Bizarre Places

Moving site

2008-10-19T05:16:00.000-07:00

The content on this site is due to be moved over to www.bizarreplaces.com. Once the site is up and running, it will be better organised, and a far more suitable format than the blog. This may take a couple of months, unfortunately, but it will be worth it in the long run.

Hiroshima Peace Park and Atomic Bomb Dome, Japan

2008-10-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

Hiroshima in Japan - the site of the world’s first atomic bombing - isn’t exactly the first destination on a traveller’s list for a cheerful holiday. But it sure is moving.
The spot where the first atomic bomb used in warfare exploded is now known as the Hiroshima Peace Park, with the most striking sight being the Atomic Bomb Dome. This was a former exhibition hall, and it has been deliberately left as a ravaged shell to remind visitors of the destruction wreaked.
Also in the park is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, which goes into depth about the horrors of the atomic bomb and the effect it had on the city.

The Gold Souk in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

2008-10-15T06:21:00.000-07:00

The Gold Souk in Dubai is the world’s biggest gold market, and the greatest jewellery superstore a visitor could possibly wish for.

300 jewellery shops
With 300 jewellery shops, the Gold Souk in Dubai is the world’s biggest gold market and it’s pretty damned close to being the world’s biggest diamond market too.
At every turn is yet another window filled with enough sparkling chains and rings to weigh down even the most muscular rapper.

Not as plush as the rest of Dubai
Ironically, however, it’s one of the few places in Dubai that doesn’t strike as shiny, new and all that rich.
A few shops seem a little run down, while the touts attempting to sell fake watches detract from glitz.
That said, for the magpies amongst us, it’s heaven.

Getting to the Gold Souk in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Nearest International Airport: Dubai

Using public transport: The Gold Souk is in Deira – a short taxi ride from the airport, and walking distance from Dubai Creek. If in Bur Dubai, get an abra across the Creek.

More information: Dubai Gold Souk

San Marino – the oldest country in the world

2008-10-14T00:58:00.000-07:00

Possibly because it’s too small and insignificant for anyone to worry about invading, the tiny Republic of San Marino has been in existence since AD301.
Surprisingly, this makes the 61 km² state, entirely landlocked by Italy, the oldest country in the world.
Whilst other nations have been busy invading each other, changing names and having revolutions, sleepy San Marino has stood by and watched, untroubled.
It doesn’t have an airport or railway station (try nearby Rimini in Italy for that), and shopping is the main attraction for the three million tourists that visit every year. This is largely because items are not subject to the 20% sales tax imposed by Italian law, but novelty collectables such as stamps and coin sets are also big earners.
However, it’s not all souvenirs and duty free shopping, with the three mountain fortresses overlooking the Adriatic coast providing views that far bigger nations would be insanely jealous of.

Getting to San Marino

Nearest International Airport: Rimini in Italy is the closest, although Bologna is not far away and that gets more flights.

Using public transport: Buses go reasonably regularly from outside Rimini’s train station.

More information: San Marino tourism

World’s biggest cave – Sarawak Chamber, Malaysia

2008-10-13T08:24:00.000-07:00

If size of cave was a status symbol, then only a Stone Age King would be able to claim the Sarawak Chamber in Malaysia.
Discovered only in 1981, this huge cavern on the island of Borneo is the biggest in the world, and is part of an extensive cave system.
To get some idea of scale, it takes an hour for even experienced cavers to get from end to end, and headlamps usually aren’t strong enough for them to see the walls.
In terms of what could fit in it, then think St Peter’s Basilica in Rome or a decent collection of jumbo jets.
To get there, you’ve got to make your way through a few tricky passageways, so the guides at Gunung Mulu National Park insist that anyone they take must have previous experience.
However, they do allow you to get that by doing a trip to other caves in the recently-declared World Heritage Area.

Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, New South Wales, Australia

2008-10-12T05:45:00.000-07:00

Athletic koalas?
It’s always nice to have your illusions shattered. Given that koalas aren’t exactly renowned for their non-stop athleticism at the best of times, you’d hardly expect the unfortunate ones beset by blindness, permanent disabilities and venereal diseases to be little hubs of pure energy.
Well, try telling that to Paddy, who has discharged himself from hospital, and is haring up and down a tree in a bid for freedom.

Koala hospital for chlamydia sufferers
Paddy has chlamydia, an unfortunately common complaint for these sleepy little furballs, and he has been placed in isolation to stop him infecting others. However, the security at the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, on the North Coast of New South Wales, Australia isn’t watertight, and he’s managed to make his break.

Volunteers give chase
The escapee has caused quite a commotion too, as a troupe of volunteers attempts to stop him running amok. Sending someone up the tree after him would be an obviously fruitless pursuit, so more cunning tactics have to be brought into play.
Apparently, koalas can’t stand things being wafted around their head, so Chris, the hospital’s habitat officer has attached a plastic bag to an extremely long pole.
As he waves it above Paddy’s head, the miscreant scarpers down the tree trunk with surprising speed, and this process continues until he’s near the bottom.
Waiting there to pounce are two volunteers with a sack, hoping to bundle him into it and take him back to the ward.

Benny Hill Show
Paddy is having none of it though, and as soon as he spots a brief respite from the plastic bag of unimaginable terror, he races back up the trunk to the highest branch he can find. The whole process, now beginning to look like something straight out of The Benny Hill Show, is repeated again – and again – until finally the prisoner is dragged kicking and screaming away, clawing his Hessian cage.

Australia’s koala capital
Port Macquarie is arguably Australia’s koala capital. It is surrounded by prime habitat, a gum tree heaven if you will, and the dozy marsupials still thrive here, even though the town is growing at a rapid rate.
The human expansion has been costly for the koala population. As more housing springs up, more trees are cut down, and many of the patients at the hospital are there for man-made reasons.

Mauling and drowning
According to Anne, the volunteer who guides us round, car accidents, maulings from pet dogs and drowning in swimming pools are just three problems the urban koala faces. They may have sharp claws, but they’re hardly likely to win a fight with a narky bull terrier or Holden Monaro. The swimming pools are a more eyebrow-raising problem as, although hardly the Ian Thorpes of the animal world, they can actually swim reasonably well.

Getting out of the swimming pool
The issue, says Anne, is that once in the pool, they can’t get out. The walls of the pool are too steep, and they can’t get a grip on the tiles at the top, so they just tread water and flounder about until they run out of energy and slowly drown.
It’s a pretty horrible way to go, and the hospital is encouraging local residents to put a small rope dangling in their pools so that the wayward adventurers can pull themselves up. Whether it will take on remains to be seen, but the staff at the hospital are determined to prove that not all human interaction with koalas has to be bad.

No Government funding
Set up in 1973 and run almost entirely by good-natured people donating their time, the hospital receives no Government funding. The $140,000 a year it takes to keep operations going comes entirely from donations, be it from visitors, generous benefactors or its adopt-a-koala scheme. Over 100 people volunteer their services in various roles, be it in conducting tours, running the shop or going out at dawn every morning to collect fallen branches from the bush to feed the koalas with.

Hand-reared like a newborn child
The most dedicated of all are those who take the youngest and most needy home with them. They are hand-reared as if a newborn child – including feeding sessions in the middle of the night – until they are of sufficient weight and health to be transferred to the hospital. It’s quite clear that these people care an awful lot about their eucalyptus-munching friends, and this shines through as you’re led through the pens in which the recovering koalas are housed.

Getting to Port Macquarie

Nearest International Airport: Port Macquarie has an airport, but international visitors will have to get a connecting flight from either Brisbane or Sydney

Using public transport: Port Macquarie is 510km south of Brisbane, approximately a seven hour drive, and 450km north of Sydney. It is connected to both by train and bus.

More information: The Koala Hospital can be found in the Macquarie Nature Reserve on Lord Street, a 15-20 minute walk from the city centre. It’s open every day, with feeding time tours conducted at 3pm. Entry and the tours are free, although donations are greatly appreciated.

