At St Martin-in-the-Fields church, on the northeastern corner of Trafalgar Square in London, England, free lunchtime concerts are performed throughout the year each Monday, Tuesday and Friday starting at 1 p.m. Concerts are classical instrumentals or chorals.
Seating is first-come, first-served. A donation of £3.50 (near $5) is recommended. To reach the church by Underground, exit at Charing Cross station on the Northern or Bakerloo line and walk northeast.
The Hokusai Sumida Museum (2-7-2 Kamezawa, Sumida-ku, Tokyo, Japan; hokusai-museum.jp/?lang=en), opened on Nov. 22 in Sumida Ward, Tokyo, is now the home of works of the ukiyo-e (woodblock printing) master Katsushika Hokusai.
Katsushika, born in Sumida Ward in 1760, is most well known for his print “The Great Wave off Kanagawa,” on permanent display in the museum. Open 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Tues.-Sun. Entry, ¥400 (near $4).
Citizens of US, Canada and the UK visiting the Persian Gulf island nation of Bahrain had their allowed visit periods extended on Nov. 22, 2016. For those travelers, the amount of travel time allowed on a 5-year, multiple-entry visa (costing BHD174 [near $462]) has been extended from 30 days to 90 days per year. A visa-on-arrival (costing BHD25) has been expanded to one month.
The Indian government suddenly withdrew 500- and 1,000-rupee banknotes from circulation and made them no longer legal tender as of Nov. 8, calling the move a crackdown on corruption and illegal cash holdings. The two notes are among the most commonly used in India.
New 500- and 2,000-rupee notes are being printed to replace the former currency. Indian citizens had until Dec. 30 to exchange their cash. Foreign banks and currency exchanges were not accepting any 500- or 1,000-rupee notes.
More than 200 gardens across London’s 25 boroughs open to the public during Open Garden Squares Weekend, held the third weekend of each June (in 2017, June 17-18). There are private gardens and rooftop, museum or barge gardens, etc. Some offer amenities such as food, music and guided tours.
With more than 350 Roman funerary urns and architectural items on display, the catacombs at Sir John Soane’s Museum (13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, England, WC2A 3BP, UK; phone + 44 [0] 20 7405 2107, www.soane.org) finally opened to the public, 180 years after the death of Sir John Soane.
You can purchase self-guided food tours of Berlin with the app bitemojo, free on iTunes and Android. Once you activate a tour, selected eateries are notified that you will arrive in due time to receive “bites,” specially designed small entrées, served with chef’s commentary (sometimes in English).
Airlines and cruise lines banned passengers from traveling with Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones after that model exhibited a tendency to burst into flames, as one did on a Southwest Airlines plane on Oct. 6, forcing a landing and evacuation.
Samsung enacted two recalls of the phone, the second after reports that some replacement units also had caught fire. Samsung then announced it would no longer produce the phone and would be giving refunds to all owners.
In Zürich, artifacts dating from the Stone Age to AD 800 are on permanent display in the human-history exhibition “Archaeology in Switzerland,” located in a new wing opened on Aug. 1 at the cultural-history Swiss National Museum (Museumstrasse 2, Zürich; phone +41 44 216 65 11, www.nationalmuseum.ch).
The wing added two exhibition halls, an auditorium, a library and a restaurant. The museum is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues., Wed. & Fri.-Sun. and 10-7 Thurs. Closed Mon. Adult, CHF10 (near $10); child up to 16, free.
A museum dedicated to the life and work of Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney opened in Bellaghy, Northern Ireland, on Sept. 30. Seamus Heaney HomePlace (45 Main St., Bellaghy, BT45 8HT, Northern Ireland, UK; phone +44 028 7938 7444, www.seamusheaney home.com) explores the real-life inspirations for the poet’s work, with interactive exhibits and video interviews. It also houses a replica of Heaney’s study in his Dublin home.