I’m afraid of heights, but this looks pretty freakin’ cool. A company called Fantasticable has begun installing cables in various mountainous locations around Europe (I think — the site is in French, so it’s tough to tell) where you can hook up to a harness and rocket through the valley like a jet-powered bird.
Here’s a YouTube video of some brave people taking the Fantasticable for a spin in the French commune of Cerdon. This thing is seriously fast and high up. I wanna try!
Looks like Air France is having a problem competing for the skies with birds. During takeoff from the small town of Pau, a bird allegedly flew into an engine of a Fokker 28-100 plane today, causing it to veer off the runway into a truck. The truck driver was killed on the spot. None of the 54 passengers on board of the plane were hurt.
Apparently, between 1990 and 1998, there were an estimated 22,000 bird-aircraft collisions in the United States, which cost an annual $400 million in aircraft repairs.
Good one to “Ask The Pilot” again.
It is really disturbing to know that something as small as a bird can completely cripple an airplane. Then again, I guess it works the other way around, too.
I posted a few days ago about how enjoyable Moscow can be in the wintertime despite the horrific cold weather which is so legendary in the Russian capital.
The Russian winter, however, has regularly proved fatal to one type of traveler intent on reaching Moscow: the foreign soldier.
Most recently, it was Hitler’s troops who fell to the ravages of winter just 41 kilometers outside of Moscow. Before that it was Napoleon’s. Napoleon, however, accomplished what Hitler never could; he actually reached the Russian capital. He waited there for five weeks for the Czar to surrender (which he never did) and then hastily retreated as the worst part of the winter hit.
The result was catastrophic.
A fascinating article in City Paper (The Baltics States) retraces this failed military campaign and tells the story of how Napoleon marched into Russia via the Baltics with 500,000 soldiers–only to return a few months later during his winter retreat with just 40,000 remaining.
The account of this tragedy has recently resurfaced due to the discovery of a mass grave in Vilnius containing more than 2,000 of Napoleon’s soldiers who had frozen or starved to death.
It was a horrific campaign through harsh lands and stark conditions. I’ve traveled the same route via train and suffered through equally as cold Moscow winters, but I simply can’t imagine doing so on foot, across such great distances, with 19th century clothing and gear, and Cossacks shooting at me.
History, geography, and travel are indeed strange, and at times, horrific bedfellows. When you have the opportunity to combine all three together and understand their correlations, it makes for a very powerful experience indeed.
I love the little photo essays that pop up now and again featuring cute little characters in foreign places. First, there was the roaming gnome, and then an assortment of other traveling characters. Brooklyn artist Witold Riedel has been photographing a very cute little bear in the places he goes, and this photo series over at Morning News features some of the photographs of Riedel’s bear in Paris. Even if the concept has been done before, Riedel is very creative in his composition and I found myself somewhat taken in by the photos here. You can also read an interview with Riedel here.
We’ve all been there before. You’re in some foreign city admiring a famous tourist site when suddenly you get hungry. The problem is that tourist dives, by their very nature, flock to where the tourists are. That is why I almost never eat within spitting distance of a major tourist attraction.
But now there is a book which aims to steer hungry travelers in the right direction.
Paris by Pastry: Stalking the Sweet Life lists the city’s best patisseries in conjunction with nearby tourist sites. If you happen to be visiting the Louvre, for example, the book reveals the tastiest pastry shops within walking distance of the famous museum. This way you can gorge on culture and then stuff your face silly afterwards.
Sounds like a win-win situation to me!