World's oldest restaurant - Casa Botin in Madrid, Spain

2008-10-11T01:30:00.000-07:00

Those authoritarian chaps at Guinness World Records have attempted to silence the bickering over who gets the honour of being dubbed the world’s oldest restaurant, and have declared the Casa Botin in Madrid, Spain the winner.
Tucked away on Calle de Cuchilleros near the main square in the Spanish capital, this has become something of a tourist trap, but it has been open since 1725 for a very good reason.
Whilst most diners are visitors, it is not one of those places that the locals conspicuously avoid because the food isn’t up to scratch.
Quite the contrary, in fact, with the house speciality of roast suckling pig reputed to border on the divine and well worth the few extra Euros you’ll pay for location and gimmick factor.

More information: Casa Botin

Robert The Bruce’s Cave in Kirkpatrick Fleming, Dumfriesshire, Scotland

2008-10-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

This is thought to be the place that inspired a legend. The story goes that Robert The Bruce, King of Scotland way back in the early 14th century, retreated to it after a series of crushing military defeats.
With the hated English well on top, Robert had considered giving in. It was then that he saw a spider repeatedly trying to spin a web over the entrance of the cave, and he realised that perseverance would bring rewards.
So he left the cave, probably breaking the poor spider’s web again on the way out, and began to wage a successful guerrilla war against the English.
Bruce’s Cave (or at least the one with the most plausible claim to being it) is now controlled by a nearby caravan site in Kirkpatrick Fleming, Dumfriesshire, Scotland.
Visitors can enter, although arachnophobes would be well advised to steer clear – spiders still inhabit it.

More information: Bruce’s Cave

World’s oldest hotel – Hoshi Ryokan in Awazu, Japan

2008-10-09T01:17:00.000-07:00

Shrouded in ancient Japanese mysticism, the Hoshi Ryokan in the village of Awazu, Japan dates back to AD717. This makes it the world’s oldest hotel.
The story goes that Buddhist monk Taicho Daishi was ordered to the village on the foothills of Mt Hakusan, Honshu, to find a divine spring and show it to the locals.
Find it he did, and the hot spring baths are now the central point of this popular retreat.
The hotel has passed through 46 generations of hosts, amazingly from the same family. It’s the second oldest family business in the world.
Awazu is two-and-a-half hours on the train away from Osaka.

Stromatolites at Hamelin Pools in Shark Bay, Western Australia

2008-10-08T05:33:00.000-07:00

Oldest living things on earth
Whilst they’re about as interesting to watch as a mime version of Dances With Wolves, stromatolites are fascinating.
Made up of single cell organisms called cyanobacteria, they have been around for 3.5 billion years. In fact, they are the oldest living things on earth, and without them, we probably wouldn’t be here.

Creating oxygen
Stromatolites have played a huge part in creating an atmosphere that we can survive in. They create oxygen as a waste product, and without that, we’d quite frankly be long gone.
Until 1956, scientists thought they no longer existed. Fossilised examples had been found in old rocks, but none still alive.

Hamelin Pools at Shark Bay
That was the year that millions of living stromatolites were found in the Hamelin Pools of Shark Bay in Western Australia. More have since been found in the Bahamas, but the extremely salty water of Hamelin Pools has allowed this ancient life to survive undetected.

World Heritage-listed
They are the main reason that Shark Bay is World Heritage-listed, and whilst they don’t exactly entertain, such history has an incredibly mesmerising quality.

Getting to Shark Bay
A viewing platform, board walk and information about the Hamelin Pools stromatolites can be found 105km from Denham in Shark Bay. Denham is 842km north of Perth, Australia and Hamelin Pools is on the way. Try the Shark Bay office of the Department of Conservation And Land Management to find out more.

Europe’s largest thermal lake – Heviz in Hungary

2008-10-07T12:18:00.000-07:00

Nature-watching
For ardent nature watchers, it is a fine example of the species. The taut skin stretches over the substantial curve, as though it is finely packed in, not a spare inch to be filled out. Fetch the harpoons – we’ve got one.
Either side of the protruding bulge of this most excellent corpulent beast are a pair of miniscule Speedos and a fulsome silver moustache, partly covered in the third ice cream of the day. A stirring sight and, amongst those sprawled along the banks of Gyógy-tó, one that is most definitely not alone. As is often the case with this sort of thing, the biggest wellness retreats act like a magnet to those who would be better off doing some hard laps rather than lounging around in the bubbles.

Europe’s largest thermal lake
Gyógy-tó in Heviz, Hungary, is Europe’s largest thermal lake, and it’s an extraordinary sight. Eating five hectares into the surrounding woodland, it is fed by a deep (and very hyperactive) thermal spring that ensures that the water temperature never dips below 26 degrees. Theoretically, it still makes for a nice warm dip even in the heart of a fierce central European winter, but in the summer it is primed for laziness.

Large pavilion
Right in the middle there is a big pavilion, which is described by just about every guidebook as fin-de-siècle, almost as though the writers have just copied each other, not knowing what it means.
Octopus-like would be a far better phrase. From the central head, tentacles are sprawled all over the lake, leading to sun-bathing platforms, changing rooms and all manner of secretive rooms. These are where the portly tourists have their backs pummelled, their faces doused in gunk and their mountainous guts covered with crisp white towels. Shoes must be removed, showers taken and sun protection cream eschewed – the magical waters of the lake must be protected at all times.
At the centre of the octopus, there is a taster. Deep down below the platforms is a darkened pool, in which a gaggle of sectagenarians hang on to a metal bar, all moving on one position every two minutes. It’s almost as though they’re on a conveyor belt, being fed to the hungry Kraaken at the bottom of the lake that has a penchant for wrinkly Hungarians.

Bond villain lair
Once out of the Bond villain lair, however, the lake is an idyllic watery playground. The woodland provides a soothing backdrop to what essentially is a lot of people who should probably know better floating around in rubber rings.
The vague sulphuric smell isn’t enough to deter these hardy adventurers, splish-splashing away in the warm, enveloping cocoon and wishing violent sunburn upon their shoulders. Some even break into a swim, such as the couple wearing matching swimming caps, patriotically emblazoned with the German flag. Not for long mind – just as far as the next pontoon to cling onto.

Getting to Heviz

Nearest international airport: The nearest is the former military base near Keszthely, known as FlyBalaton airport and used by the occasional budget airline, such as Ryanair. Most will fly into Budapest, however.

Using public transport: Trains go direct to Keszthely from Budapest. From there, take a bus to Heviz – it’s approximately 7km away.

More information

Falconry lessons in Gloucestershire, England

2008-10-06T10:46:00.000-07:00

Handle birds of prey
There is no CV that can’t be substantially beefed up with the addition of falconry in the skills section, and any sane employer has got to be impressed with a candidate that turns up with a tamed hawk on his or her arm. No?
Irrespective of how useful it is, the National Birds of Prey Centre’s five day course is certainly something different. Based in Gloucestershire, England the course trains participants how to handle, care for and hunt with winged predators, including owls and eagles.

More information: The course costs £450 per person and by the end, you should know how to train a bird from scratch.

Geysir in Iceland – the world’s original thermal spout

2008-10-05T09:09:00.000-07:00

If the name Geysir seems familiar, it’s because all thermal water spouts across the world are named after it. But why visit the others when you can make the original your destination? Well, partly because it only works intermittently, but we’ll gloss over that.
One of the results of Iceland’s position just above the earth’s rumbling stomach is that there are many areas of high geothermal activity. So much so that most of the nation’s homes are heated by harnessing it.
At Geysir - which has now become a mini-settlement rather than just an intermittent giant fountain – this underground activity is rather obvious. There are a series of bubbling pools - some of which are shockingly hot, so don’t dip the fingers in – and occasionally the pressure gets too much.
Geysir itself has mellowed with age. It generally only starts emitting when there are earthquakes, but just next door is the most reliable geyser in the world.
Strokkur goes off every six or seven minutes, and the anticipation is almost as exciting as the main show. The water slops back and forth, rumbles with inner turmoil, starts to bulge and then... WOOSH! It’s a fearsome aquatic eruption, shooting 25-30m in the air, followed by a swarming cloud of vapour. All accompanied by the noise of a really fat person jumping into a swimming pool.

Getting to Geysir, Iceland

Nearest International Airport: Keflavik, near Reykjavik.

Using public transport: Good luck to you. Most visitors are either on a Reykjavik Excursions tour bus or have their own hire car.

