Tag Archives: Prague

the IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST 11.18.12

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Sahara Desert caravan

The Sahara Desert. Think you could survive here? | ©Simone Matteo Giuseppe Manzoni — Dreamstime.com

The good, the bad and the bizarre from the world’s best travel media

THE WORLD’S DRY PLACES
This edition of the IBIT Travel Digest is dedicated to my editor, P.A. Rice, whose name you’ll often see at the bottom of my blog posts. In addition to being a fine writer in her own right and a good friend of many years, she loves — I mean LOVES! — the desert.

Having been born in Louisiana and spent most of my life in coastal California, I’ve never been a desert person. Too much sand, too little shade, too many things that stick or bite you.

Oh, and did I mention that it’s usually hotter than all Hell? Unless, of course, it’s freezing cold.

But when she’s in the desert, she sees — or more accurately, feels — something different. Something profound. Something wondrous. And if you try looking at it through her eyes, you may start to see the desert in the same way.

It’s a land that makes you accept it on its own terms. But if you can do that, it will treat you to breathtaking sunrises and sunsets, night skies overflowing with stars and enough solitude to let you have meaningful conversations with your own soul.

I’ve seen sunlight and clouds combine over the Imperial Valley of California in ways that that I’ve seen nowhere else on Earth.

And as evidenced by this story in the London newspaper, The Guardian, she’s not alone in her appreciation of the world’s driest places.

The article lists incredible deserts all over the world — and tours to let you explore them. Deserts in Arizona, North Africa, Mongolia, and countries you may not even think of in terms of deserts.

Like Spain.

Don’t worry…it’s a DRY heat.

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LOW-FARE AIR TO AFRICA
easyJet is Britain’s largest airline and one of the principal low-fare airlines in Europe. It’s orange-and-white Airbus A319s and A320s are a common slight all over the continent.

Now, according to The Guardian, easyJet’s Greek founder is bringing the low-fare airline concept to the Mother Continent.

Fastjet has taken off, literally, in Tanzania.

The implications of this are huge. Africa is one of the largest and most populous of all the world’s continents — and also by far the one most under-served by the world’s airlines.

If Fastjet succeeds, spreads and inspires the rise of competitors, it could revolutionize African air travel.

Stay tuned.

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HIGH-STYLE HIGHWAY STOPS
If it’s been awhile since you took a cross-country road trip — and at today’s gasoline prices, who could blame you? — you will be forgiven if you go slack-jawed when you see what’s happening to highway rest stops these days.

I got my own inkling of that a couple of weeks ago on Interstate 5 in Southern California, heading back to San Diego.

There’s long been a rest stop overlooking the coast within the boundaries of the Camp Pendleton Marine Base, but I hadn’t stopped there in years. Small, nondescript, nothing special.

My, how things have changed. Two buildings are now three. Multiple large, clean restrooms, snack and soft-drink vending machines that actually work. And I didn’t check, but it might even have wifi now.

But as you’ll see in this Washington Post travel story, that’s nothing.

America’s rest stops are going upscale, so much so that some are on the verge of becoming destinations themselves. Check it out.

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AND FINALLY…
And as long as we’re toying with the idea of hitting the road again, the financial magazine Kiplinger offers up this list of its 10 cheapest American cities for a good vacation.

The first thing you’ll notice about this list is that only two of its top 10 cities are anywhere west of the Mississippi River. One of them is Phoenix, AZ.

Desert. It figures.

But that’s not as amazing as the city that appears at the top of the Kiplinger list, the Number 1 destination for a cheap American vacation.

Drum roll, please…Riverside, CA.

When I first saw this, my initial reaction was “really?” Then I recalled my several drives through Riverside with my family enroute to and from family visits in Texas and Louisiana, not to mention my stops there on the train.

After thinking it all over, my reconsidered thought was…REALLY???

If you think you can make a compelling case that the Kiplinger folks are right, drop me a comment here on the blog or send an email to greg@imblacknitravel.com. I’m willing to be persuaded.

Just be prepared to work at it.

