Prague’s astronomical clock gets a makeover

by Sean McLachlan on


The famous astronomical clock that is Prague’s most popular tourist attraction has lost some star players for the next two months. The four outside figures, including a skeletal Death, have been removed and are being repainted to protect them from the elements.

The clock was built in 1410 and is the oldest working astronomical clock in the world. Dials show the position Moon, position of the Sun on the zodiac, and other astronomical events. Every hour there’s a parade of painted figures representing the 12 Apostles. Four other figures, representing vanity, greed, death, and pleasure, stand outside. As the bells chime the hours and the Apostles do their walk, Death shakes an hourglass to remind you that everything is transitory.

It’s quite a show, as you can see from this video by the folks at In Your Pocket: Essential City Guides. They have a free downloadable guide to Prague and many other cities on their website.

The clock will continue to function as the four figures are repainted. Legend has it that if the clock stops, disaster will strike the city.

10 best national parks in South America

by Jessica Festa on

In South America, there are myriad diverse landscapes, unique flora, and endemic fauna to experience. With so many destination options on the continent, however, it can sometimes be hard to decide exactly where to go. National parks can provide beautiful and educational experiences in nature and, depending on where you visit, you can experience enormous glaciers, white sandy beaches, tropical rainforests, gushing waterfalls, jagged limestone cliffs, and hot thermal springs, sometimes all in one place. If you love birdwatching and wildlife viewing, South America is also home to many rare species that cannot be found anywhere else, like the giant tortoises of the Galapagos Islands or the spectacled bear in Peru. To help you plan your next trip to South America, or just to give you some inspiration from nature, check out the gallery below.

[Photo by Samuel Rochas, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA-3.0]

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Metropolitan Museum of Art to reopen American Wing after $100 million remodel

by Sean McLachlan on


The Metropolitan Museum of Art is famous for its impressive collection of American art, including iconic images such as Emanuel Leutze’s 1851 painting Washington Crossing the Delaware. Now that collection has a larger, better designed home thanks to a $100 million renovation.

The New American Wing Galleries for Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts open Jan. 16 and total 30,000 square feet of exhibition space, which is 3,300 more than previously. It houses American art from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries and provides better lighting and access than the previous galleries.

Besides Leutze’s work, which has been given a new gilded frame, the collection is a who’s who of American art, including painters such a John Singleton Copley, Thomas Cole, and Frederic Remington. Cole’s painting View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm-The Oxbow is also on display and is shown below. There’s also a large folk art collection, historic furniture, and work by important silversmiths such as Paul Revere.

Paintings by Emanuel Leutze and Thomas Cole courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Italian climber first to scale “Second Seven Summits”

by Kraig Becker on

An Italian climber by the name of Hans Kammerlander has become the first person to climb the “Second Seven Summits” after topping out on Mt. Tyree in Antarctica last week. This unique distinction was earned by climbing the second highest peaks on each of the seven continents – a feat that most mountaineers feel is far more difficult than the traditional Seven Summits.

In addition to Mt. Tyree, the Second Seven Summits consist of Ojos del Salado (22,614 ft) in South America, Mt. Kenya (17,057 ft) in Africa, Mt. Logan (19,550 ft) in North America, Dychtau (17,073 ft) in Europe, Puncak Trikora (15,518 ft) in Oceania, and K2 in Asia. Kammerlander knocked off K2, quite possibly the hardest climb in the world, back in 2001, but had no idea that he would go on to climb the other Second Seven at the time.

In 2009 he traveled to South America, and successfully climbed Ojos del Salado, located along the border of Argentina and Chile. It was after that expedition that he began to form a plan to take on the remaining five. The past two years have been focused on those mountains, and his quest to climb them all ended on January 3rd at the summit of Tyree.

The Italian mountaineer has had a long and storied career in the high places of the Earth before accomplishing this feat. He has knocked off 13 of the 14 8000-meter peaks and opened new routes on some of the world’s most iconic mountains, including Cho Oyu and Annapurna.

