Photo of the Day (12.5.10)

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Statues are boring. Whether its some bronzed general ensconced on a horse, or an ironclad explorer gazing off to the horizon, many statues repeat the same themes endlessly and needlessly. But today’s statue-themed photo, courtesy of Photo of the Day regular jrodmanjr, is fantastically beautiful. It’s not just the statue subject matter mind you, but the way the photo plays with light and dark. The little wispy strands of clouds, the angular power wires criss-crossing the frame and the silhouetted stallion all combine to create a wonderful, luminous visual interplay.

Have any terriffic travel photos you’d like to share with the world? Why not add them to our Gadling group on Flickr? We might just pick one of yours as our Photo of the Day.

UNESCO studies Pompeii troubles

by Sean McLachlan on


A UNESCO team has arrived at Pompeii to investigate the recent collapses of ancient walls and buildings, All Headline News reports.

Two Roman walls collapsed earlier this week, and in November the House of Gladiators fell down. Authorities blame heavy rains but there’s a growing controversy over the lack of maintenance at the site.

The Roman city was buried in ash during an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. The ash kept the city remarkably preserved, making it one of the world’s top archaeological treasures.

The team will study the site and give suggestions as to how to preserve it, but the investigators have made clear that it is Italy’s responsibility to do the work. The Italian government has created a task force of archaeologists, craftsmen, and architects to shore up the walls and buildings. Considering that the last conservation project at Pompeii is under investigation for mob connections, it remains to be seen how effective this new task force will be.

[Photo courtesy user Alago via Wikimedia Commons]

Photo of the day (12.3.10)

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Winter might not officially be with us until late December here in the northern hemisphere, but it certainly feels as if winter hibernation has already begun in many locales. This hazy shot of a Ryanair plane at the UK’s East Midlands airport, snapped by Flickr user u07ch, encapsulates the spirit of a blurry-eyed winter morning before the morning’s most essential things have transpired, things like caffeine refueling and plane de-icing.

Got a good image that sums up whatever seasonal moment you’re currently experiencing? Yeah? Great! Upload it to the Gadling Flickr pool. If you’re lucky, we’ll select your image to be a future Photo of the Day.

Lufthansa adds Cloudstream and internet content to long haul flights

by Grant Martin on

Up until late this year, internet access has been a privilege served only to those flying on domestic carriers — the signal delivered on most of those flights is provided by land-based mobile phone towers. Those flying overseas, conversely, were doomed to their overhead video projectors and DIY in-flight entertainment.

With satellite communication, however, several carriers are now starting to offer wireless internet onboard trans oceanic flights. Among those serving the US, Lufthansa will be the first to bring service to hungry internet browsers, starting on service from New York, Detroit and Atlanta into Frankfurt.

The service, which will be delivered over a wireless signal, should be “fast enough to connect to a VPN and send large attachments,” though the airline has provided few hard metrics on exactly how much bandwidth each passenger will receive.

Lufthansa is further augmenting their onnboard internet with a new service called Cloudstream, where passengers will be able to pick out assorted content prior to departure, cache interesting links into a virtual folder and browse the content while onboard. They’ve even asked a few local travel folks for interesting, inspirational links.

To get the service rolling, internet will be offered for free on all wireless equipped flights through the end of January.

Budget Travel Tips for Europe

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Practical, how-to budget travel advice is indispensible. There’s something particularly valuable about travel advice that opposes the emphasis on expensive hotels and other forms of high-end consumption that characterizes the contemporary travel media, perhaps especially in regions like Europe where costs are generally quite high.

Budget-friendly travel in Europe is no impossible dream, and the following sites are good for inspiring shoestring feats, assessing likely costs, and, above all else, disproving the idea that you have to spend hundreds of dollars a day to see Europe well. For some ideas about where to travel affordably in Europe, check out last week’s ten budget-friendly European destinations post.

1. Less Than a Shoestring. Though no longer publishing on a regular basis, the archives of this blog are astoundingly helpful in their low-budget audacity. Particularly useful for anyone scared off at the thought of Europe’s cost index are the blog’s “Baring my Budget” posts, which run through budgets for various short trips in great detail: three nights in Malta for €50 (currently $66); five days in London for £85 (currently $133); four nights in Venice for €91 (currently $120), all departing from Berlin. Costs breakdowns are provided in these “Baring my Budget” posts, as are the freebies encountered along the way. The mention of freebies is particularly helpful, as it reveals how often tourist information, maps, museum admission, and various cultural performances can be accessed free of charge. Though this series ran over two years ago, it is still very relevant.

2. EuroCheapo. Disclosure: I worked as an editor at EuroCheapo for almost three years and continue to do occasional freelance projects for the site. Phew. Glad I got that out of the way. Personal loyalty aside, EuroCheapo really is an enormously helpful resource. It is first and foremost as a hotel review site with useful descriptions of hotels written by trained hotel reviewers. EuroCheapo also edits a great blog full of essential budget-oriented tips penned by correspondents on the ground.

3. Guardian’s budget travel section. To be fair, the Guardian’s budget travel section is good for destinations around the world, though the density of articles on the UK, France, Italy, Spain, and other European countries is impressive. Recent articles that showcase well the newspaper’s creatively open approach to the subject of budget travel include Susan Greenwood’s budget Stockholm journey story, indebted to insider tips provided by a local blogger; a piece on backpacking in the Crimea by Maxton Walker; and Benji Lanyado’s TwiTrips series, for which the author receives tips via Twitter about the city he’s visiting and then liveblogs his discoveries. The most recent TwiTrip series installment sees Lanyado visiting Liverpool.4. Flycheapo. This site felt buzzing and electrified back when Europe’s low-cost airlines were announcing new routes weekly. With all the route cut-backs and cancellations of the last few years, the site sees far fewer regular updates. Nonetheless, Flycheapo is still an essential place to look for route information for inexpensive flights around Europe. The site provides new route news snippets, a route index, an airline index, and a route search, all of which are helpful for figuring out potential itineraries for low-cost air journeys across Europe.

5. Deutsche Bahn. Indispensible for figuring out train itineraries, Bahn.de features Europe-wide train schedules in enthralling detail. Bahn.de is also a much cheaper place for purchasing advance train fares than US-based agents. A very helpful run-down of how much cheaper these fares can be as well as information on how to access Deutsche Bahn sales personnel in English can be found in two posts by the editors of hidden europe magazine, here and here.

(Image: Flickr / vxla)