Word for the Travel Wise (05/28/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

With this being an extended three-day weekend for some of us in the world, excluding myself I’m thinking I’m going to keep things easy. I’m not going to take you to Kazakhstan, Chad, or Yemen by way of some funky foreign slang you’ll probably never use in your entire life. I won’t even bother to provide you with some off-the-wall Polish vocabulary word lacking vowels. That seems incredibly ridiculous considering how we fail to understand our own brethren and sistren across the pond, so tonight I’m taking it back to basics. Tonight I will present our first ever Gadling English Lingo Guide for English Speakers, because I’m not afraid to admit I don’t know what the hell those crazy blokes are talking about.

Today’s word is an English word used in the United Kingdom:

bimble – to wander aimlessly or stroll/walk without urgency to a destination

How I love this new addition to my own personal dictionary and I know I’m not alone here! Before picking this word I wanted to double check to see that I hadn’t missed this one some where long ago in fourth grade. I swung by Dictionary.com first and sure enough it didn’t recognize the word. The only results that came up was the zip code for Bimble, Kentucky (40915). Next, I moved onto Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary and once again this odd English word did not appear. Instead it triggered suggestions like: bumble, bible, bramble and broomball. Lastly, MS Word gives me the red squiggly line underneath every time it appears. Ha!

And while I’m confessing my ignorance to my very own first language, let me add that I do not know how often bimble is used. Perhaps it isn’t at all. In other words – that’s my disclaimer until some kind individual on the web notifies the rest of us otherwise. To see a list of British words not widely used in the United States head over to this Wikipedia page. If you’ve got some of your own to share – please don’t be shy.

The Hay Festival: Combining Vacations and Good Books Since 1988

by Karen Walrond on

The New York Times is featuring an article on The Hay Festival which, frankly, looks like a book-lover’s dream.  The festival, which the article describes as “Sundance for Bibliophiles,” is held every year in a small village in Wales called Hay-on-Wye.  Apparently, even former President Bill Clinton is a fan, calling it “Woodstock for the Mind” when he participated several years ago.

The festival takes place for 10 days at the end of May, and this year the 80,000+ visitors may see the likes of Dave Eggers, Kazuo Ishiguro, Don DeLillo, John Updike, Clive James, Julian Barnes, Ali Smith, Patrick McGrath, Jeannette Winterson, Doris Lessing and Jaqueline Wilson, all of whom have appeared recently.

Really interesting read.  I’m thinking next year, when my husband and I plan our annual trip to the UK to visit his family, we’re going to have to figure out a way to pass through this neck of the woods.

Photo of the Day (5/10/06)

by Karen Walrond on

Yesterday, I did a post featuring China’s bid for the largest ferris wheel in the world — so clearly, today, when it came to picking the photo of the day, I couldn’t resist this photo taken at the top of the London Eye.  I particularly like the fact that the photographer, bamassippi, shot it in black-and-white — after all, London’s famous for its grey skies, isn’t it?

If you’d like one of your travel photos to be featured in our Image of the Day, be sure to visit our Flickr Pool, and upload your best shots there.  Every day we’ll pick one to be featured here on Gadling.

Movie Trips

by Neil Woodburn on

There’s been a lot of press recently about Da Vinci Code tours in England, France and Scotland and we here at Gadling have also jumped on the bandwagon.  Now it’s Travel & Leisure’s turn. 

Jessica Antola’s Travel & Leisure article covers much of the same information many of the other articles have conveyed about what to see and the impact the famous book/movie has had on these locations (tourism to Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh, for example, has increased from 6,000 visitors pre-book to 120,000 annually). 

What makes Antola’s article unique, however, is that she recognizes that such tourism is nothing new.  65,000 people a year still visit the legendary baseball diamond from Field of Dreams, she tells us.  Other movie locations draw even larger crowds, such as Lord of the Rings, Notting Hill, Sideways, Lost in Translation, Harry Potter and Amélie.
 
It’s a love/hate relationship for those who must endure such tourist invasions as a daily part of their lives.  With nearly 100 people a day visiting the small café in which Amélie worked, you can imagine that the regulars who used to enjoy a nice quiet cup of coffee have long since vanished.

A Da Vinci Code Vacation

by Karen Walrond on

About a month ago, Neil Woodburn told us about Da Vinci Code tours — tours which take place at the sites of various scenes in Dan Brown’s now-famous book, The Da Vinci Code.

Well, Tara Dooley, a writer for the Houston Chronicle, has taken a trip following the entire trail of the Da Vinci Code plot, in an effort to decide whether it would be a vacation worth taking, mirroring the steps of the characters in the book — and the movie, scheduled to be released in about a 10 days’ time.

You can read her thoughts here.  The short answer?  Yes — traveling from Paris to London to Edinburgh is definitely worth the trip — but consider removing your Da Vinci Code “blinders.”  You might miss out on the beauty of the three wonderful cities.