Eat while traveling on cuisine-focused adventures

by Chris Owen on

What we eat while traveling has always been a big part of a memorable trip. A recent survey by the Ontario Ministry of Tourism says 71% of Americans participated in at least one culinary activity while on an out-of-town trip and that activity was one of the most significant travel experiences of the vacation. Now, cuisine-focused adventures offered by travel agencies are making menus much more than a souvenir.

“With interest in local cuisines growing thanks to the success of popular television shows like the Travel Channel’s Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, gastronomic adventures are overtaking itineraries among gourmets and casual diners alike,” said travel service company Amadeus in a recent newsletter.

Noting trending travel requests and getting the information out to travel agencies who want to be prepared with their offerings, Amadeus sent along information about a variety of food-oriented travel packages.

Taste-full tours
Travel agencies are creating itineraries that include tours of wineries, food and wine events, festivals, cooking classes, cruises with guest chefs and more so travelers can experience the unique flavor of a particular geographic region or city.

Learn to cook on a cruise
On cruise lines, dining has always been a big part of the experience. Now, many lines have gone beyond buffets to offer culinary-themed voyages. Holland America’s Culinary Arts Center and Oceania Cruises’ Bon Appetit Culinary Center are floating cooking schools where passengers get up-close and personal instruction from chefs on the ship.
A side order of history
“Culinary tourism offers foodies a taste of history with experiences such as the Tasting Tour of the French Quarter in which the rich New Orleans food culture comes alive,”adds Amadeus. “After experiencing a historical walking tour, travelers visit the city’s famous eateries such as Antoine’s and Tujague’s, both established in the 1800s.”

Chocoholics unite
Die-hard chocolate addicts will want to experience the Swiss Chocolate Train and visit the Cailler-Nestle factory and tasting room at Broc, Switzerland. In the U.S., life doesn’t get much sweeter than the town of Hershey, Pa., or the Ghiradelli Chocolate Factory in San Francisco.

Cooking on all burners
Culinary travelers want to take home practical knowledge of how to prepare the foods they’ve discovered and can sign up for cooking classes, such as the weeklong Culinary and Art Adventure in Provence with Chef Philippe Gion. Participants go home with a personalized cookbook of dishes they’ve learned during the week.

Trips and tours with special, focused themes like the food-oriented travel options listed here won’t be found on a click-to-buy website. A qualified travel agency, specializing in food-oriented travel packages is the place to look for these and other themed travel options.


Flickr photo by Jeff Kubina

A museum of microcars in Germany

by Melanie Renzulli on




Before the automobile industry developed cars capable of going 0-60 mph in 5.9 seconds, there were the microcars. In the 1950s and 1960s, several European countries, in particular West Germany, manufactured cheap, zippy microcars that were one step up on the evolutionary chain from motor scooters. Most of these models are long gone today, save for those hiding in the garages and warehouses of avid car collectors.

One such collector is Stefan Voit, a German car enthusiast who has spent two decades assembling a stash of more than 50 microcars. Voit recently opened the Kleinwagen and Rollersammlung Museum (Microcar and Motor Scooter Museum) in his hometown of St. Ingbert, Germany, and it is filled with small vintage cars from Germany, Italy, France, and other European countries.

On display are a “cemetery of car brands,” including the NSU Fiat Prinz, the Goggomobil, a Bond Minicar, and a Messerschmitt Cabin Scooter. There is a microcar with a plastic chassis (Spatz), a tiny, royal blue BMW Isetta with an equally tiny camper, and the world’s first car built with its engine in the center of the car (Zündapp Janus). Sharing the exhibition space with the candy-colored vintage cars are more than a dozen motor scooters, Vespas and the like, that provide a bit of perspective to the progression of wheeled vehicles in the mid-20th century.

St. Ingbert is located about 12 miles outside of the city of Saarbrücken in southwestern Germany. Admission to the Microcar Museum is available via written request at oldtimercamping.de.

Photo © Stefan Voit

Video: Berlin street aesthetic

by Elizabeth Seward on

The Street Aesthetic of Berlin from Christian Andersen on Vimeo.

If you have ever wondered what the general Berlin street aesthetic is like, filmmaker Christian Andersen wants to show you. Sun rays, busy street corners, gliding boats, quick-moving trains, urban street art, and the city’s lights at night all make appearances in this visceral video–among other Berlin staples, of course. Although I have never been to Berlin, I have been considering moving there for a short period of time based entirely off of the lovely things I have heard from trusted sources and the ever-deepening well of beautiful footage taken in the city, like this video, available online. Have you been to or lived in Berlin? Are you there right now? Do you feel like this Andersen’s work with this piece adequately captures the Berlin street aesthetic in under two minutes?

Museum of European Cultures reopens in Berlin

by Sean McLachlan on

The Museum of European Cultures has reopened after a two-year renovation.

Located in Berlin, this museum focuses on the life of the common people of old Europe. While most museums focus on the famous accomplishments of the elite, this one looks at the everyday lives and traditions of regular people so often forgotten by the history books. Folklore museums can be found all over Europe and make for fascinating visits. With a collection of some 27,000 objects, the Museum of European Cultures is one of the largest.

The latest temporary exhibition is of the paintings of Wilhelm Kiesewetter, who traveled across Europe 150 years ago to paint the traditional costumes and lives of various ethnic groups. There’s also a study collection of old toys.

While many of the costumes and artifacts on display are now only museum pieces, some traditions have survived. One of the stranger ones takes place in the Alps over the Christmas season-the Perchten processions. Perchta is an old pagan goddess who was never quite suppressed by Christianity. She can appear as a beautiful maiden or an old crone and has single huge swan’s foot. She roams the countryside during the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany, checking to see if children and servants had been good and done their work. The good ones are rewarded with a silver coin in their shoe, while the bad ones get gutted and stuffed with straw.

Her entourage, called Perchten, includes glittering animal figures that bring luck and ugly critters like this one to scare away evil spirits.

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

New public artwork imitates the changing mood of the city

by Jessica Festa on

For the people of Lindau, Germany, there is no such thing as keeping your mood to yourself. At least, not since German artists Julius Von Bismarck, Richard Wilhelmer, and Benjamin Maus installed a “Fuehlometer” (Feel-o-Meter), an interactive piece of public artwork that gauges and replicates the city’s mood swings.

The large smiley face is set on top of a lighthouse and changes expression as the people of the city do. How it works is a digital camera set along the water takes photos of peoples’ faces, which are then sent to a computer program to be analyzed. Once the mood is determined, the artwork will either show a happy, sad, or indifferent expression.

Want to see what the Feel-o-Meter looks like in action? Check out this video.