When it comes to planning my next trip, a pretty photo only inspires me half as much as a good map. I’m particularly partial to UNESCO‘s interactive World Heritage List map, which I spend more time clicking on than I’d care to admit. The map identifies the List’s 962 properties across the globe and provides information about each, including an array of photos for those who need the photographic impetus.
More than anything else, it’s a useful tool to find astonishing places beyond the Angkor Wats, Serengetis and Venices of the world. Did I know there were 100-meter-tall stone towers in northwestern Russia. Or that there’s a place called the Inaccessible Islands in the South Atlantic? I do now, and I want to go.
The map is also a great way to find less touristed sights in popular countries. The Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex in Thailand gets short shrift from most visitors, for instance, but is a completely unique environment in Southeast Asia.
Don’t know where to start? The red points are World Heritage Sites in danger of being destroyed or permanently altered by man or nature, so they may not be around forever.
Travelers often associate famous destinations around the world with iconic landmarks. In Paris, it’s the Eifel tower; Seattle has the space needle; New York has the Statue Of Liberty; and San Francisco is associated with the Golden Gate Bridge. Think “Venice” and the image of a gondola ride might come to mind. But during a recent visit to the Italian city, I was drawn to a different landmark not far from the canals.
The Gritti Palace hotel sits on the canal and gondolas park at its doorstep. Recently re-opened after an extensive restoration, this is a top shelf hotel in the Luxury Collection brand of properties with the expected level of service such a place normally brings. Unexpected though is the hotel’s proximity to major Venetian landmarks, most within walking distance.%Gallery-183946%
We expect nicely appointed rooms, snappy room service and a pleasant stay from a hotel that goes for about $1000 a night during peak season. Get that for a third of the price in the off-season and the value is undeniable.
Sitting right on the Grand Canal, the hotel is within walking distance to St. Marks Square and its attractions, shops, dining venues along with churches, art schools and museums, as we see in this photo gallery or live via the hotel’s 24/7 web cam.
At the stroke of midnight, fireworks lit up the night sky on the Greek island of Naxos. In a square outside a centuries old church, at least half the island’s population gathered to celebrate the occasion. Children ran around and threw firecrackers, senior citizens occupied all the choice benches and everyone was dressed to the nines and holding lit candles. An hour or so after midnight, everyone filed out of the square and retreated to their homes for a huge feast that breaks the Lenten fast. This is how Orthodox Easter is celebrated in towns and villages all over Greece.
If you’ve never spent Easter Sunday in a predominantly Christian country like Greece, Italy or many others in Europe and Latin America where it’s the biggest holiday of the year, you’re missing out on the travel experience of a lifetime. Here in the U.S., Easter isn’t even a public holiday worthy of a long weekend. In many parts of the country, you can drive around and shop and not even realize that it’s an important Christian holiday that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
I’ve spent Easter in a variety of countries where everything completely shuts down for a few days. As a traveler, that can be disruptive and annoying. But I will never forget how joyous an occasion Easter was in Naxos. Nor will I forget an Easter Sunday I spent in Modica, in southeastern Sicily several years ago (see top photo). The entire town turns out onto the streets, dressed to kill, for a colorful procession with marching bands and then after Mass, everyone repairs to a house or restaurant for a meal fit for a king. Everyone you meet wishes you a buona Pasqua and the good vibes are contagious, even if you aren’t religious.
According to the most recent census data, about 76 percent of adults in the U.S. self identify as Christians (3.8 percent practice other religions, 15 percent don’t practice any religion, and 5 percent refused to answer the question). The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the separation of church and state yet Christmas is a government holiday while Easter is not. Peter Steinfels, writing in The New York Times in 1998 wrote that America was “too religious and too Christian to ignore Easter, but also too pluralist and too secular to absorb it comfortably as a national holiday.”
We are indeed a diverse country, which presents interesting opportunities for visitors to our shores, but it’s also very special to visit a largely homogenous country during a major holiday because it’s fascinating to see an entire place come to a standstill as a community celebrates out on the streets together.
Surely even those who don’t celebrate Easter wouldn’t mind a long weekend, would they? Or would the declaration of Easter as a national holiday be offensive to non-Christians who are already uncomfortable with Christmas being a public holiday? Let us know how you feel about this in the comments and in the poll.
The bunker was found in 2011 by workers restoring the Palazzo Venezia, but its existence wasn’t revealed until now. The workers found a trap door in the cellar of a 15th-century building that led to nine rooms fortified with concrete walls up to two meters (6.6 feet) thick.
Researchers believe this was the 12th bunker Mussolini was said to have had. It was obviously never finished as there is no plumbing or electricity, only bare walls.
The bunker is 15 meters (49.2 feet) underground and could have withstood some serious bombing.
There are two escape routes in the bunker, one of which leads to a neighboring church garden. The other hasn’t been fully explored but leads in the direction of another of Mussolini’s bunkers.
While his network of bunkers protected Mussolini from Allied bombing, they didn’t protect him from his own people. He was killed by Communist partisans on April 27, 1945.
The bunker will open to tourists this autumn and will include a touchscreen display to explain its historical significance and the recording of an air raid siren to add a touch of atmosphere.
This decision is at odds with what Germany did with Hitler’s bunker in Berlin. While the exact location was known, it was decided not to turn it into a historical monument for fear that it would attract neo-Nazis. It wasn’t until 2006, and after much controversy, that a historic plaque was put up at the location.
Among the Michelangeos, the Raphaels, the Caravaggios and other Renaissance masterpieces at the The Uffizi Gallery in Florence, open to the public since 1591, one Bottecelli painting, “Portrait of a Young Man With a Medal,” captures an unidentified subject’s “boo-yah” moment posing with a medallion of some sort. His face is snappishly angled and his lips puckered in a timeless “I’m all that and a bag of Skittles” expression. The features have been described as “the small covetous eyes, the ignoble nose, the pursed animal mouth…” The pursed animal mouth! In other words, Gawker fans, the composition created in 1475 could be the world’s earliest example of duckface. Don’t leave without a postcard from the gift shop.