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And now, here’s the Digest:

AIR
from Travel Weekly
American Airlines adds service to Europe, Asia and Latin America from its hubs in Dallas and Chicago. The flights themselves don’t begin til next year, but you can start booking them now.

from the Huffington Post
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but what about the skies of the beholder? Would you fly in airplanes as ugly as these? SLIDESHOW

from CNN
The A350-AXWB is the lightweight, long-range airline that Airbus intends to compete with Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner. Will it catch on with the world’s airlines…and more importantly, their passengers?

LAND
from The Daily Beast
Where to find some of the world’s tastiest cheap eats. No surprise, most of them are in Asia.

from AARP
Airline etiquette — how to deal with rude passengers in-flight.

from USA Today
Is a steady regimen of business travel hazardous to your health?

SEA
from USA Today
NCL joins rival Carnival in selling all-you-can-drink packages aboard its cruise ships.

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AFRICA
from allAfrica.com
British travelers vote their favorite city in the world. New York? Toronto? Paris? Surprise…it’s Capetown, South Africa.

from the Daily Observer (Gambia) via allAfrica.com
For foreign tourists, visiting the Gambia often means getting bum-rushed by “bumsters.” Mostly, they’re just a nuisance, but they can be a BIG nuisance.

from allAfrica.com
An unlikely alliance of US environmentalists, herdsmen from Somalia and financiers from China is joining forces in Kenya to save the rarest antelope in Africa. The hirola is closer to extinction than giant pandas, mountain gorillas or rhinos…and cannot survive in zoos.

from CNN
How to survive in the Sahara with the world’s original desert survival experts, the Tuareg.

AMERICAS
from the New York Times
Atlantic City refuses to bow down to Superstorm Sandy.

from Travel Weekly
And speaking of Sandy, resorts in the Caribbean are still reeling from its impact, these days in the form of widespread cancellations from US travelers. Good time to swoop in and negotiate a bargain, perhaps?

from the New York Times
Seth Kugel loves São Paulo. He wants you to love it, too. WARNING: You may have to work at it.

from the Washington Post
Have a thing for ghost towns? Then check out a pair of abandoned mining towns in Chile. SLIDESHOW

from the Huffington Post
For all the gloom-and-doom talk in the mainstream media about the demise of American manufacturing, there are a lot of local factories still making their own products — and making money doing it. Some of them will let you come in and watch. SLIDESHOW

ASIA/PACIFIC
from The Guardian (London UK)
Want to see where The Hobbit lives…at least on film? Head for New Zealand. “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” hits theaters next month. Check out the incredibly beautiful land where it was shot.

from CNN
The Hello Kitty restaurant in Beijing. The pink ambiance will make you smile. The food will not.

EUROPE
from Travel Weekly
Greece is pining for more US tourists.

from The Guardian (London UK)
Some of the lesser known but no less worthy attractions of St. Petersburg, Russia.

from the New York Times
The Prague that hides in plain sight.

from the Washington Post
Here in the States, writers joke about tree-hugging hippies who think they can sing their way to revolution and freeom. In the scenic Baltic republic of Estonia, the people there actually did.

EXCLUSIVE: Pauline Frommer

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Pauline Frommer recently sat down with IBIT in Long Beach for an exclusive, brief but wide-ranging interview. Her father, the famed Arthur Frommer, will be at the Los Angeles Times Travel Show this weekend:

Q. With this being an Olympic year in London, would this be a good year to bypass Western Europe altogether?
A. No, absolutely not. Europe has positives and negatives in terms of its affordability.

The positives are that a lot of it’s in crisis. As you probably know, the debt of a lot of Europe was just downgraded by Standard & Poor, which is going to make it much harder for them to borrow and will really hurt their business travel. So you go to cities like Barcelona, Madrid, Athens and other parts of the so-called PIGS nations, which are Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain — the ones that have the most severe crises — and you can stay much less expensively in these recently expensive businessmen hotels than you could before. So there are good deals to be had because of Europe’s financial crises.