More information: Geysir Centre

Sorell Hotel Rutli in Zurich, Switzerland

2008-10-04T08:49:00.000-07:00

At first glance, the Sorell Hotel Rutli in Zurich, Switzerland is just an ordinary three star hotel, catering for the business traveller and doing everything precisely as standard.
That is unless you’re in one of the ‘City Rooms’, which bear all the hallmarks of a savvy marketing department latching on to a trend for art/ design hotels.
The idea was to let a couple of local graffiti artists loose on the rooms, and see what they came out with. A lot of it is reasonably standard (but stylish) tagging and motifs, but on occasions Drim and Rast have been inspired.
Counting the Sheep is devoted to the storytelling of sleep, with lambs on the wall, ‘Good Night’ sprayed opposite the bed and, er, a green goblin in a pixie hat. The odds of having sweet dreams appear to be entirely dependent on where you look…

Getting to the Sorell Hotel Rutli in Zurich, Switzerland

Using public transport: Sorell Hotel Rutli is at 43 Zahringerstrasse. It’s within walking distance of Zurich’s main train station.

More information: Sorell Hotel Rutli

World’s Greatest Pub – Delirium Café in Brussels, Belgium

2008-10-03T08:15:00.000-07:00

To the beer drinker, Delirium Café in Brussels is as close an approximation to paradise as they will ever find.
The reason for this can be found in the large catalogue, weighing the wooden panelling of the table down like it’s a housebrick, or more promptly, by looking at the certificate behind the unhurried barmaid.
It’s from Guinness World Records, and it proudly proclaims that the Delirium has more beers available than any other establishment in the whole world. And that would be a gigantic 2,004 beers at any time. In other words, it’s the world’s greatest pub.
As the English chap plonked on the barside stool is keen to point out, this is a minimum of 2,004. On the list there are another 500, some of which may be out of stock at times due to transport hiccups in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the likes.
A flick through the catalogue is all it takes to realise that this is not your standard Belgian Beer Café. Whilst Belgium is represented in fine style, with every strength, brewing technique and fruit flavouring imaginable, the round-the-world trip is astonishing. Benin, Armenia, Bolivia, Guadaloupe, The Faroe Islands, Namibia, Mongolia, Tahiti… Every corner of the globe is covered, and the temptation to drink your way round it is only dulled by the prices of those obscure brews from Nepal.

Getting to the Delirium Café in Brussels, Belgium

Nearest International Airport: Brussels

Walking: The Delirium is the sort of place you’ll only find if you’re specifically looking for it, or are completely and utterly lost. It’s tucked away on a little cul-de-sac alley (Impasse de la Fidélité) near Grand Place, almost imperceptible as you walk past, off a maze of narrow, restaurant-lined streets, where there is barely room for people to walk two abreast (Rue de Bouchers).

More information: Delirium Café

Crime Museum in Vienna, Austria

2008-10-02T08:03:00.000-07:00

Those with a squeamish disposition are adised to skip the Crime Museum in Vienna, Austria (known as KriminalMuseum in German). Tucked away in what seems like a relatively small old building, this place is a veritable TARDIS of gore.
All the text is in German, and the stories of Vienna’s ancient crimes are going to get lost in translation for the non-linguists, but much of the utterly sinister collection is visual. And visceral, for that matter.
The Crime Museum is clearly aimed at the sort of demographic that enjoys walking through extensive cellars, looking at picture after picture of murder victims.
Yes, there are some bits on the sterling work of the police force, but the emphasis is certainly skewed towards rusty torture instruments, brutal weapons and photos of de-limbed torsos being dug up.
But sometimes it’s a refreshing change to settle in for a couple of hours of witch-burnings, violent confession extractions, lynch mobs and mummified heads in jars.
The whole thing is an engaging, morally ambiguous romp through Vienna’s criminal past. Much is ordered chronologically, with illustrated year-by-year and blow-by-blow accounts about the most newsworthy murders complimented by extensive profiles of the crooks. Lovely stuff.

Getting to the Crime Museum in Vienna, Austria

Nearest international airport: Vienna

Using public transport: Get bus number 5A or tram N. The museum is at Große Sperlgasse 24.

More information: Kriminalmuseum

Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Museum – Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

2008-10-01T07:15:00.000-07:00

The return of the freak show
In this day and age, a few fine old entertainments of the past border on taboo. The travelling freak show has long since been consigned to history; we’re encouraged to display sympathy towards the excessively tall, fat or hairy rather than point and coo. The bearded ladies of the 21st century will just shave it off, while the money-spinning grotesques can simply go under the surgeon’s knife.
However, there are a few last outposts of this bygone era still hanging on in there which haven’t been overrun by people pointing out that gawking at giants is a bit wrong, and, surprisingly, one of them can be found in the main shopping mall in Surfers Paradise, Australia.

Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Museum
The Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Museum in Cavill Mall is packed with the weird, wonderful and downright bizarre. It’s got shrunken heads found in Ecuador, pictures of a woman who could insert a hubcap in her lip and a scale model of the tallest man who ever lived, complete with his size 37AA shoes.
Unfortunately, these discoveries were those of a rampant egomaniac. Robert Ripley was the man behind the antiquated newspaper column which the museum is based on, and you’re not allowed to forget it.
Despite him being a complete irrelevance to 99% of the people looking round, a disturbing percentage of the museum is dedicated to photos of him and his life story, complete with some truly clunky, nasty Americanised branding.
It’s a shame, because once beyond the ridiculous self-indulgence, there are some quite fascinating things to take in.

Napoleon’s signatures
Whilst full of seemingly random artefacts, the cabinets also have some intriguing bits of information. For example, amongst a selection of Napoleon’s signatures (all completely different, which no doubt caused havoc at the bank) is the titbit that the French battle fanatic invented the modern house numbering system. Never knew that…
And, while we’re on it, did you know that the human tongue doesn’t age? Well, that’s the sort of useless, but brilliant, information to expect.

17 inch dwarf
But it’s not facts that you come for; it’s freaks, and there are plenty of them. A Cyclops goat, a headless hen, a man with a wooden rail through his chest, and a 17 inch dwarf imprisoned in a parrot cage for treason. Ah, just like the good old days…

Getting to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum on the Gold Coast, Queensland

Nearest international airport: A close run thing between Brisbane International Airport and the Gold Coast airport at Coolangatta. Budget Airlines are beginning to run cheap international flights from there.

Using public transport: Take any bus going into the centre of Surfers Paradise.

More information: Ripley’s

The Bognor International Birdman Contest - Bognor Regis, England

2008-09-30T01:11:00.000-07:00

Men (and women) were not born to fly, and should any further evidence of this be needed, then the annual Bognor International Birdman competition in Sussex, England is ample proof.
Held on the first weekend of September every year, this is a contest between eccentrics, fancy dress enthusiasts and wannabe aviation pioneers to see who can fly the furthest after running off Bognor's pier.
Some take it rather seriously, spending a small fortune adapting their hang-gliders into fancy flying machines. Alas, these noble inventors rarely get much further than the comedy entrants dressed as fairies, pirates, library books and cowering donkeys.
Any competitor that manages to fly 100m off the pier under their own power wins a GBP25,000 prize.
However, the contest has been going since 1971, and no-one has yet managed to conquer that distance.
So, while there is a vague element of serious competition, the whole event is largely about giving the general public a chance to watch a lot of people in silly costumes making an exhibition of themselves.
And getting very wet.

Getting to Bognor Regis, England

Nearest international airport: London Gatwick is the closest, although Bournemouth and London Heathrow are fairly accessible from Bognor Regis.

Using public transport: Bognor Regis is in Sussex, on the the south coast of England. The nearest major city is Brighton, from which there are regular buses and trains. However, there are also regular trains from Central London and Clapham Junction station, from where the journey should take just over an hour.

