Destination: Europe
World Hum World Headlines
by Jim Benning | 12.05.06 | 8:30 PM ET
News shorts for curious travelers.
Egypt
Pharaohs’ Tombs Trump Village Homes
Reports the New York Times: “Bulldozers moved Saturday into an Egyptian village near the Valley of the Kings in pursuit of a long-delayed effort to allow archaeologists to begin studying a wealth of tombs in the area.” More than 100 houses have been cleared in the last week. Interesting. In Los Angeles, they’d more likely destroy historic tombs to build new houses.
USA
What’s your travel terror score?
Did you know you had one? “Almost every person entering and leaving the United States by air, sea or land is assessed based on [Automated Targeting System’s] analysis of their travel records and other data, including items such as where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered,” the Associated Press reports. Creepy.
Spain
Bona tarda or buenas tardes?
The Los Angeles Times explores the pitched battle over languages in Catalonia. “Some ATMs in Spain offer a choice of six languages, four of which are the Spaniards’ own.”
Japan
Ping, Ka-Ching, Ka-Boom!
Money raised from Japan’s pachinko habit just might be supporting North Korea’s nuclear program, the Los Angeles Times reports. “The machines rake in more than $200 billion a year, some of which finds its way to North Korea.” As a result, some players are souring on the game.
USA
Bright lights, big city, mucho vino
Novelist Jay McInerney has a great side gig: traveling the world to write about wine for Home & Garden. Now, a number of those columns have been collected in a new book, A Hedonist in the Cellar: Adventures in Wine. His interest in wine “started with literature, really—as with so many other things,” he says in San Diego Reader. Among the inspirational books: Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” and Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited.”
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Yahoo! BuzzOf Spilled Beer and Lederhosen: Recalling Oktoberfest
by Jim Benning | 12.04.06 | 7:46 AM ET
So October is but a distant memory. That doesn’t mean the annual bacchanal in Munich cannot still be celebrated. Thomas Swick of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel does just that in Sunday’s paper: “Remember this. The vast hall. The great din. The spilled beer. The smoky haze. The saccharine music. The pretzel vendors. The workhorse waitresses. The buttery smell of roasted chickens. The vendors of silly hats. The bodies squeezed onto benches that disappear into the distance and suggest a boarding school cafeteria of colossal scope and questionable fare. The strange feeling, as you drink engulfed by a human sea, of escape, of having departed the world of work, responsibility, sobriety.”
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Great Wall, Good Grief!
by Michael Yessis | 12.01.06 | 8:50 AM ET
Is the world falling apart? Travelers this week seem concerned that it is, as crumbling attractions in China, England and Cambodia have grabbed our attention. Don’t worry. A man in India has some duct tape, and if he can fix a plane with it, surely he could be handy with it elsewhere. Here’s your Zeitgeist.
Most Viewed Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
The Great Wall, Siem Reap, Stonehenge Getting Too Much Love
Most Blogged Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Saving the Great Wall From Being Loved to Death
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Ski Europe: The Best of the Alps
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (current)
Paris by Night
* A slow-loading but spectacular panorama of the City of Light.
No. 1 World Music Album
iTunes (current)
Loreena McKennitt’s An Ancient Muse
Most Dugg “Travel” Story
Digg (current)
Why Americans Should Never Be Allowed To Travel
* A collection of ridiculous things travel agents have heard from travelers. How ridiculous? This ridiculous: “I had someone ask for an aisle seats so that his or her hair wouldn’t get messed up by being near the window.”
Most Popular Travel Podcast
PodcastAlley (November)
808Talk: Hawaii’s Premier Podcast
Radiation Detected on Two British Airways Planes*
by Jim Benning | 11.29.06 | 2:26 PM ET
Yikes. From the Guardian Unlimited: “British Airways passengers were being sought tonight after traces of radiation were found on two aircraft as part of the investigation into the death of a Russian former spy. The airline said very low levels of radiation were found as part of the investigation into the death last Thursday of Alexander Litvinenko, whose body had traces of polonium 210, a lethal radioactive substance.” British Airways officials believe “the risk to public health is low.”
* Add: AP reports that officials “drew up plans to contact thousands of airplane passengers”; three planes have been grounded.
To Russia, With Actors
by Michael Yessis | 11.29.06 | 8:48 AM ET
Martha Plimpton, who plays Varenka Bakunin in The Coast of Utopia, prepared for her latest role by traveling with her fellow actors to Russia. Moscow and St. Petersburg, to be precise. “Rather than dive headlong into the icy waters of ‘Voyage,’ ‘Shipwreck’ and ‘Salvage,’ the three plays about revolutionary thinkers from 19th-century Russia which make up Tom Stoppard’s epic ... four of us decided it might be wise—not to mention unspeakably cool—to go to Mother Russia herself.” Plimpton joins the growing list of celebrity travel writers and recounts her week-long experience in New York’s Daily News. “Nothing is ‘easy’ in Russia,” she writes. “You don’t just ‘get a taxi’ at the airport, for example. You don’t just go ‘grocery shopping.’ But it’s through these seemingly irrelevant inconveniences one gets a feel for the place and for the culture shaping our characters.”