There are also, unfortunately, more expenses. Because Europe has just imposed a carbon tax on airfares, airfare to Europe is about to get more expensive. And there also are a lot of little local taxes where governments in desperate need of money are adding on that can badly impact the traveler, so it’s a mixed picture.

To give one example, I was in Northern Ireland this summer and in Ireland, and it was much less expensive than it was five years ago because of their deep recession. Food was less expensive, lodging was less expensive. Overall, it was a cheaper vacation. So I say don’t write off Europe, just do it in a savvy way.

Prague is as expensive as any Western European city because it’s Prague and it’s so, so popular. However, if you go out into Bohemia, if you go into the little towns that make up the Czech Republic, prices drop in half. You’re greeted with open arms. They’re glad to see you because they don’t get that many tourists. And these are often well-preserved medieval enclaves that simply don’t get the tourism they deserve.

Q. What about Turkey?
A. Turkey has seen a hug uptick in the amount of its tourism in the last year, mostly because of (the) Arab Spring. People who used to go to Egypt are going to Turkey. But Turkey can be done affordably and it’s an incredible place to go, with wonderful food, welcoming people.

The only danger is that you’re going to buy a rug. Even if you didn’t expect to buy a rug, you’re going to buy a rug. It’s nearly impossible not to. We have a Turkish rug, which I deeply regret…but it was fun buying it.

Q. Do you ever have trouble getting Americans to grasp the idea that Turkey is actually a part of Europe?
A. Yes. Actually, it’s on the border. It’s half–European and half–Arab. It’s always been the gateway between those two cultures. The culture there is so rich and vibrant. They want to be more a part of Europe.

My daughter goes to a day camp in New York City and one of her best friends there is a Turkish girl whose mother brings her to the US every summer because she was born in the US and she wants to make sure she speaks English. According to this woman, the fundamentalists are taking over in Turkey in terms of who’s getting elected to local governments and the larger government, and she’s very, very worried that Turkey’s taking more of a hard line away from Europe more toward fundamentalist Islamic culture. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be welcoming or wonderful for Americans to go to.

Q. Egypt was one of the first countries caught up in the Arab Spring. Is it now a viable tourist destination again?
A. Egypt is a tough one. Egypt, as we all know, had this extraordinary uprising, where a terrible dictator was finally removed. Unfortunately, it looks like it might’ve been a soft coup by the military and you are having major disruptions and violent occurrences in Tahrir Square, and unfortunately, Tahrir Square is right near the Khan-al Khalili bazaar, right near the Egyptian Museum…it’s the area that tourists are lodged in and go to. On a personal level, I would not go right now. I just think the safety situation is not stable enough. It’s a tinderbox, unfortunately. And it’s a tragedy because one in 10 Egyptians works in the tourist industry. Without that income, the society is going to be destabilized even further.

And it’s a place where you should go, because it’s an extraordinary country to see, the cradle of civilization. But right now, I would not feel uncomfortable recommending that people go.

Q. Are there any destinations in that part of the world you feel comfortable recommending?
A. Israel is amazing. People don’t think of it as being a bucket-list destination, but it should be. To see the places where Mohammad built his mosque, where Jesus walked his last steps, where for centuries Jews have prayed at the Wailing Wall. As a destination, it tells you more about what it means to be a human being than most other places in the world. Just the issues that they’re dealing with and the history there and the richness of the culture. It’s just extraordinary. You’ve got to go.

Q. China seems to be an impossibly cheap destination these days. How are they pulling that off?
A. They can offer such incredible deals because the Chinese currency is so devalued. It really is extraordinary what you get for what you pay.

Q. Panama seems to be turning up increasingly on the travel radar. Why is that?
A. Panama has been very, very smart. They have really raised their profile in the last couple of years. They have that wonderful musician who (was) their minister of tourism (Rubén Blades, 2004-09). He has become the face of Panama. And they are really competing with Costa Rica because they’re cheaper than Costa Rica but they have the same they have that the same natural wonders and they have something Costa Rica doesn’t have, which is the Panama Canal, one of the greatest engineering feats of the 20th century.

