Thanks to my LP Comet email subscription I just found one more reason to invest in a Playstation Portable (PSP). Yes, the same device used for gamers can now be used by travelers ready to discover weekend getaways in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Rome, Paris, Prague and London. The fully interactive, portable and up-to-the-minute ‘Passport To’ city guides will feature details on 250 of the hottest bars, clubs, hotels, shops, services, and attractions. In addition to the same material you’d find in the old paper LP guidebooks interested takers will visually receive three off-the-beaten track audio tours and essential language phrases with audio. Sounds like a good investment so far. Not to mention the PSP unit is easy to carry and multi-functional. I’ve handled one here and there on various occasions and was quite impressed. This however, ices the cake. Check out the website dedicated to the ‘Passport To’ series and learn more about PSP.
Wallpaper* City Guides
Just when you start to sleep on Wallpaper* they go and make their debut in the publishing world with these nice little City Guides. Their reason being, after 10 years in the game uncovering the best new design and urban travel spots globally, packaging that decade of experience into well-thought out yet simple guide books was only obviously. They make it clear that the traveler’s time is as important as their own and they don’t waste it chucking in massive quantities. It’s about quality and they very best. The first 20 were published this past September and another 20 will be published every six months after that. Current titles include Mexico City, Los Angeles, NYC, Madrid, Bangkok and Stockholm to name only a few.
The books can be purchased at Phaidon. Don’t see what you’re looking for? Stay tuned for the rest in 2007!
Just Fake It!
Many folks, these days, are traveling for more than just sightseeing, they’re going shopping. With the dollar lingering near all-time lows versus some major world currencies, many shopping tourists are traveling to the States. However, some real shopping bargains exist elsewhere, particularly in the rip-off goods category.
My trip last year to China was a real eye-opener: the major markets all sold knock-off goods openly, while big, red banners, hang across all entrances, proclaiming “Maintain Intellectual Property” (one of the few signs anywhere in China written in English). (I’m still trying to figure out what the banners that said “Striking Forbid Illegal Management Activities of Soliciting Goods” mean, but that’s another story …)
These huge open-air markets are enough to make brand-name companies fume, with brands like North Face, Nike, Victorinox, and Columbia Sportswear and others all featured prominently, for pennies on the dollar. They don’t even bother with the spelling errors (you’ve seen them: “Addidas”) or mismatched teams (e.g., “Atlanta Braves Football Club”). The rip-offs are so realistic, it’s hard to tell them from the real thing, and it’s all right there in the open. It puts Canal Street to shame for sheer audacity.
But it’s not just China that’s in the big business of selling black-market items. They’re being sold across Europe too, usually in Asian-run boutiques. The shoe pictured above was featured prominently in the window of a downtown Barcelona shoe store just last month. Note the altered swoosh. I can hear Phil Knight screaming …
Lost luggage. Really, Really Lost.
A few days ago, I blogged about my horrible experience at the lost baggage counter in Barcelona. Today, exactly a week later, I am already back home from a trip to Spain and France, still without that bag!
Although I managed to see Barcelona and drove up to the south of France, my luggage–it seems–saw a lot more of the world without me.
This is the sad story of poor me and my bag:
- Monday – I arrive in Barcelona from Prague on Czech Airlines, direct flight mind you. My bag does not.
- Tuesday – My bag arrives in Barcelona. Should be delivered to my hotel “asap”.
- Wednesday – I am am enjoying the Costa Brava while someone at Iberia decides to send my bag back to Prague.
- Thursday – I am driving up to France from Spain. Czech Air promises they will send the bag to me in Bordeaux.
- Friday – I break down and buy new clothes and toiletries. Bag does not make it to Bordeaux.
- Saturday – Marathon du Medoc day. My bag is apparently on its way to Bordeaux, yet somehow it gets rerouted to Madrid and then San Sebastien, Spain, of all places.
- Sunday – I give up and drive to San Sebastien. The bag is not there and apparently has never been there.
- Monday – I fly back home. Czech Airlines tell me they have no idea where my bag is.
According to USA Today, out of the 3,7 million bags that got lost by airlines last year, 420,000 are lost permanently. Umm, it is a little hard to imagine where almost half million bags end up. Apparently in some lost baggage center in Alabama. With the new “liquid” regulation, the number of checked bags has gone up and one would assume the number of lost bags would go up as well.
I love traveling, but the recent developments in the airline industry make me more and more convinced that trains might be the way to go.
Sagrada Familia: Construction Update
Who says people can´t build grand cathedrals nowadays? OK, so maybe they take a little longer to build it now, since forced labor is generally frowned upon. But, you can´t accuse them of not trying.
Barcelona has been attempting to build a cathedral-like building since 1882 and I am here in Barcelona to report today that it is still not finished. Actually, I was here last in 1993 and I really can´t see any major progress has been made since then. The new estimated date of completion of Sagrada Familia–which roughly translates as `Our Lady of Perpetual Construction,` or something like that–is 2022. That does not prevent it from being the most visited site in Spain today.
It is an impressive building and when the 170-meter central dome is finished, it should be a masterpiece.