More details: Bognor Internationial Birdman Official Site

Water-jousting in Languedoc, France

2008-09-29T01:32:00.000-07:00

At some point in the distant past, the French decided that you don’t need a horse to be a knight in shining armour, and the truly bizarre sport of water jousting was born.
Practiced increasingly across France, it involves two groups of eight rowers powering their champion down the river.
Perched on a heightened platform, the two jousters are armed with a lance and a shield and expected to prod, swing and defend until one of them is knocked off, preferably into the river.
For some reason, the boats also contain a drummer and someone playing a modified oboe, but given that the rest of it makes little sense, who cares? Oh yes, and they’re all singing too.
Languedoc is regarded as the home of water jousting, and while it also happens elsewhere, this is often with ultra-safe lances, and a lot of the pageantry taken out.
The most prestigious tournament is held in Sète on August 25th every year, but events can be stumbled across throughout the summer.

More information: Rules and dates can be found at the Fédération Française de Joutes et Sauvetage Nautique’s website.

The world's craziest vanity projects

2008-09-28T03:32:00.000-07:00

The world’s craziest vanity projects

One of the great privileges of power is that you get to splash the cash on whatever you like. However, some rulers are more responsible than others, and for every one that will spend it on public services, there’s another that will build a giant golden palace. Whilst they may not be great for the long-suffering subjects, these massive vanity projects certainly have a wow factor that should impress even the most cynical visitor.

The Basilica of of Our Lady of Peace: The world’s biggest Christian place of worship in Yamoussoukro, Côte d'Ivoire.

Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania: Dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu’s grand folly, for which he destroyed up to a fifth of his capital city.

Rungnado May Day Stadium, Pyongyang, North Korea: The biggest sporting arena in the world

Palace of Versailles in France: Louis XIV’s extravagant seat of government.

The Neutrality Arch in Ashgabat: A giant monument to Turkmenistan’s President For Life, Saparmurat Niyazov, complete with rotating gold statue.

Mafra National Palace, Portugal: The lavish palace, built with Brazilian gold, that almost bankrupted a nation.

Great Gorilla Run in London, England

2008-09-27T01:17:00.000-07:00

There’s nothing better to send traffic veering into bollards than the sight of a thousand gorillas rampaging through the streets of London, brandishing bananas as weapons.
Ostensibly run to raise funding for the protection of gorillas in Africa, most of the Great Gorilla Run’s participants are clearly there for the chance to get dressed up in a ridiculous costume and monkey about for the cameras.
The costumes don’t stop at the gorilla outfit either – most taking on the 7km run adapt their outfit to add an extra dimension; hence the gladiator gorillas, Baywatch gorillas and ballet dancing gorillas pouring over Tower Bridge. The Great Gorilla Run takes place in September each year.
Check the official site for more information.

Getting there to the Great Gorilla Run in London, England

Nearest international airport: The event takes place in the City of London, so London Heathrow and London City are nearest airports, although London Luton, London Gatwick and London Stansted aren’t far away.

Using public transport: The event takes place in the City of London, so London Heathrow and London City are nearest airports, although London Luton, London Gatwick and London Stansted aren’t far away.

More details: Great Gorilla Run Official Site

Daly Waters Pub in Australia’s Northern Territory

2008-09-26T01:05:00.000-07:00

Remember to stop at the traffic lights

The Northern Territory town of Daly Waters, miles from anywhere, has a big history, an iconic pub and a very irritating set of traffic lights.
We’ve all been there. Trapped at a red light for seemingly decades for no apparent reason, tapping on the steering wheel in an increasing frenzy of impatience and silently berating the idiot who is in charge of traffic flow.
Well, if the whole waiting at the lights thing winds you up, then it’s probably best to avoid the Northern Territory town of Daly Waters. Outside the local pub is what the residents proudly boast is the world’s most remote set of traffic lights. You’ve got to give them that – there probably isn’t another one for at least 500km in any direction, and the chances of there being enough traffic to cause a nasty snarl up at the crossroads is even more remote. No, congestion control and accident prevention aren’t the priorities in this little backwater; it’s all about entertainment. Much to the howling amusement of those who set it up, the lights are permanently set to red in an attempt to trick as many visitors as possible as they foolishly slow down and wait for green. It is, quite literally, a tourist trap.

World famous pub

The town is most famous for its pub, and quite rightly so. It is truly something special, and is covered in what can only be described as tat from across the world. Business cards, postcards, foreign currency, passport photographs, driving licences… By the looks of it, most that have visited have left something behind, and it has been put up on the walls, crammed between bus tickets, train passes and rather unpleasant-looking underwear. Well, you wouldn’t leave your best pair behind, would you? Even so, it’s so dusty, shapeless and discoloured that you’d struggle to believe anyone would wear in the first place.

Visitors from Chile to Berlin

That so much from around the world has come together in such a remote place is staggering. Student cards from Chile mix with Berlin underground tickets and scenic photos of Galway countryside sit alongside rather less scenic pictures of maple leaf tattoos on a Canadian bottom. You could spend hours strolling around, reading everything, and notching up the nationalities. If you ever fancy a quick round-the-world trip, or a spot of identity fraud, then this is the place to come. During the day, the tour buses stop by, and another set of visitors from around the world gets to leave their mark. The locals look on somewhat bemused but they’ve long since got used to the strange procession of litterbug foreigners. It’s almost as entertaining as watching the people at the lights

Big barbecue and fresh barramundi

The evening is when the Daly Waters pub really comes into its own, though. That’s when the big barbie comes out and new-fangled things such as vegetarianism are mercilessly shunned. Salad is what food eats in this neck of the woods, although there will be a sprinkling of it available. Frankly you don’t need lettuce leaves when the steaks are top quality and the barramundi is fresh out of the river. Once you’ve tasted it, you won’t really care too much about the traffic anyway.

Getting to The Daly Waters pub

Nearest International Airport: Darwin, but that’s a fair trek.
Using public transport: Forget it – either rent a car or join a tour between Darwin and Alice Springs. Daly Waters is 7km off the Stuart Highway, 275km south of Katherine.

More information: Daly Waters Pub

Play or watch Pétanque in France

2008-09-25T01:38:00.000-07:00

For a stereotypical image of France, aside from a man in a stripy shirt with onions round his neck underneath the Eiffel tower, you cannot beat a game of boules.
Ah... old men - preferably wearing berets and smoking pipes - leisurely lobbing metal balls into a sandpit in the afternoon sunshine.
The idea is fairly simple, and is closely related to the British version of bowling. The closer you get to the small jack, the better.
Pétanque is the more simplified version of boules, and originated in the south of the country, where it is more prevalent. Ostensibly, it is played for fun, although it doesn’t take much watching to realise that this isn’t the case. At even the lowest level, it is regarded as a game of precision and technique, and this has a tendency to fuel male pride.
It’s important to bear this in mind if you fancy a game. A complete stranger is unlikely to offer you the chance to play, while if you buy your own set of boules, consider the serious looks on the faces around you before treating it as a raucous lark in the local Boulodrome.
Should you wish to watch, then Grenoble is something of a hotspot. The city at the foot of the Alps has held three of the last five World Championships in the sport, hosting competitors from 52 nations.
However, for a dip into history, try the small village of La Ciotat. Just outside Marseille, this is where the game originated.

Beatles tour in Liverpool, England

2008-09-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

Few cities play on their musical heritage as much as Liverpool does, but it has good reason to boast. Amongst many other bands ancient and modern, Liverpool was the birthplace of The Beatles, and there are plenty of sights linked to the Fab Four within the city.
Many of these are covered by the Magical Mystery Tour, which visits the houses that John, Paul, George and Ringo grew up in, as well as famous landmarks from their songs. It stops outside the most famous Salvation Army prayer centre in the world – Strawberry Field was formerly a children’s home near John’s childhood home - as well as Penny Lane.
It also visits St Peter’s Church, which hosted the festival where John and Paul met for the first time. Eleanor Rigby’s tombstone can be found in the graveyard.
The tour finishes off at the Cavern Club in Mathew Street. This is a reconstruction on the site of the original venue, but with its basement archways and cramped stage it’s brilliantly atmospheric. It’s not difficult to imagine what it would be like in the early 1960s when the Beatles played one of their 275 gigs.
Spare a thought, though, for the poor souls that live next to the childhood houses of the Fab Four. They must get sick of the visitors prowling around with cameras.

Getting to Liverpool, England

Nearest international airport: Many budget airline and domestic UK flights go Liverpool John Lennon airport, but from further afield, the most convenient major airport is just over an hour away in Manchester.