It doesn’t seem that the 55-year old is ready to hang up his crampons just yet.

[Photo courtesy of Hans Kammerlander]

Freedom to Roam: The Southern Alps by helicopter

by Kyle Ellison on

No, the Southern Alps aren’t in the south of France or Italy as the name may lead you to believe. Rather, they are 12 time zones away in a remote corner of the Pacific Ocean and form the spine of the rugged South Island of New Zealand. Home to National Parks such as Mt. Aspiring, Mt. Cook, Arthur’s Pass, and Fiordland, the similarities to their European counterparts are so similar, however, that when hiking amongst sections of the Southern Alps you could swear you were outside of Chamonix, France.

It’s well known that the original Maori name for New Zealand is “Aotearoa”, a phrase which literally translates to “Long White Cloud”. Seeing as the Polynesian triangle only has a few mountains tall enough to ever receive snow, it’s understandable why a narrow, snow capped mountain range could be construed as being a long white cloud. (The only other mountain in Polynesia outside of New Zealand which regularly sees snow is Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii, a name which literally translates in Hawaiian to “White Mountain”. See a trend?)

Aside from providing a picturesque backdrop for the majority of the South Island, the Southern Alps are also home to the majority of the outdoor activities in the country, which is really saying something in an outdoor haven such as New Zealand.

When it comes to the Southern Alps, even though you can hike your way through them, ski your way down them, jetboat their rivers, and fish in their lakes, the undisputed best way you’re going to actually SEE them is by getting up on top of them. Unless you plan on climbing 12,316 ft. Mt. Cook (Maori: Aoraki, “Cloud Piercer”) and are a whiz with crampons and an ice axe, your best bet is to get beneath a set of rotating blades and take a helicopter to plop you down on top of them.

That’s what I did over Mt. Aspiring, and in all seriousness, it was one of the best things I’ve ever done.

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Departing from the Wanaka Airport which lies in the foothills of Mt. Aspiring National Park, the trouble with being in a helicopter is you never know which way to look. When you have a a 270 degree view from inside a hovering glass bubble, you aren’t sure if you should focus your attention–and camera lens–on the lakes below you or the glaciers in front of you.

Either way, with the Southern Lakes region shimmering beneath our whirling metal blades, it wasn’t long before our pilot Nick had dropped us down on top of 7,700 ft. Mt. Alta, a rocky pinnacle being whipped by an alpine breeze and the type of place where you could scream and no one would hear you. Not in the scary way, but in the chest-thumping sense of freedom way.

Though standing atop Mt. Alta was invigorating in its remoteness, it was nothing when compared to the glacial flyby we were about to be treated to.

Eventually reaching the snowline, our machine hovered so closely to the melting ice fields you could practically hear the ice changing into water. Racing along ridge lines, all of that melting water suddenly made itself known in a thundering set of falls exploding off of the face of 8,600 ft. Mt Avalanche, an alpine promontory glowing in white and studded in hanging glaciers.

If ever there was a time in my life I felt like an aerial cameraman for a Lord of the Rings shoot, it was at this moment right now.

Just as Nick played a game of chicken with the approaching set of falls, he pulled up on the stick and raised the chopper just high enough above the falls to give myself and the two other passengers in the aircraft a sweeping view of a hidden turquoise lake that is among the most pristine bodies of water I have seen anywhere on the planet. And this is from a guy who grew up in Hawaii.

You can judge a good helicopter ride by the juxtaposition of adrenaline and exhaustion when you finally step back onto the tarmac, and after the 1 hour whirlwind through the glaciers of the Southern Alps there was little left to do but order up a late-morning coffee, lay down in the back of campervan, and question if what I just saw was actually a real place on this Earth.

Can’t relax for too long though, as there are many more adventures to be had in one of the world’s best countries for touring…

For the next 2 months Gadling blogger Kyle Ellison will be embedded in a campervan touring the country of New Zealand. Follow the rest of the adventure by reading his series, Freedom to Roam: Touring New Zealand by Campervan.