Tag: History Travel
20 Reasons for Tourist Gratitude
by Eva Holland | 08.17.09 | 11:14 AM ET
Fed up with flight delays? Hotel wi-fi cutting out? Take a deep breath and check out the Telegraph’s list of 20 reasons why Victorian travelers had it worse. Among the highlights: rickety stagecoaches, damp sheets, and the “Inodorous Standard Pail” offered in lieu of a toilet. There. Feel better now?
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Yahoo! BuzzMuseums and the Hunt for ‘Real Culture’ on the Road
by Eva Holland | 08.14.09 | 11:01 AM ET
In a recent post over at BootsnAll, Roger Wade explains why he believes museums are overrated. “If you think about it, with only a few exceptions, museums are all history museums one way or another,” he writes.
The most famous ones display stationary art that only the elite classes could ever hope to own or even see. Sure, some of them tell the stories of what life was really like at the time, but many of them are idealized versions or nothing like reality at all ... History certainly has its place, but when you visit Madrid today might it not be more interesting to see some intricacies of modern big city Spanish life than what a lone artist a few hundred years ago was thinking?
Later, after offering some museum alternatives—grocery stores and the like—he adds: “You’ll learn far more about their real culture of today in a place like this than you would at the famous museum…”
Now, I’m a big fan of foreign supermarkets. But I’m also a bona fide history geek, and as such I’m worried about what seems to be an increasingly popular theme in travel advice these days: the idea that museums, and history more generally, are somehow distinct or cut off from a destination’s true culture. Does anyone really think that a visit to the Terror House won’t improve their understanding of post-Soviet Budapest? Or that the Transit Museum doesn’t shed some light on the way New Yorkers live? And I know, I know, we’ve all had Madonna-and-Child art gallery overload at some point—but trying to understand the Catholic world without taking a look at its most powerful iconography seems crazy to me.
Go ahead, call me a geek, but I’ll balance out a good people-watching session with some museum time any day. And I just don’t see how the one is more “real” than the other.
A Resuscitated Keats House Reopens
by Eva Holland | 08.06.09 | 3:59 PM ET
The Hampstead house where John Keats wrote “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and spent some of his final, tubercular days has reopened to the public after a two-year, $700,000 restoration. This Wall Street Journal story has some nice details about the house, and about Keats’ own literary pilgrimage to the one-time home of Robbie Burns.
In Search of Franklin in the Arctic—Again
by Eva Holland | 07.16.09 | 11:38 AM ET
An Alberta archaeologist is headed to Canada’s far north this fall in search of the lost Franklin expedition. Rob Rondeau’s team is just the latest in a 160-year stream of hunters for the two ships, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, that vanished with their crews while seeking the North West Passage in 1845—but this time, Rondeau plans to search in a different area than most. An Inuit resident of Taloyoak, Nunavut, where the search will begin, told the Globe and Mail that the new expedition will be only the second to go Franklin-hunting in the area.
Interview with David Farley: ‘An Irreverent Curiosity’
by Jim Benning | 07.09.09 | 10:30 AM ET
The World Hum contributor's new book illuminates a bizarre mystery in an Italian village. Jim Benning learns more.
The Rise of Silk Road Tourism in Uzbekistan
by Eva Holland | 07.07.09 | 11:52 AM ET
In the Wall Street Journal, Patrick Barta takes a look at the emerging tourism scene in Uzbekistan’s three great Silk Road cities, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva, and what the long-ignored country is doing to adapt to the new visitors. The accompanying slideshow has me sold—Uzbekistan is officially on my list.
On the Perils of Travel Writing
by David Farley | 07.06.09 | 11:47 AM ET
Photo by David Farley David Farley broke into the New York Times with a story about an eccentric Italian village. When he returned, he feared being chased out by torch-bearing villagers.
Meet Two Roadside A-Kitschianados
by Sophia Dembling | 06.25.09 | 10:33 AM ET
Photo courtesy of Vintage Roadside OK, all my kitsch-lovin’ friends, here’s a site for you.
Vintage Roadside sells T-shirts and advertising images of just the kind of kooky roadside kitsch we love so much. Not only is the stuff super fun, but a portion of all Vintage Roadside sales are donated to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Check-in Time at Northern Ireland’s Oldest Prison
by Eva Holland | 06.23.09 | 2:48 PM ET
The Armagh Jail, a 230-year-old prison that served as a women’s detention center during Northern Ireland’s Troubles, will be converted into a luxury hotel, the Independent reports. The City Council will retain ownership of the site, and the developers who’ve leased it have apparently committed to maintaining its historical integrity during the renovations. Said one ex-inmate: “I just hope the food is better there now.”
Armagh may not be the only prison with turn-down service in its future, either. The story notes that The Maze—the infamous Troubles-era prison where 10 hunger-strikers died in the 1980s—is up for redevelopment, too.
Ten Inspirational Women Travelers
by Julia Ross | 06.18.09 | 10:13 AM ET
Julia Ross celebrates women who have blazed their own trails
Battle Over the Elgin Marbles Rages On
by Eva Holland | 06.16.09 | 1:08 PM ET
We blogged about one writer’s sneak peek at the New Acropolis Museum last summer, and now opening day has finally arrived—predictably, not without controversy.