My father went and spent a week in Panama City and absolutely loved it. A lot of Americans are retiring there, too. But he thought that just in terms of value for the money, just extraordinary. And the diversity of the cultures, because you have a lots of indigenous peoples there, living in very traditional ways. And you can visit them and see that. You also have extraordinary nature sites, beaches.  I think it’s going to give Costa Rica a real run for the money, if it isn’t already. And it’s safe.

Q. Asia is really pushing hard in the international tourism market, and it looks now as if there’s a new player entering the game: Myanmar.
A. Oh yes, yes. That’s very exciting. I’ve never been because I wouldn’t. Aung San Suu Kyi said don’t come, that it would just feed this horrific regime. And I didn’t want to; I couldn’t in good conscience. But they seem to be making some really good decisions and taking some baby steps toward democracy. Yeah I really want to go, it’s supposed to be extraordinary — colonial cities beautifully preserved, these extraordinary temples, the jungles, pristine beaches, and not that many tourists. (Secretary of State) Hilary (Clinton) just went there.

Edited by P.A. Rice

Beer travel, Part 2

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Part 1 of this two-part series looked at beer and brewery tours as a travel theme within the United States. Part 2 concludes with a taste of beer travel around the world.

You can easily spend all your vacations in breweries and brewpubs at home. Eventually, though, your tastebuds may develop some serious wanderlust.

You find yourself sampling imported beers, just to see if they’re worth all the hype. By and by, you start to wonder what these international brews taste like at the source.

There’s only one way to find out. Time to dig out that passport. Beer is as good a reason as any to see, and taste, the world.

That’s especially true if you decide to delve into the origins of beer, which dates back to ancient Iraq and a good six millenia before the birth of Christ.

Every region seems to produce some good beers. Continental Europe is all but saturated with them, but you’ll find worthy brews in the Americas, Asia, Australia and Africa.

(“Africa?” you say. A cold Tusker Lager on a hot summer day will answer your question.)

All brewery tours are not created equal. In addition to those prized free samples, some offer knowledge, in everything from how to properly pour a beer to hands-on steps in the beer-making process itself.

And when it comes to breweries, you’ve got more destination choices than vacation days. A lot more.

GERMANY
The country that gave us Oktoberfest (see the pic above) has more than 1,300 breweries, half of them in Bavaria. Together, they crank out a dizzying 5,000 different brands in 23 different varieties…at least.

The Bavarian city of Bamberg in southern Germany supposedly has the largest concentration of working breweries in the world, so you might want to start there.

(Another reason for visiting Bamberg is to get a feel for what a German city was like prior to World War 2; it was one of the few that Allied bombers left alone.)

Or you might want to check out the Benedictine abbey at Weihenstephan, which has been making the stuff since 1040.

And yet, all those breweries and Oktoberfest notwithstanding, Germany is neither the largest maker nor the biggest consumer of beer. They’re third, behind Ireland.

So who’s Number One? An Eastern European country that not only produces some of the world’s best beers, but also happens to be very high on the tourism radar these days.

CZECH REPUBLIC
Since the end of the Cold War, Prague has become one of the hot new travel destinations in Eastern Europe, and that’s exposed a lot of Americans to some incredible Czech beers.

After all, these are the folks who invented pilsner, the light, golden beer most familiar to Americans. That’s a good reason to visit the town of Plzeň.

We know it better by its Germanic spelling: Pilsen.

JAPAN
The first non-American beer I ever tried was Kirin. It was first brewed, and still is, in Yokohama.

Yokohama is where where Americans introduced beer and brewing to Japan back in 1870. It’s also the place where America’s Adm. Matthew Perry sailed into the harbor with a fleet and opened Japan to the Western world — more or less at gunpoint.

Other brands that brew beer throughout the country and do brewery tours include Asahi, Orion, Sapporo and Suntory.

In Japan, you may literally get a chance to double-dip, since beer is not the only alcoholic beverage brewed there. Sake, Japan’s deceptively potent rice liquor, also is the product of breweries, which also conduct tours. Far too many to list here.

