Travel Briefs

The city of Dubai has launched an interactive online tour at www.dubai360.com. Visitors to the site can navigate the city on their Web browser, with almost 1,300 panoramic images and videos located throughout the tour. 

The “EAT SMART ABROAD” app can help you decipher menus and figure out which foods to buy in markets where you don’t speak the language. 

Based on the “EAT SMART” series of culinary guidebooks for 12 countries, the app actually comprises 12 apps, each with the two glossaries found at the end of each book in the series, plus the Menu Guide for deciphering menus and the Food & Flavors Guide for shopping.

Created by Gingko Press (Madison, WI; 608/233-5488, www.eatsmartguides.com), it costs $1.99 from iTunes, Google Play or Amazon.

From mounted insects to a 4-story high Mamenchisaurus skeleton, 11,000 plant and animal specimens — along with artifacts from human history in eastern China — are on display in the Shanghai Natural History Museum (phone +86 21 86822000, www.snhm.org.cn [in Chinese only]), which opened in its new location, the north section of the Jing’an Sculpture Park (128 Shimen Er Lu, Jing’an, Shanghai, China), in June 2015.

In London, the exhibit “Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse,” exploring how the evolution of the city’s gardens influenced Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Avant-Garde artists at the turn of the 19th century, runs Jan. 30-April 20, 2016, at the  Royal Academy of Arts (Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, England; phone +44 20 7300 8027, www.royalacademy.org.uk).

A ticket costs £16 or, with donation, £17.60 (near $26) and can be bought online. 

Paris’ Musée Rodin (77 rue de Varenne, Paris, France; phone +33 01 44 18 61 10, www.musee-rodin.fr/en) completely reopened on Nov. 12 after a 3-year, €16-million restoration (some portions had remained open). Also, many of Rodin’s paintings and sculptures were restored. Open 10 a.m.-5:45 p.m. Thurs.-Sun. & Tues. and 8:45 p.m. Wed. Entry, €10; sculpture garden only, €4.

After a 20-month restoration, which had made it virtually inaccessible to visitors, Rome’s Trevi Fountain reopened on Nov. 3. The $2.33 million restoration included an extensive cleaning.

Marriott International announced on Nov. 16 that it will merge with Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. When complete, the merged company will operate more than 5,500 hotels around the globe, including the brands Sheraton and Ritz-Carlton, making it the world’s largest hotel chain.

In Myanmar, new rules for hot-air balloon flights over the site of Bagan, whose pagodas were built in the 9th to 13th centuries, began on Oct. 15.

Requiring that balloons remain at least 300 feet above Bagan and prohibiting them from landing within the grounds of the pagodas, the rules are meant to protect the ancient structures from being damaged. (No incidents have been reported.) 

There are more than 3,000 pagodas in the Bagan Archaeological Zone, the tallest of which, Thatbyinnyu, is 200 feet tall.

After giving Thailand’s Department of Civil Aviation 65 days from July 18, 2015, to correct national air service safety-standard issues, including a lack of qualified inspectors and improper testing procedures (Sept. ’15, pg. 2), the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) downgraded Thailand’s civil aviation authority from Category 1 to Category 2 on Dec. 2 after a 30-day review showed that standards had not been met. 

In a salt mine in a hill by the city of Turda, Romania, visitors can enjoy a 20-minute boat ride on an underground lake (RON10 [near $2.50]), a carnival wheel (RON5), mini-golf (RON10) and bowling (RON10).

The Salina Turda mine operated from 1075 until 1932. Using the same shaft that miners used, visitors take an elevator nearly 400 feet to the mine’s floor. An English-speaking guide may be booked in advance for RON50.