead to be sure it will be open. ¥400 (near $3.60).

Two guided, Hong Kong art walking tours can be booked online through the day-tour company Klook (phone +852 3462 6208, www.klook.com).

On the 2-hour “Soho Gallery Walk,” travelers visit a few of the city’s 200-plus art galleries. They also learn how to participate in art auctions. A tour in English is offered every Saturday at 11 a.m. for $33 per person.

On loan from Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum until Oct. 29, the Hartog Plate is on display at the Australia National Maritime Museum (2 Murray St. Darling Harbour, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia; phone +61 2 9298 3777, www.anmm.gov.au). 

The inscribed pewter plate was first placed at Shark Bay, Western Australia, in 1616 by Dutch East India Company captain Dirk Hartog and his crew, the first Europeans to set foot in Australia, in commemoration of their landing. 

In an effort to prevent tourists from “camping out” on city landmarks, the mayor of Florence, Italy, announced on May 31 that some parts of the city will be hosed down around noon each day. According to the mayor, some people visiting the city picnic on the steps of some landmarks at lunchtime, occasionally leaving garbage behind. 

The sites scheduled for a daily watering are the Basilica di Santa Croce, the Chiesa di Santo Spirito and the streets of Florence’s historic city center, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

On May 2, Sweden ended ID checks for people entering the country on the Öresund Bridge, which connects Malmø, Sweden, and Copenhagen, Denmark. Up to 20,000 people cross the bridge each day.

The ID checks were initiated on Jan. 4, 2016, when Sweden temporarily suspended its participation in the Schengen Area Agreement, which calls for free movement across borders of member countries, in order to stem the flow of asylum-seekers into the country. More than 163,000 people sought asylum in Sweden in 2015. That number dropped to 29,000 in 2016. 

Starting on Jan. 1, 2018, visitors to Machu Picchu in Peru will no longer be offered all-day passes to the site. Instead, visitors will be given a choice between a morning pass (allowing access from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.) and an afternoon pass (12-5:30 p.m.). Anyone wanting to spend the entire day on the site will be allowed to purchase both passes. Pass prices had not been announced as of press time.

The Rwanda Development Board announced on May 6 that the fee for a gorilla-viewing permit at Volcanoes National Park will be doubled, from $750 to $1,500, effective immediately. Anyone who also visits other national parks in Rwanda for at least three days is eligible for a 30% discount on a gorilla permit. Permits purchased before the announcement was made will be honored.

Major airlines began a massive terminal swap at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on May 12, the first stage in $1.9 billion in improvements that Delta Air Lines is making at Terminals 2 and 3 and at the Tom Bradley International Terminal. Terminal moves were completed by June 4. 

Airline gate and check-in counters of both domestic and international airlines were involved in the move. The check-in counters for some airlines are now in different terminals than their departure gates.