IRELAND
The grand-daddy of brewery tours doesn’t even take you into the brewery itself, but that doesn’t stop beer lovers from flocking to with near-religious fervor.

The Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, Ireland is a slick multimedia presentation on the makings of Guinness Stout. that, when I was last there, included a man-made waterfall and a walk through a real, and enormous, beer cask. It also features a spacious bar that serves up not only your one free Guinness, but a 180-degree view of the Dublin skyline and maybe the best beef stew you’ll ever have.

Made with Guinness.

Whether in a bar or a brewery, if you’re new to international travel, there’s something comforting about being around beer. It’s familiar. Language, scenery and brewing methods all may vary from one place to another, but beer is beer, pretty much, wherever you are.

Comfort zone in a glass.

Some of these breweries will be in the heart of great cities, others in small towns, or abbeys in the countryside. The mere act of traveling to reach them can give you an ample slice of life to go along with your beer sample.

You do remember where you stashed that passport, right?

WHAT’S IN A NAME?
If you really want to have some fun, you’ve got to hit the brewery in the Czech town of České Budějovice. The name doesn;t ring any bells with most Americans, until you hear its German version: Budweis.

Where they’ve been brewing beer since the 12th century, which they call…

…wait for it…

Budweiser.

August Busch hit St. Louis a few centuries later and started brewing his own Budweiser over here in 1876. A-B and the Czechs have been battling in court over the use of this name ever since.

I’m not even going to try to unravel this mess. If you’re curious about all the legal back-and-forth, read it here.

Bottom line: the Czechs get to use the Budweiser name over there, A-B gets to keep it over here. A-B also cut a deal with the Czechs to market their “Bud” here in the States, under the name Czechvar.

So if you ever comes across one, you’ll know you’re drinking the original Budweiser from “the old country.”

So which do you think is better, the Czech “Bud” or ours?

Find that passport!

Lights, camera…travel!

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If you’re a movie buff, travel adds a whole new dimension to watching flims.

It happens in an instant. You’re watching a movie, maybe at a theater, maybe in your house. A wounded spy walks through the neon-lit night on the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin. Bored teenagers lean on the wooden railing that leads into a covered bridge in Pennsylvania. An aging actor walks with his much younger girlfriend through Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo, the world’s busiest intersection.

In that moment, you forget all about the actors, the plot, whether it’s a great movie or just barely watchable. The scene becomes the star. And if you happen to be in a theater, you may have to restrain yourself from jumping out of your seat, pointing wildly at the screen and shouting:

“I know that place! I’ve been there!”

Another advantage to watching movies at home. No need to restrain yourself.

Suddenly, you’re barely paying attention to the flick. Your mind is racing back to your moment in that spot, your days in that country. If you’re watching at home, you and your travel companion can reminisce it aloud. The memories come flooding back.

There’s something about having been there yourself that alters the film-watching experience. Others who see that same movie with you don’t see it, can’t see it, will never see it quite the same way that you do — not, at least, until they visit that place themselves.

It’s one of the gifts that travel keeps on giving, long after you’ve worn out the souvenir T-shirt.

it’s one of the reasons I’ve fallen in love with the whole “Bourne” series of films. You know..”The Bourne Identity”…The Bourne Ultimatum”…”The Bourne Supremacy”…”The Bourne of Desperation”…”The…oh, wait, never mind!

Even if you saw it a dozen times on televised reruns before visiting the place where it was shot, that 13th viewing — after having trod that same ground yourself — brings with it a whole new perspective. And it applies equally to feature films and documentaries, even TV series.

Escapism is so much easier to get into when you’ve “been there” for real.

An added bonus: When filmmakers use one location to substitute for another, you know it.

“Wait a minute! That’s not Los Angeles, that’s Oakland! That’s not Paris, that’s Prague! That’s not Milan, that’s Berlin…no, wait…now it’s Los Angeles!”

There’s something perversely gratifying about being able to do that.