More information: The Magical Mystery Tour leaves daily from the Albert Dock.

Berry, New South Wales – Australia’s Novelty Shop Town

2008-09-23T01:30:00.000-07:00

Pity the poor resident of Berry, Australia who wants a loaf of bread and bottle of milk. For such a small town, it has the most bewildering array of shopping. However, the amount of things that are actually useful can be counted on one hand. A disfigured hand, at that.
For some unknown reason, any Australian that has every dreamed of selling something of such narrow interest that there isn’t possibly a market for it has descended on Berry, and they are thriving.
A ramble down Queen Street in the New South Wales town is truly enthralling. You can buy sundials, cuckoo clocks, lizards made out of recycled metal and a ceramic biscuit jar in the shape of an elephant in high heels, sitting on an armchair. Are people actually buying this stuff?
If not, they are certainly not buying the fountain with two pigs playing tongue tennis inside it, the big furry owl in the castle turret, the acres of fake fruit and jester outfits.
It is all quite, quite surreal. Berry is the epitome of quaint, from the ye olde buildings to the bales of hay on the pavement of the high street. It’s undeniably gripping too, especially for those fond of people watching.
The British tourists are easy to spot – they’re the ones raiding the sweet shop and taking out the entire supply of biscuits thought long extinct. Then there’s those browsing the shops. Is anyone going to buy the granny nighties that everyone seems to have on prominent display? And perhaps more intriguingly, is anyone going to be fooled by an antiques shop that contains a glass model of the Sydney Opera House (opened in the ancient year of 1973)?

Getting to Berry, New South Wales, Australia

Nearest International Airport: Sydney Kingsford Smith airport

Using Public Transport: Berry is about 2 ½ hours drive south of Sydney. It is also on the South Coast train line from Sydney Central.

More information: Berry Website

Hotel Kafi Schnaps in Zurich, Switzerland. The Schnapps-themed hotel

2008-09-22T01:40:00.000-07:00

The Hotel Kafi Schnaps in Zurich is essentially a coffee shop/ schnapps bar with a few rooms tacked on. In a building owned by a university fencing club (which still practices in the basement), it’s delightfully sketchy and laissez-faire. Go in and ask to see the accommodation, and there’s a high chance that the staff have even forgotten the rooms are there.
But they are, and they’re themed to a ludicrous degree. Each one is based on a different flavour of schnapps. This means that the plum room has little purple cushions bulging randomly out of the wall, while the kirsch (black cherry) one has a carpet designed to look like wood chippings and has pink-rimmed trees painted all over the shop. This is, it seems, regarded as being perfectly normal.
A word of warning – Kafi Schnaps is very much budget accommodation, one step above a hostel. That means a shared bathroom, alas, but who cares when you’re in the only room in the world designed with the Williams Pear as inspiration?

Getting to Kafi Schaps in Zurich, Switzerland

Nearest international airport: That’d be Zurich International Airport then.

Using public transport: Get the regular train in from the airport, then the tram from near the main station. Kafi Schnaps is just north of Zurich city centre.

More details: Kafi Schnaps website

Visit Elvis Presley’s home in Memphis, Tennessee

2008-09-21T10:10:00.000-07:00

Of all the world’s musical pilgrimage sites, Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion has to be the best known shrine. Hundreds of thousands flock to the rather impressive complex in Memphis, Tennessee to pay homage to The King every year, and while there are vague pretences at keeping it dignified, this is Elvis we’re talking about – subtlety doesn’t really factor in.
There’s a hell of a lot to see at Graceland, and the basic package gets you a tour of the gardens and rooms where old snakehips lived.
However, go for the full works and you can get as much Elvis as you can possibly handle. On top of the usual tour, you can visit his own private automobile museum and have a mooch around two of his planes.
Even more bizarrely, you can also check out 56 of his OTT stage outfits in a special area devoted to Elvis’ Jumpsuits. Perhaps the highlight of the VIP tour is getting the chance to look at many items that were personal to Elvis. These include gifts he gave to his parents and the deeds to Graceland.

More information at Elvis.com

World’s Oldest Museums – Musei Capitolini in Rome, Italy

2008-09-20T01:45:00.000-07:00

Unsurprisingly, the prestige of being the oldest building containing old things is fought over quite vigorously by people who should perhaps know better.
Anyway, just about every place housing a dusty old relic will claim to be the oldest museum by inserting some kind of sub-clause, but the most convincing argument comes from the Musei Capitolini (Capitoline Museums) in Rome, Italy.
They go back to 1471, although they would have been admittedly a pretty poor effort back then, containing only some bronze statues donated by Pope Sixtus IV.
It was 1734 before the museums opened to the public, and is now home to a wealth of artefacts from the Roman Empire, as well as various impressive sculptures.

More information: Musei Capitolini

Clog Barn and Little Holland in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, Australia

2008-09-20T01:21:00.000-07:00

In a country with such an obvious European heritage, it is only natural that some things will have come over from that continent with the settlers. Some of these are obvious – everyone speaks English, whilst just about every town in Australia will have an Irish pub, Italian restaurant and Greek kebab house.
However, every now and then you come across a glorious little pocket that has not tried to blend into the multi-cultural surroundings, and is absolute determined to retain the characteristics of the motherland.
For no discernable reason, completely at odds with the surrounding towns, you will stumble upon oompah bands in German villages in the Adelaide Hills (Hahndorf), or Spanish monastic communities an hour’s drive away from Perth (New Norcia).

Little Holland
Deserving a special mention for sheer bloody-mindedness, however, is Little Holland near Coffs Harbour, New South Wales. Clearly unable to persuade the rest of the area that they should build cannabis cafes, stick their fingers in dykes and revel in red light districts, proud Dutchman Tom Hartsuyker has cornered off his own piece of (flat) land, and has filled it with every other national stereotype he can think of.
The result is a 1/20 scale model village built over five tedious years, and it is a work of truly breathtaking pointlessness. Still, if making miniature windmills keeps him out of trouble and off the streets, then fair play to him.
Just in case that’s not quite Dutch enough, it is attached to a clog barn. Happily ignoring the fact that no-one, even in Holland, has worn clogs for roughly 200 years, they are on sale here.
At 11am and 4pm every day, there are clog-making demonstrations. Again, they are strangely endearing, even if everyone is looking at each other, sniggering under their hands and scratching their foreheads.

Getting to the Clog Barn and Little Holland, Coffs Harbour

Nearest International Airport: Coffs Harbour has its own airport, but it only receives domestic flights. Coffs itself is roughly half way between Sydney and Brisbane, and thus a long drive from either. The best option is to fly into Sydney Kingsford Smith and then get a connecting flight.

Within Coffs Harbour: The Clog Barn and Little Holland is on the north side of Coffs Harbour, on the highway out of town – on the way to The Big Banana. Entry to the Clog Barn and the demonstrations are free, but you’ll have to fork out to see the model village and railway.

More information: The Clog Barn

Hotel Otter – theme hotel in Zurich, Switzerland

2008-09-19T01:36:00.000-07:00

The fantastically barking Hotel Otter in Zurich, Switzerland deserves showering with awards for its name alone.
Entry is through the downstairs bar. It has a cow bone for a door handle and a plastic snake in a ‘desert oasis’ near the air vent.
There are 22 rooms in the hotel, and two of them are completely overhauled every year. Sometimes they let artists and designers do them, sometimes DJs. And then sometimes they just let the staff loose with silly ideas they dreamt up over a few too many stiff drinks in the pub. The results are brilliantly bonkers rooms such as Number 501, which has ‘1001 Nights’ scrawled on the door and a full-on Arabian Nights décor inside. Star-spangled blue minarets adorn the gold-painted walls, while liberal lashings of Arabic script, distinctly Middle Eastern furniture and a four-poster bed that screams Scheherezade top things off nicely.
Other rooms include Heaven and Hell (where peaceful blue walls decorated with angels are offset by a blood red bed and flames made of wood), Pop, Monroe and Japan. A word of warning for anyone booking into Carmen, however: you had better really like pink…

Getting to Hotel Otter, Zurich, Switzerland

Nearest international airport: Zurich International Airport, Switzerland.