The Great Wall, Siem Reap, Stonehenge Getting Too Much Love
by Jim Benning | 11.27.06 | 9:14 AM ET
They’re not the only places in the world being overrun with tourists, of course, but their tourism woes have been highlighted in recent days by the New York Times, Associated Press and Los Angeles Times, respectively. The New York Times on Sunday focused on the Great Wall of China, which is suffering under the weight of an estimated 13 million visitors a year. “[T]he Great Wall is not just crumbling,” writes Jim Yardley. “It is disappearing. Roughly half of the estimated 4,000 miles of the wall built during the Ming Dynasty no longer exists, according to a recent report. It is also regularly being abused.” Among other problems, he writes, last year “the police broke up a huge dance party of Chinese ravers atop the wall a few hours’ drive outside Beijing.”
‘A Sense of the World’: Around the Globe With a Blind Man
by Liz Sinclair | 11.27.06 | 7:20 AM ET
Jason Roberts documents the life of James Holman, who became a prolific traveler in the 1800s after losing his sight. Liz Sinclair finds the man -- and the book -- compelling.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Beer, Bryson and the City of Brotherly Love
by Michael Yessis | 11.24.06 | 10:02 AM ET
The Zeitgeist has returned from a two-week hiatus spent mostly in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, and it finds travelers still loving Bill Bryson, still concerned about their airfare prices and wondering whether to order a Heineken, Grolsch or Amstel in Amsterdam. Let’s go.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
36 Hours: Philadelphia
Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (current)
How do airlines set their ticket prices?
* This Slate “explainer” unravels the mystery.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
U.S. to Require Passports for Nearly All Air Travelers
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson
* Two Three Six weeks in a row at the top for Bryson’s memoir of growing up in 1950s Iowa.
Top Travel and Adventure Audiobook
iTunes (current)
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
* Bryson hits the daily double with his classic about hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (current)
SideStep
Most Popular Travel Podcast
PodcastAlley (November)
808Talk: Hawaii’s Premier Podcast
Should I Pack My Kilt on My Trip to Asia?
by Rolf Potts | 11.22.06 | 7:24 AM ET
Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel
MTV, Like, Enters the Travel Guidebook Biz
by Jim Benning | 11.14.06 | 3:11 PM ET
The network has teamed with Frommer’s to produce guidebooks aimed at young budget travelers, according to an AP report. MTV Italy and MTV Ireland are the first books published in the series, with additional Europe titles due out over the next year. “The ‘best of’ recommendations in ‘MTV Italy’ include ‘most awesome ancient ruins’ like the Colosseum and Roman Forum, best seen, according to the guide, after dark when the floodlights come on,” the story reports. “Best churches, according to ‘MTV Italy,’ are St. Peter’s Basilica, the Duomo in Florence and St. Mark’s Basilica.” We’re all for any books that can inspire young Americans to head overseas for the first time. MTV guidebook readers will no doubt discover that Europe is packed with fly hostel-cribs, seriously awesome ruins and people as beautiful as those in Laguna Beach—I mean, on “Laguna Beach.”
Who Wears the Pants on Alitalia Flights?
by Jim Benning | 11.13.06 | 4:16 PM ET
Soon—for the first time ever—female flight attendants. From an AP report on USAToday.com: “Alitalia’s female flight attendants will be allowed to swap their traditional skirts for trousers, breaking with half a century of rigid dress code at Italy’s flagship carrier, a union said Thursday.”
Potts: “I Resolved to Explore the Louvre by Seeking Out Every Baby Jesus in the Building”
by Michael Yessis | 11.07.06 | 7:58 AM ET
“Silly as this may sound,” Rolf Potts writes in his latest Traveling Light column on Yahoo!, “it was a fascinating way to ponder the idiosyncrasies of world-class art.” And an alternative to the usual way of seeing the Louvre: making a beeline to the Mona Lisa.
Salt, Spain
by Ben Keene | 11.03.06 | 7:07 AM ET
Coordinates: 41 59 N 2 47 E
Population: 25,912 (2004 est.)
Salt has long been paired with pepper in dining rooms across the globe. On a map, however, their closeness is considerably lessened. The Spanish town of Salt is located in Gerona, the country’s easternmost province, along the Ter River. Situated on a fertile agricultural plain south of the Pyrenees Mountains and the French border, Salt is half a world away from its culinary counterpart. Pimienta, the Spanish word for “pepper,” is also located in a river valley—in Honduras, south of San Pedro Sula’s busy streets and the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.
“The Odyssey”: The Sir Ian McKellen Audio Version
by Frank Bures | 11.02.06 | 9:35 PM ET
Match the world-class thespian with the iconic travel tale, and Frank Bures believes you get one of the best readings ever recorded.
Help for the Wayward Underground Rider
by Ben Keene | 11.01.06 | 3:07 PM ET
As an atlas editor, I have a questionably healthy obsession with maps. As a traveler, I never go anywhere without one (and preferably two or three). Which is why I was particularly excited to learn that a British design company is now selling credit card-sized, stainless steel maps of the London Underground and the New York Subway. They strike me as the perfect accessory for a hip cartographer or really anyone wishing to be a less conspicuous tourist. Hopefully they’ll pave the way for similar maps for other cities with subterranean mass transit systems. Tokyo would be an excellent candidate—that is if it’s even possible to fit all of the subway lines and stops on a piece of metal measuring 85 millimeters across.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.