Darwin Awards Contenders Foiled By Observant Cafe Customer

by Sean McLachlan on


Four men who could have become strong candidates for this year’s Darwin Awards have been saved by a Good Samaritan who was enjoying some coffee nearby.

The BBC reports that a customer at a cafe in Oxwich Bay, Wales, spotted four men in a dinghy clutching onto a buoy and desperately trying to get the attention of those on shore.

It’s unclear if the men were consciously trying to win the Darwin Awards, given out every year for people who get killed in stupid ways and thus improve the gene pool of our species. Nevertheless, they proved their candidacy by setting out in an inflatable dinghy into worsening weather with no life jackets and no flares. Winds had reached up to force six on the Beaufort Scale by the time they were saved. Force six is just short of a gale, with waves rising up to 13 feet.

The person who spotted them alerted the coast guard, who sent out a lifeboat to save them. If it wasn’t for this observant coffee lover, these wannabe sailors may have replicated the famous “Raft of the Medusa,” being adrift at sea for weeks, slowly expiring from hunger and thirst until desperation led them to gnaw on one another to survive. It would have given a whole new meaning to the term “Welsh rarebit.”

If you must try an alternative diet, try vegetarianism instead. It’s far more benign. Also familiarize yourself with weather conditions before setting out and practice these sea safety guidelines. Now that spring is here and everyone wants to get out in the water, it’s important to know how to play safe.

[Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

And The Best Restaurant City In The World Is …

by David Farley on

If you’re an avid restaurant observer, a voracious diner, a food aficionado, someone whose travel itinerary is determined by what food is being served out of street carts or what ingredient may be in season in a certain part of the planet, then read on.

I recently attended the James Beard Foundation Awards, the Oscars or Grammys of the restaurant world, where every top toque in the United States congresses to (hopefully) receive awards, shake hands, talk food, have a good time and, of course, eat.

As per usual, the awards were held at New York City’s Lincoln Center. And as chefs and food personalities were walking in on the red carpet, I accosted them and asked one simple question:

What is the best restaurant city in the world right now?RICK BAYLESS
Chef at Frontera Grill, XOCO, among others, Chicago
Chicago. But really, when I think about it, you could go to a place like Des Moines and find something great to eat. There are amazing restaurants everywhere these days.

DANIEL BOULUD
Chef at Daniel and many other restaurants, New York
London. There’s a lot happening there right now. Many great chefs are cooking there and you can see a lot of diversity, one that’s different from New York or Tokyo.

ANDY CHABOT
Sommelier and director of food and beverage, Blackberry Farms, Walland, Tenn.
New Yorkers and other eaters of big cities forget about the great food cities of the world. I was in Budapest last year and I ate really well. Paris is still great, too. I think the great food cities remain the great food cities.

CECILIA CHIANG
Former chef and owner of Mandarin, San Francisco
Los Angeles. Specifically for Chinese food. Why? Because there are a lot of wealthy Chinese who live there and who visit there and they demand really great food. You find a rich variety of Chinese food in Los Angeles now.

CHRIS COSENTINO
Chef at Incanto, San Francisco
I was recently in Japan and it was one of the most eye-opening game-changers I’ve ever had. The intensity of the technique was amazing and the fact that some people there have been doing the same thing for generations.

TODD ENGLISH
Chef at Olives, and a gazillion other restaurants, Boston and New York
I used to think it was San Sebastian. But New York really takes the cake. It moves so fast. There’s always an edge here that don’t see anywhere else in the world.

STEPHANIE IZZARD
Chef at Girl and the Goat, Chicago
I think in the U.S. some of the smaller cities like Portland. They have such great ingredients and produce. Of course, I have to say Chicago, too.

MELISSA KELLY
Chef at Primo, Rockland, Maine
New York. It has such a broad range of types of food and cuisines. And not just the top-end sort of restaurants. Casual too.

EMERIL LEGASSE
Celebrity Chef, New Orleans
New York, for sure. Paris has got it going on but New York – Jeez – if you can’t eat well here than you can’t eat well anywhere. Sinatra should have sung that one.

DEBI MAZAR
Actress, host of “Under the Tuscan Gun” and “Extra Virgin,” Brooklyn and Tuscany
New York. You have everything here. You can go to any place between Hunter’s Point and Battery Park and always find a great place to eat.

JACQUES PEPIN
Food God
New York. Because there are 20,000 restaurants here and the open mindedness of the people who live here. In France or Italy, for example, you have a lot of people just eating their own national cuisines. But here the people are eating Albanian one night, Thai another night, Mexican the next night.