So the next time you’re thinking about taking a vacation but can’t decide where to go, make a list of your ten all-time favorite movies. Then think back to the last ten films you saw, good or bad. Between those two lists, I’m betting you can come up with some locations you’d love to see for yourself one day.

Then go see them. Your nights out at the movies will be all the better for it.

As for me, I don’t watch foreign films for entertainment anymore. I’m scouting travel destinations!

PARIS: Don’t Ask Why

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Paris is the world’s most visited city. Think you know why? I sure don’t!

Arc de Triomphe, Paris

Arc de Triomphe, Paris

Back in the 1960s, a young British rock band called The Who cut a single whose title succinctly captures my feelings about Paris:

“I Can’t Explain.”

I can tell you in three different languages that I love Paris, adore Paris, would gladly live and die in Paris. I just can’t tell you why.

There are lots of places in the world that you can enjoy, delight in, have a ball in, but your soul doesn’t necessarily connect with them. That happens in very few places and there’s no telling where or when. For some, it might be at the top of a mountain in the Alps or at the foot of a towering waterfall in Hawaii. It might be in a shady park lane in Buenos Aires, atop a sand dune overlooking an Egyptian pyramid or in a village clinic in Burkina Faso.

And for millions of travelers around the world — including this one — it’s Paris.

Eiffel Tower from the 7th arrondissement, Paris

Eiffel Tower from the 7th arrondissement, Paris

But why?

Is Paris beautiful? No question, but that hardly makes it unique among travel destinations.

Is it crammed with history and culture? Absolutely, but you can say the same of London, Madrid, Prague, Rome, Florence, Moscow — or for that matter, Washington DC.

Is it alive with youthful energy, music, great food, passion, creativity, romance? Without a doubt, but so are Amsterdam, Barcelona and San Francisco.

And yes, the Seine is lovely and charming as it wends through the various districts, but come on. Paris is hardly the only city in the world with a river running through it.

In sum, there are dozens of world-class cities that can justly lay claim to one or more of every winsome attribute that has made writers wax poetic about Paris for centuries.

And yet not one of those other cities evokes the same reaction as you get when you hear the name “Paris.”

So what is it about this town?

Are the French tourism people pumping some sort of mind-control drug into the air conditioning system at Charles de Gaulle airport? Are Parisians just better at public relations than all the rest? Is the City of Light the absolute master of urban hype? Or is there really some sort of magic to this place that captures souls like fireflies in a child’s jar?

Like the song says, I can’t explain.

Have you ever unexpectedly fallen head over heels for someone? No fireworks, lightning bolts or moonbeams. It just built up gradually, gently, until the day you woke up and realized that your heart had been quietly run over by a velvet freight train. You never saw it coming. You’re not even sure how it happened. All you knew was that someone or something had taken possession of your heart and soul, and was not about to give either of them back.

The Champs Elysee as seen from inside a shopping colonnade, Paris

The Champs Elysee as seen from inside a shopping colonnade, Paris

Paris is like that.

In a lot of ways, the place is impractical as a city. Its districts are laid out like the coils of a snail’s shell and divided by the river Seine. Its stubborn resistance to high-rise buildings keeps it chronically short of housing. The map of its subway system looks like a web spun by a spider on a bad acid trip.

And absolutely none of that matters.

The only thing you know for certain about this city is how you feel when you’re walking its tree-lined boulevards, sitting in one of its cafes or waking up in the morning and throwing open your curtains to see the Eiffel Tower looming above the rows of gabled roofs.

One other thing: Paris has a sizable population of expatriate African-Americans, including the descendants of soldiers, writers, artists and musicians whose souls have been finding refuge here since early in the 20th century.

A lot of them might tell you it’s a feeling of emotional security here, that the racism they left behind in America doesn’t follow them here. And for them, I have no doubt that that’s true.

But I don’t think that’s it.

There’s something else at work here, something deeper and even more fundamental, something that would touch anyone of any race or background.

Will you feel that same thing when you come to Paris? The smart money says yes, but there’s only one way to find out.

You know what you have to do.