Using public transport: Either take a 15-20 minute walk from Zurich’s main station or hop on a train or tram down to Bellevue.

More details: Hotel website

Royal Winery in Vaduz, Liechtenstein

2008-09-18T01:11:00.000-07:00

There is wine-tasting, and then there is wine-tasting in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. The tiny Alpine principality has the world’s smallest wine industry. There’s just the one winery, and that’s owned by the Prince of Liechtenstein.
According to United Nations figures, Liechtenstein produces just 80 tonnes of wine per year. For a sense of perspective, compare that to the five million churned out by France. Or, even better, the 77,000 and 45,000 produced by Algeria and Uzbekistan respectively.
Turn up any time outside of the summer, and it seems a ridiculous proposition. The vineyard is overrun by goats, and is in the foothills of some terribly large snow-covered mountains. Hardly the perfect terroir for viticulture...
But rock up at the Hofkellerei (the winery of the Princely Court) in Vaduz and you get to sample one of the most exclusive wines in the world for free. The pinot noir is sold only in Vaduz. And, believe it or not, it’s absolutely sensational.

Getting to Vaduz, Liechtenstein

Nearest international airport: Liechtenstein doesn’t have an airport, so the nearest is in Zurich, Switzerland.
Using public transport: Get the train from Zurich’s main railway station to Sargans or Buchs on the border. From there, a lime green post bus goes to Vaduz and stops near the Hofkellerei.

More details: Hofkellerei

Anglesea Golf Club in Anglesea, Victoria, Australia: Golf with kangaroos

2008-09-17T12:21:00.000-07:00

There is an exceptionally good reason why no mega-money golf tournament will ever be played at Anglesea Golf Club at the start of Victoria’s Great Ocean Road.
The course, about 115km south west of Melbourne, is absolutely teeming with kangaroos. They are as much a hazard of playing there as sand traps, water hazards and sadistically placed pins.
In the early morning and late afternoon in particular, there can be up to 100 of them on the course, hopping across fairways and stopping for a chat on the greens. To the members and locals, they’re an accepted extra dimension to the game.
Many have been hit on the head after not paying attention to the cry of “fore”, and club legend has it that a drive once landed in a pouch, with the lucky recipient nonchalantly bouncing away. Whether it was decided that this warranted a penalty shot is not quite clear.
Green fees at the club are quite cheap, so visitors wanting to try and dodge Skippy are welcome to have a go.

Getting to Anglesea Golf Club, Australia

Nearest international airport: Melbourne International Airport at Tullamarine, Melbourne, Victoria. That said, Avalon Airport near Geelong is closer for domestic flights within Australia.
Using public transport: Get the train (or bus) from Melbourne to Geelong, and then the V-Line train to Anglesea.

More details: Anglesea Golf Club Website

Republique du Saugeais in France

2008-09-16T12:52:00.000-07:00

The not-so-grand République du Saugeais is perhaps the only ‘country’ in the world that started as a joke.
In Eastern France, near the Swiss border, Saugeais started on its road to independence when a local hotelier jokingly asked the visiting regional prefect if he had a passport to enter.
The prefect then went and researched the area’s history and decided it should indeed be independent. He declared the hotelier to be the president.
And so a proud micronation was born, although there’s not really all that much to see.
Two retired farmers in fancy uniform man the border, while highlights for visitors include Montbenoît Abbey, lots of rolling countryside and plenty of cheese makers churning out the national cheese. Just don’t forget your passport

Mouth of Truth in Rome, Italy

2008-09-15T13:31:00.000-07:00

Made famous by Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday, La Bocca della Verità is perhaps the only former manhole cover in the world that acts as a polygraph test.
Standing outside the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin near the Ponte Palatino in Rome, Italy, it supposedly catches out liars.
The old manhole cover takes the form of a human face carved into stone, and it has a small stone hole in which the brave can put their hand, and then make a statement. Should your words be the truth, you will be able to pull your hand out with no effect.
Should you tell a dastardly, wicked lie – and now is probably not the time to continue your line about how the hamster died or how much that bargain pair of shoes cost – the mouth will snap shut and bite your hand off. There must be a lot of honest people around, as there is no pile of amputated fingers to be seen on the floor beneath.

Kiss the Blarney Stone at Blarney Castle near Cork, Ireland

2008-09-14T13:39:00.000-07:00

Thousands of people every year throw hygiene to the wind in order to kiss Ireland’s famous Blarney Stone, which is supposed to bestow the gift of the gab on anyone who puckers up to it.
The origins of the stone, which can be found at Blarney Castle near Cork, are shrouded in mystery and even the owners of the castle can’t give a definitive explanation.
Some say it was the stone Moses struck to produce water for the Israelites as they fled Egypt, some say it was part of the old king’s throne, which had magical powers. Add another few hundred explanations into the mix, and the stone itself becomes a great storyteller. Whether you will be after smooching it is open to debate.
What many don’t realise is that managing to kiss the stone requires a bit of a contortion act – it’s not in a particularly convenient location, so expect to stretch and twist.

Getting to Blarney Castle, Ireland
Nearest international airport: Cork has a small airport which takes some international flights (usually with budget airlines). Most visitors will probably fly into Dublin, however.
Using public transport: From the bus station on Parnell Place in Cork, take the 224 bus. The journey takes around twenty minutes.

More information: Blarney Castle website

Hutt River Principality, Australia

2008-09-13T13:05:00.000-07:00

Being the leader of a nation has got to be a tough job. No matter what you do, everyone seems to think you’re screwing them over, and you’ve got all those nasty vital decisions that affect the future of the world to make. Then again, you can have a bit of fun raiding the state coffers and imposing laws that suit you. No more short people holding umbrellas at eye poking-out height, the Black Eyed Peas outlawed, and all trustafarians with dreadlocks who bang on about Thailand could be jailed without trial.
It’s all just ponderings and contemplation though. Most of us will never be in that position anyway unless we take the lead of Leonard Casley.
You’ve probably not heard of him, but he is otherwise known as Prince Leonard, and he rules a micronation called The Hutt River Principality, which is about the size of Hong Kong. Not exactly a major player on the world scene, this self-declared state is nestled within the confines of Western Australia, and its story is pretty damn cool.

History of the Hutt River Principality
Back in 1969, Casley was merely a disgruntled wheat farmer who was pissed off about harsh quotas being imposed upon him. Whilst most farmers would have written letters to their MP, Casley took a more drastic course of action, and declared his land an independent nation. After searching through obscure British laws, he decided that it was perfectly legal to do this, and neither the Western Australian Government nor the Australian Federal Government has sent in the troops to take the land back. It remains the only bloodless secession in history, although the arguments still rumble on. In 1997, Hutt River Principality actually declared war on Australia after another petty squabble, but Canberra couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it.

Hutt River Principality today
What started as a reproach for the people in charge has now snowballed into something very strange. There are over 13,000 citizens of Hutt River Principality worldwide (although very few actually live there), and the breakaway principality has issued currency, stamps and passports. Companies can be registered there, in a similar fashion to those who register iffy businesses in the Cayman Islands to avoid people finding anything out about them. It’s also become a bit of a tourist curiosity.

Getting to Hutt River Principality, Western Australia
About 90km up the main road from Geraldton is where you’ll find the turn off, and you’ll not meet with any border controls. You can, however, get your passport stamped, and buy tacky souvenirs from a shop, where you’ll more than likely be served by Princess Shirley, the wife of the self-proclaimed Prince. Now, how often have you been sold a postcard by a member of a Royal Family?

More information on the Hutt River Province and acquiring dual citizenship.

Serial Killer Museum in Florence, Italy

2008-09-12T13:21:00.000-07:00

Saying hi to Ted Bundy
Ted Bundy looks like such a pleasant young man. He’s well dressed, has a lovely car and sports a suitably sensible haircut. Just a shame he had to kill all those people, really.
Standing next to Ted’s waxwork model is just the tip of the iceberg, however. As his story is recounted in frighteningly specific detail through the headphones, a quick scan of the room confirms that bigger horrors await. Such as Aileen Wournos and Jeffrey Dahmer
The Serial Killer Museum in Florence, Italy does exactly what it says on the tin; lots of gore, blood, weaponry and vile misdeeds. And, as such, it is by far the most entertaining thing in the city.
The level of research is commendable. Mass murderers from around the world have been collated, and their stories told. Occasionally it comes across as a rather sick game of Top Trumps, with signs comparing factors such as Number of Victims and Modus Operandi.

