In Your Pocket: The best guidebooks to Eastern Europe (and they’re free!)

by Neil Woodburn on

In Your Pocket is one of the most overlooked, yet exceptional guidebook series out there.

I started using them more than 10 years ago when I traveled the Baltics and had difficulty finding any up-to-date information about the region until I came across these simple, magazine-like booklets that were for sale for less than $1.

In Your Pocket actually began in 1992 when a German and two Belgian brothers hit upon the idea while consuming beers in Vilnius, Lithuania. Since then, In Your Pocket has expanded to cover most of Eastern Europe and parts of the Soviet Union. Germany is thrown in for good measure, as is the publisher’s most recent foray to Dublin.

Two things distinguish these guidebooks from most others. First off, they are written rather tongue-in-cheek and peppered with unexpected humor throughout. The guides are also hip and contemporary. Since they publish regularly instead of every one or two years like more established guidebooks, their information is up-to-date and will always point you in the direction of what’s currently hot and happening.

But the very best thing about In Your Pocket? You can download the PDF free online. Very cool!

Street graffiti in Barcelona

by Grant Martin on

Everything is so well done in Barcelona, its no surprise that even the graffiti is beautiful. Walking around the gothic quarter and El Born, many of the metal doors that close in front of the storefronts are vividly painted with bright colors, in stark contrast to the stone walls and architecture that line the streets.

As the day moves through siesta in into the evening hours, the palette evolves. Stores open and close, and with them the artwork appears and disappears from the street side. One can walk past the block three times in one day and see three different sets of stores open with different artwork on each facade. It’s an amazing transformation that can only take place in a beautiful place like Barcelona.

%Gallery-10937%

Danish holiday tradition: A walk through the woods and a drink of gløgg

by Jamie Rhein on

Tonight we’re going to a watch a Christmas parade in Gahanna, a town close to Columbus, with friends. My son has already hauled a fake tree out of the basement, the one I had planned to take to Florida last year until we flew instead of drove. I kept telling him, “No, it’s too early to set it up,” but then thought, he’s only five once. The tree, decorated by him, all ornaments (less than a dozen) dangling from branches on one side of the tree only, is in his room.

This has me thinking about Christmas a little early. It’s not the shopping that gets me feeling warm. It’s the traditions that bring communities together. One of the best community Christmas events I ever participated in was in Denmark. When I was a student through DIS (The Danish International Student organization through Copenhagan University) I lived with a family in Allerod, Denmark, a large town about a 30-minute train ride from Copenhagan.

Allerod started it’s Christmas season off with a communal walk through the woods followed by caroling and a town square tree lighting. I had just turned 20, my brain an instant catalog for filing experiences into how this is like the U.S. and how this is not like the U.S. This experience was filed in the “not like” and a “little like” categories–the closest thing to it is perhaps a small town parade.

What struck me was how many people were involved with walking through the woods. Men, women, children of all ages–everyone was out following the path that led to a huge black kettle (there may have been two) filled with gløgg (glug) the traditional Scandinavian hot beverage made with red wine, brandy and spices. It’s yummy and warm, particularly on a wintry night. The other kettle had the non-alcoholic version. (I may have made up this second kettle. The years that have passed since then has placed this kettle in my memory.) The walk ended up back in town where people proceeded to a nursing home to carol and then on to the town square for more caroling and the tree light up.

This particular evening left me feeling cozy, warm and safe–like these winter holidays are supposed to make people feel. It was such a simple, event. Not splashy or commercial–just townspeople getting together to enjoy each others company. And, they were very welcoming and wonderful to the young American woman in their midst.

What about you? Any holiday traditions you’ve enjoyed while traveling?

Spain’s (unofficial) national symbol is 50!

by Abha Malpani on

It used to be the trademark of the popular Spanish sherry company “Osborne”. A random marketing whim 50-years ago made the company erect about 90 14-meter high metallic silhouettes of a bull on all major highways across Spain; now they resemble the country. What a lucky fluke for Osborne, I doubt their marketing prowess foresaw that.

Around 1988, Spain introduced a law where there couldn’t be any publicity on the highways. Osborne got rid of their branding on the bull so they could still stand. Obviously, campaigners protested, but apparently public demand to keep the silhouette is what saved Osborne’s metallic structures, and it is still referred to as the “El Toro De Osborne” (The Osborne Bull).

Other than pointing it out to grandchildren on road-trips, the Spaniards I spoke to about this bull had neutral sentiments. “They chose a bull to represent their brand, then blew it up and put it all around the country,” is what they said; far from an ingenious plan I suppose.

In Catalunya, groups have protested: “we don’t want Spanish symbols in our territory”, and post many attempts to knock down the bulls; now there are none in that region.

Other than Catalunya, Cantabria and Murcia are the other two provinces without the bull; Alicante and Cádiz have the most. It’s the same bull you see on T-shirts, key-chains, stickers, posters and Spanish flags that you can buy in souvenir shops.

In celebration of the bull’s 50-years of existence, an art competition has been launched in the country where you can submit your artistic representations of the bull to win theme park tickets valid for 2008 (yaay?), Sony PlayStation 3, or a 100cc Motorcycle.

On eBay: chestnut from Anne Frank’s tree

by Catherine Bodry on

When Anne Frank was hiding in Amsterdam, she often gazed at a chestnut tree outside her attic hiding place, about which she then recorded in her famous diary.

The chestnut tree has been condemned, as its trunk is so diseased it could topple over. But before the tree is cut down this Wednesday, one entrepreneur was able to snatch a relic and attempt to make a profit on it. Charles Kuijpers, who lives next door to the tree’s garden, has put one chestnut from the tree up for sale on eBay.

Bids at the time of writing were at $700. How much would you pay?