NAOMI POMEROY
Beast, Portland, Ore.
I’ve had the chance to travel a lot lately and I’m going to go with Yangon. The street food was great and the cool thing about it was that it’s really authentic. They’re making street food for themselves; not for tourists or anyone else.

CHRIS SHEPHERD
Chef at Underbelly, Houston
Houston. It has such a diversity of cuisines. You can pretty much get whatever you want. And all in one little area.

JONATHAN WAXMAN
Chef at Barbuto, New York
London. It’s a complete surprise. It’s totally amazing and it has really hit its stride. It reminds me a lot of New York in the ’80s.

CATHY WHIMS
Chef at Nostrana, Portland, Ore.
Portland. We have the most amazing accessibility to ingredients there. We also have the support of great, generous people who keep the dining scene fresh and vibrant.

ANDREW ZIMMERN
Host of the Travel Channel’s “Bizarre Foods and Bizarre Worlds.”
Chengdu. There’s such a great amount of flavors there. Everyone associates it with only things like hot pot but people forget it’s the breadbasket of China. Just as here where we’re finally appreciating where our food comes from, in Chengdu they’ve been doing that for a long time.

[Photo of Andrew Zimmern by David Farley]

Frederick The Great’s Picture Gallery Celebrates 250 Years With Special Exhibition

by Sean McLachlan on


A magnificent art gallery constructed by Frederick the Great of Prussia in Potsdam is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year, Art Daily reports.

The gallery at Sanssouci Park, part of Frederick the Great’s palace complex, was home to his vast collection of Classical and (then) contemporary art. While it lost much of its collection over the years, especially during the Napoleonic Wars and WWII, it’s still an impressive center for fine art.

To celebrate the anniversary, the gallery is hosting “The Most Beautyful Gallery – Revisiting the Picture Gallery of Frederick the Great,” and has brought together much of the original collection that got dispersed across Europe. Paintings from various periods fill the walls, including examples from the Italian Renaissance and High Baroque as well as 17th century Flemish and Dutch works. The gallery also shows Frederick’s passion for Classical sculpture. Even the walls are made of marble torn from ancient buildings.

Potsdam is only 23 miles from Berlin and makes a good day trip from the German capital.

“The Most Beautyful Gallery – Revisiting the Picture Gallery of Frederick the Great” runs until October 31.

[Photo courtesy Kent Wang]

Famous Roman ‘Tomb’ May Have Actually Been A Temple

by Sean McLachlan on

At the Roman necropolis in Carmona, Spain, visitors are led to the popular “Elephant’s Tomb,” a large underground chamber that gets its name from a crude sculpture of an elephant found there.

Now archaeologists are saying it may not be a tomb at all, but rather a temple to one of the ancient world’s most mysterious religions. A team from the University of Pablo de Olavide, Seville, has analyzed the structure and says it was once a mithraeum, an underground temple for the god Mithras.

Mithraism centered on secret rites centered on the mystical slaying of a bull was one of the most popular faiths in the last years of paganism. Several mithraeums are scattered about Europe, including in London, Mérida, and along Hadrian’s Wall.

The archaeologists point out that its general shape, with a columned, three-chambered room leading to an area for altars, is the same as other mithraeums. They also found astronomical alignments. Sunlight would hit the center of the chamber during the equinoxes, and during the winter and summer solstices, the sun would light up the north and south walls respectively. As the sun shines through the window during the spring equinox, Taurus rises to the East and Scorpio hides to the West. The opposite occurred during the autumn equinox. Taurus and Scorpio figure prominently in the religion’s astrological symbolism, with the God Mithras slaying a bull as a scorpion stings the animal’s testicles.

It was only later that the temple was turned into a burial chamber, researchers say.

Carmona is less than 20 miles from Seville and is a popular day trip from there.

[Top photo courtesy Daniel Villafruela. Bottom photo courtesy Henri de Boisgelin.]

Photo Of The Day: Contemplating Lake Como In Italy

by Jonathan Kramer on


In northern Italy, the Alps meet Lake Como at the comune of Bellagio to form some of the most beautiful vistas in Europe. Not only has the region provided inspiration for the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas, but it is unequivocally gorgeous. Instagram user Jason Rodman absolutely captured the best thing to do at locations such as this, just sitting alone with your thoughts.

If you have a great travel photo, share it with us and it could be featured as our Photo of the Day! You can do so either by tagging your Instagram photos with #Gadling and mentioning us @GadlingTravel, like Jason did, or by submitting it to our Gadling Flickr Pool.

[Photo Credit: Instagram user jrodmanjr]