John Wayne Gacy’s bedroom
It’s hard to work out whether the visuals or the audio is more disturbing. There are electric chairs, model psychopaths locked in cages and a painstaking recreation of John Wayne Gacy’s bedroom (complete with him in a clown outfit). All jolly pleasant, especially when added to the commentary. It’s no exaggeration to say that you could sit there listening to it for hours, and it goes into the mindset of the killers, what it would have been like for their victims and the methods that police used to track them down. With shameless sensationalism, it regularly uses phrases like “beastly fury”, “signature from hell” and “the assassin can appear from nowhere... AT ANY TIME!”

History of serial killing
It’s not a cheap, morally dubious cash-in, though – it is genuinely well done. There’s a sense of context and history – French slaughterers and Hungarian vampiresses from as far back as the 15th century also get covered – whilst there is also a big emphasis put on how such crimes are solved and dealt with. This includes methods of punishment, with the tales of lethal injection tables and electric chairs gone wrong accompanied by real-life (decommissioned) dispatch mechanisms to gawp at.
And, for these reasons, a bizarre serenity envelopes the museum, completely at odds with the subject matter. It’s quite clear that most of the visitors are frazzled and harried from a day of hardcore tourism in a fairly unrelenting city. The opportunity to sit down in a nice chair and listen to the theories about Jack The Ripper while Charles Manson stares at you is, oddly, a very welcome one.
Who’d have thought the Butcher of Rostov would make better company than Michaelangelo’s David?

Getting to the Serial Killer Museum in Florence
The Serial Killer Museum is part of the Museo Criminale on Via Cavour in Florence. It’s a couple of minutes’ walk away from the Duomo.

Nearest international airport: Florence.

The world’s oldest pub – Sean’s Bar in Athlone, Republic of Ireland

2008-09-12T01:40:00.000-07:00

It’s a fairly time-honoured tradition that any pub with a cobweb and peeling paint will make spurious claims about its age in a bit to show just how authentic it is. Therefore, judging the world’s oldest pub is a nigh-on impossible task.
However, that establishment is largely thought to be within the British Isles, and Guinness World Records rates Sean’s Bar in Athlone, County Westmeath, Republic of Ireland as the most ancient.
The establishment claims to date back to AD900, and has remnants of bygone days scattered around the place to prove it. Just make sure you take a pinch of salt with your pint of stout.
Sean’s Bar can be found on Main Street, Athlone.

Whangamomona – New Zealand’s breakaway republic

2008-09-11T12:46:00.000-07:00

The tiny hamlet of Whangamomona on New Zealand’s North Island is independent in more than just spirit.
Whangamomona’s feisty inhabitants weren’t having any of it when local council boundaries were shifted in 1988. The settlement was due to move from the Taranaki region to Manawutu, but the locals realised that this would mean playing rugby for the detested rivals.
This was clearly not going to happen, so they decided to declare the village an independent republic.
Despite having an outdoor toilet as a border guard, the ‘republic’ boasts its own president and even has its own national beer. That said, two of the previous presidents have been a goat and a poodle.
Every second January Whangamomona holds independence celebrations, and of the many events, it’s apparently the sheep races that generate the most enthusiasm. They’re not independent enough from New Zealand to not get excited about sheep, after all.

Dog Collar Museum in Leeds Castle, Kent, England

2008-09-10T12:39:00.000-07:00

Within the walls of one of England’s most popular tourist attractions – Leeds Castle in Kent this collection of canine neckwear is proudly billed as the only one of its kind in Great Britain.
It’s difficult to imagine there being a frantic clamour to create some serious competition on this score, but it’s an undeniably impressive collection. If you’re into that sort of thing.
There are over 100 intricately engraved and sculpted dog collars in the museum, be they for hunting hounds or domestic pooches. All seem specifically designed to make that scraggy bit of leather around Fido’s neck look tatty and common.
Rumours that the only visitors are vicars and fetish club owners are consistently denied, although it is difficult to see what sort of travellers such an odd museum is trying to attract.
Entry to the Dog Collar Museum is included in the entrance fee to Leeds Castle.

More information: Leeds Castle

Muzeum Miniatur in Prague, Czech Republic

2008-09-09T13:51:00.000-07:00

Consisting of little more than a room with a series of microscopes to look through, there can be few more impressively pointless museums than this celebration of the tiny in the Czech capital.
In some respects, however, the art on display in Prague’s Muzeum Miniatur is far more of an achievement than anything displayed in the great galleries. Who needs the Mona Lisa in the Louvre when you can get a picture of Jesus on a poppy seed? Why would anyone choose to vast collection of the Hermitage in St Petersburg, when they can upgrade to a portrait of Beethoven on an apple pip?
There are other such ludicrous masterpieces, featuring trains on a single hair, being passed through the eye of a needle or John Lennon.
But perhaps the most bizarre thing of all about this museum of frankly pointless art is that it is so understated. It’s essentially a medium-sized room with a sign outside, containing a few microscopes and magnifying glasses to look through.
There’s no fuss, no wild promotion, just a polite invitation to come in and have a look if you happen to be in the vicinity.

Getting to the Muzeum Miniatur in Prague

Nearest international airport: Prague’s international airport acts as the main entrance for foreign visitors into the Czech Republic.
By public transport: The Muzeum Miniatur is near Prague Castle – walkable from the city centre. The nearest metro station is Malastranska

More information: Muzeum Miniatur website

National Piping Centre in Glasgow, Scotland: Learn to play the bagpipes

2008-09-08T13:37:00.000-07:00

Celebrating possibly the world’s most melodic instrument, the National Piping Centre in Glasgow, Scotland contains a small museum devoted to bagpipes.
And, boy does it go into detail about the Scottish aural torture weapon of choice. Whether it’s the origin of bagpipes, different playing styles or differences between Scottish and European pipes, the museum has all the information anyone could possibly wish for.
Perhaps the most interesting thing is just how old bagpiping is as a highly dubious ‘musical’ art form. Whether it’s the Celts or the Balkans, for centuries it has been the favoured noise-producer for peasants, shepherds and other people clearly not talented enough to get a record contract.
Those wishing to get a bit more into the caterwauling can book themselves in for bagpiping lessons.
And then, once enough lessons have been taken and your bagpiping skills are up there with the best, expect divorce proceedings to start quickly.

Getting to the National Piping Centre

Nearest international airport: Glasgow International Airport. Or, if you enjoy the famously pleasant service offered by Ryanair and its army of growling underpaid stewardesses, Glasgow Prestwick.
Using public transport: The National Piping Centre is within easy walking distance of both Glasgow Central and Queen Street railway stations. The same applies to the Buchanan bus station.

More information: National Piping Centre

Hobbit House bar in Manila, Philippines

2008-09-07T12:59:00.000-07:00

Anyone who says they don’t fancy a jar or two in this bar is a complete liar... the Hobbit House in Manila is staffed entirely by midgets.
Just in case your conscience is twanging at the thought of this, don’t fret, it’s not some kind of exploitative venture cruelly targeted at diminutive Filipinos.
The Hobbit House was set up by the little people themselves in order to give themselves work, and it’s proved incredibly popular.
It has a reputation of being a somewhat smoky drinking den, and also has regular live music performances which see it turn into a somewhat sweaty, smoky drinking den. Previous acts include Little Richard and Heather Small. OK, so that last bit is a lie.
The Hobbit House can be found at 1801 A. Manibi Street, Manila, The Philippines.

Teddy Bear Museum in Wimbledon, London, England

2008-09-06T13:18:00.000-07:00

Quite why the bear has gained this soft image is inexplicable. Try cuddling up to one in the wild, and it’s one big clawfest. Blood, tattered clothes, internal haemorrhaging and probably being consumed alive await if you try and take a grizzly to bed with you.
Still, the less damaging versions have been regarded as the perfect bedside companions for decades, and many have been saved from a lonely fate in adult attics by England’s Teddy Bear Museum.
Originally in Stratford-upon-Avon, the museum moved its 700-strong collection to the Polka Theatre on Wimbledon Broadway, London in 2007. They missed a trick – they could have taken Paddington back to his rightful home.
Nevertheless, it’s a fascinating collection, dating back centuries. And the old tatty fellas have considerably more charm then the bright pink concoctions with movable parts that children choke on today.

