With hundreds of sweet, savory, traditional and unusual pies to sample from 40 bakeries around the country, plus pie-baking demonstrations, the first UK PieFest will be held at the Melton Mowbrey Cattle Market in England’s “Capital of Pies,” Melton Mowbrey, Leicestershire, July 29-30, 2017.
Tickets at the door. £4 (near $5) adult; under 16, free. Visit www.goleicestershire.com and click on “Events.”
In Amsterdam, the Over the Edge swing, the highest in Europe at more than 300 feet off the ground, opened in August 2016 on the Lookout observation deck atop the A’DAM Tower (Overhoeksplein 5, 1031 KS, Amsterdam, Netherlands; phone +31 20 242 01 00, www.adamlookout.com).
Each swing holds two riders and takes them over the edge of the building, with views of the city under their feet.
In Bristol, England, visitors can visit street art by local guerrilla artist Banksy on a 2-hour walking tour offered by Where the Wall (phone +44 7748 632 663, www.wherethe wall.com/tours). Participants will see Banksy art dating back to his beginnings, 30 years ago, plus the work of other graffiti artists.
The tours, which include lessons in Bristol history and architecture as well as entry to the Bristol Museum and M Shed, start at 2 p.m. and usually run every Mon., Wed. and Fri. £9.20 (near $11.50). Book online.
In Heidelberg, Germany, at 10:15 on a night in June, July and September each year, fireworks light up Heidelberg Castle.
The castle is first lit up in red, mimicking the fire that reduced most of the castle to ruins in the 17th century, then there is a fireworks display over the Neckar River. The best views are from the river’s south side, opposite the castle.
The dates are June 3, July 6 and Sept. 2 in 2017 and June 2, July 14 and Sept. 1 in 2018.
Visitors to the emirate of Dubai, UAE, can “buy one and get one free” on selected activities and at selected attractions with the City Card Dubai. Among activities honoring card discounts are a desert safari, scuba diving and a show dinner cruise.
City Cards must be purchased in advance and can be shipped to the buyer’s home or retrieved upon hotel check-in. At a cost of $45 or, with a Burj Khalifa tour, $65, it is good through the calendar year and includes a guidebook and city map. Visit citycarddubai.com or call +971 50 410 4470.
One of the world’s oldest libraries can be visited at the Abbey of St. Gall (Klosterhof 6D, Postfach, 9001 St. Gallen, Switzerland). With origins in the 7th century AD, the abbey library houses thousands of unique manuscripts, many regularly on display in the Baroque Hall, an intricately decorated gallery with painted ceilings and winding bookcases.
At the hall until Nov. 12, 2017, the exhibit “Sanitarium for the Soul” follows the history of the library and its collections.
In the small towns near Amsterdam, Netherlands, collectively known as Old Holland, visitors are being given pamphlets detailing expectations of their conduct.
The towns, which include picturesque wooden buildings and windmills, are designed to accurately reproduce living conditions in 19th-century Holland. However, they are also actual living towns with permanent residents.
The handouts suggest etiquette such as asking permission before taking pictures of locals, not leaving trash behind and not walking through private gardens.
When planning a trip to Paris, you can book a guided tour to the top of the Eiffel Tower that allows you to skip the line at the elevators. On the tour, the English-speaking guide describes the tower’s history and construction and talks about other sites visible from the tower, like Notre Dame and the Louvre.
The tour (subject to availability) costs €49 (near $53) per person and includes entry to all three tower levels. Visit booking.parisinfo.com, click on “Guided Tours” and then on “Eiffel Tower Skip-the-line Tour and Summit Access.”
Berlin’s newest concert hall, the 682-seat Pierre Boulez Saal, designed by architect Frank Gehry and acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota, opened in March. Housed in the former storage building for the sets of the Staatsoper, the hall, with seats surrounding the stage, provides a venue for young musicians from Israel and the Middle East.
Potsdam’s new modern art museum, Museum Barberini (Alter Markt, Humboldtstraße 5-6, 144467 Potsdam, Germany; phone +49 331 236014, museum-barberini.com/en), opened on Jan. 23. Housed in the rebuilt, 18th-century Barberini Palace, it has 17 galleries, including temporary exhibitions, with a permanent collection emphasizing East German art and art post-1989.