The museum was designed both to pressure Britain for the return of the Elgin Marbles, and to provide a worthy home for them after their (eventual, theoretical) return. With that context in mind, it’s no surprise that Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the director of the British Museum—where the marbles are currently held—have all declined invitations to the grand opening on Saturday.
65 Years Later: Robert Capa and D-Day on Film
by Eva Holland | 06.05.09 | 11:44 AM ET
Tomorrow marks the 65th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy, an assault that is widely viewed as one of the key turning points in the Second World War. President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and Canadian and British Prime Ministers Stephen Harper and Gordon Brown will be converging on the area for an official ceremony this weekend, following in the footsteps of thousands of tourists who visit the beaches each year.
The event has me thinking about the enduring appeal of the D-Day beaches—after all, Europe has no shortage of battlefields and war monuments, but few are as well-known to Americans as Omaha Beach (or, for Canadians, Juno Beach). It seems to me that their historical significance alone doesn’t explain it. The beaches, I think, have such a powerful presence in the public consciousness thanks in part to a few iconic photographs by Robert Capa.
Brother Bertram, Photojournalist
by Pam Mandel | 06.02.09 | 1:08 PM ET
Image courtesy of Lyman Museum. I’m a sucker for Hawaii’s unreachable past, a somewhat imaginary time when there really was a little grass shack in Kaleakakua to go back to. So I’m pretty excited about the photography show that’s running at the Lyman Museum in Hilo.
St. Petersburg, Russia
by World Hum | 05.27.09 | 10:08 AM ET
REUTERS/Alexander Demianchuk Visitors to the Hermitage Museum look at portraits of generals from Russia's 1812 campaign against Napoleon's army
Alexandria, Egypt
by World Hum | 05.21.09 | 12:10 PM ET
REUTERS/Tarek Mostafa Visitors check out the rare books displayed in the Alexandria Library, home to more than 3000 rare manuscripts, books and maps
Travel Movie Watch: ‘Homage to Catalonia’
by Eva Holland | 05.20.09 | 10:53 AM ET
More than 70 years after its initial publication, George Orwell’s Spanish Civil War memoir is hitting the big screen.
Hugh Hudson, best known for “Chariots of Fire” and “I Dreamed of Africa,” will direct, while Colin Firth and Kevin Spacey have already signed on to star—the media coverage of the news doesn’t offer anything definite, but it looks as though Firth will play Orwell, and Spacey will take on the role of Georges Kopp, Orwell’s POUM commander.
Ka’iulani: the Activist Princess
by Pam Mandel | 05.11.09 | 2:05 PM ET
The Hawaiian Hall at the Bishop Museum is still closed for renovations (we got a sneak peak on our visit—it’s going to be stunning when it opens in August) so there is only a limited amount of Hawaiian artifacts currently on view. The Kāhili Room at the museum is open, though—it’s in a different building—and it displays portraits of the Hawaiian monarchy and their feathered standards. These torch-like staffs were carried in front of royalty to visually announce their arrival.
Two of the portraits really stuck with me: the photo of Princess Ruth, a frowning, broad woman contained in severe Victorian dress, and the portrait of Princess Ka’iulani, also in Victorian attire but looking less awkward. Princess Ka’iulani cemented her place in the hearts of Native Hawaiians by traveling to the mainland to plead with Congress and two US Presidents for the restoration of the Hawaiian monarchy.
Blenheim Palace, England
by World Hum | 05.04.09 | 11:14 AM ET
REUTERS/Eddie Keogh An actor dressed as a knight takes part in an re-enactment of a jousting tournament at Blenheim Palace. The event is to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the ascendance of King Henry VIII to the throne.
Wanted: Books From North of the 60th Parallel
by Eva Holland | 04.29.09 | 3:07 PM ET
Growing up, I was fascinated by the idea of the Arctic. I can remember trying out some of the strange place names of the North—Whitehorse and Yellowknife, Great Slave Lake, Tuktoyaktuk—and reading Jack London or reciting The Cremation of Sam McGee in school.
Now, finally, I’m headed “north of 60” (that is, beyond the 60th parallel that divides Canada’s provinces from our northern territories) to spend part of the summer in the Yukon, and it occurs to me: I know almost nothing about the North in the present day.
Eating Penguin with Ernest Shackleton in Scotland
by David Farley | 04.09.09 | 1:02 PM ET
In March 1901, the RRS Discovery set sail from Dundee, Scotland, its crew pointing it toward largely unexplored Antarctica. The ship was a wooden three-masted sailing vessel and, as it turned out, the last of its kind to be made in Britain.
But that’s not exactly what makes the RRS Discovery significant. Ten months later, the crew members definitively found what they were looking for. In fact, the ship was stuck, frozen in ice, leaving captains Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott with no choice but to wait it out until the spring when the ice would thaw. The next few months were harrowing ones, the crew eventually having to munch on seal liver and roasted penguin (described as tasting like “leather steeped in turpentine”).