Getting to the Teddy Bear Museum
Nearest International Airport: London Heathrow.
Using public transport: On the London Underground, take the District Line to Wimbledon, or use the Overground service to the same station. Turn left as you get out of the station and walk for about ten minutes to the Polka Theatre.

More information: Teddy Bear Museum website

Clinic Bar, Clarke Quay, Singapore: Hospital theme bar

2008-09-05T13:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes wildly expensive drinks are worth it, purely for the comedy value. And nowhere is this more true than at Clinic in Singapore.
Inside an extremely extravagant indoor shopping and entertainment precinct at Clarke Quay, Clinic is Singapore’s premier (and only) hospital theme bar. And it takes things to almost tasteless extremes.
The cocktails are presented in various innovative manners — whether it's in a blood bag attached to a drip that you suck through a straw or test tubes, but they taste darn good. Shame they cost the GDP of a developing nation, really.
The most fun to be had, however, is with the seats. Instead of a boring old bar stool, you get hospital wheelchairs to whizz about on.
Now in a real hospital, this would the sort of behaviour that would invite some severe tutting and castigation from matronly nursing harridans, but here the staff just roll their eyes until a whole tableful of beers goes crashing over.
Just mind you don't bump into other patients, and you’ll be alright though.

Getting to Clinic Bar in Singapore

Nearest international airport: Singapore Changi.
Using public transport: Clinic is a short walk from Clarke Quay Station.

More information: Clinic bar

Alchemy Museum in Kutná Hora, Czech Republic

2008-09-04T13:05:00.000-07:00

Turning base metals into gold is something that has occupied the minds and wallets of the rich and powerful for centuries, and it appears as though not everyone has given up on this pursuit entirely.
The Alchemy Museum, perched above the tourist information office in Kutná Hora, Czech Republic is quite clearly run by one of them. Dressed in garments more suited to a raving hippy than a serious scientist, he has put together a little darkened dungeon that explores the history and aims of alchemy. And it all looks a little bit like a mad scientist's laboratory.
We may mock now, but in times past it was held in as high regard as physics or chemistry. Visitors can learn about kings, dukes and princes that were obsessed with discovering the Elixir of Youth, as well as the meanings of Da Vinci Code-esque mumbo-jumbo like the Philosopher's Stone and Emerald Tablet.
Most of it is predictably unfathomable. After all, if richly-funded alchemists don't know what they're looking for, how are we supposed to know? However, it's a strangely fascinating jaunt through something most people thought died out a long time ago.
Better still, if visitors turn up when it's quiet (which is probably most days - the joint is hardly a major tourist draw), the curator will wander round the museum with them and spin all manner of unlikely stories.

Getting to Kutna Hora

Nearest international airport: Prague, Czech Republic.
Using public transport: It's around an hour on the bus from Prague. The Kutná Hora bus station is just to the north-east of the town's main square. That square is where visitors can find the Tourist Information Centre and Alchemy Museum.

More details: Kutna Horá Alchemy Museum Official Website

Pencil Museum in Cumbria, England

2008-09-03T12:51:00.000-07:00

The Lake District in Cumbria, Northern England is one of the most beautiful places on earth, perfect for walking through marvellous scenery.
But if it’s raining – and it drizzles/ hammers down almost permanently in the Lake District - indoor attractions are needed. Cleverly, the Cumberland Pencil Museum in Keswick has exploited this gap in the market, pitching itself to frustrated walkers and utter dullards.
Billing itself as the “Perfect All-Weather Attraction”, the museum celebrates 350 years of pencil-making in the area. It include a reconstruction of the mine where the graphite for the pencils is dug out, as well as packaging from yesteryear and the true highlight – the longest coloured pencil in the world.
It’s yellow, by the way.
Alas, its future is not looking too promising. Derwent, the pencil-making company that runs the museum as an add-on, has moved elsewhere in Cumbria to Lillyhall. It’s not known whether it will continue to be viable to have a pencil museum in Keswick. If, of course, it was ever viable in the first place.

Getting to Keswick
Nearest international airport: Liverpool John Lennon, Manchester, Newcastle, Durham Tees-Valley and Glasgow Prestwick are all within a couple of hours’ drive.
Using public transport: Get to Penrith or Workington by train, then take the X4 or X5 bus to Keswick.

More information: Cumberland Pencil Museum

Fingerhut Museum in Creglingen, Germany

2008-09-02T12:49:00.000-07:00

It is forgivable to think that there isn’t much demand for thimbles any more – after all, not many people need to protect their fingers whilst darning their own clothes these days – but in this small corner of Germany, they’re regarded as an art form.
The Fingerhut Museum has hundreds of them, some 850-year old relics and some elaborately painted and jewelled fashion pieces. For real fans, there are also plenty available for sale in the shop.
The ideal Christmas present for a hyperactive teenager, one would have thought.

More information: Fingerhut Museum

Green Hills Cafe in Chisinau, Moldova

2008-09-01T07:34:00.000-07:00

It’s all very well having a couple of plants in the corner of the bar to add a natural feel, but Green Hills Café in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, takes things to excess. There are billowing pot plants all over the place and the entire outside of the building is painted bright green.
Oh yes, and there are four trees growing in the middle of the cafe, reaching up through a fabric roof, which looks to all intents and purposes as though a giant’s mattress has been flopped on top of the walls.
Aside from this rather Midsummer Night’s Dream-esque setting, the food’s pretty good (and reasonably cheap compared to some of the places clearly aimed at Russian oil oligarchs). More to the point, it’s one of the best places to hang out at, people-watching, on Moldova’s most upmarket street.

Getting to the Green Hills Cafe in Chisinau, Moldova
Nearest international Airport: Chisinau International Airport.
Address: 77 Stefan cel Mare si Sfint street – Look for Green Hills Nistru. It’s smack bang in the centre of the city, so walking distance for travellers staying in a relatively central location.

Padlocked bridges in Keila-Joa, Estonia

2008-08-31T00:39:00.000-07:00

Keila-Joa in Estonia is an utterly charming little place. It’s essentially no more than a country pub next to a waterfall separated from deserted Baltic Sea beaches by a forest full of walking trails.
By the pub and waterfall, however, are a couple of rather unusual bridges.
Traversing the river, they are absolutely covered in padlocks of all shapes and sizes. A closer inspection of the padlocks reveals that they all have two names written on them (often in Cyrillic script, admittedly) and a date.
It’s a custom of the area’s Russian community – and one that is seemingly recreated across the former Soviet Union.
Newly-wed couples engrave their names on the lock, and then throw the key into the river. It’s supposed to symbolise that their bond will never be broken, and it’s rather touching to see how many people have come to the bridges to seal their union over the years. It’s all rather simple, but very romantic.

Getting to Keila-Joa, Estonia
Nearest International Airport: Tallinn International Airport, Estonia
Using public transport: Mini-buses leave from Estonia Pst fairly regularly, although it’s best to ask at tourism information, as these things change regularly and Tallinn’s bus system is somewhat bewildering. It takes just under an hour to get to Keila-Joa.

Saddle Ranch in Los Angeles, California

2008-08-30T07:22:00.000-07:00

The Saddle Ranch Chop House is a hugely popular but completely incongruous hotspot on LA's hottest stretch of road – Sunset Strip. It may be surrounded by iconic clubs like the Chateau Marmont and Whiskey-A-Go-Go, as well as the joints where the Hollywood set and their beautiful companions hang out, but Saddle Ranch is unquestionably the most fun.
It has a Wild West theme, which has been done before and isn't all that wacky, but it has one important addition.
The highlight is the bucking bronco in the corner of the bar, and it chucks off emboldened drunks throughout the night, surrounded by raucous fans and ill-wishers. Everyone thinks it's a bad idea to start with, but after a couple of beers, can't wait to take it on. And doing so almost inevitably ends with complete loss of dignity.

Getting to Saddle Ranch Chop House in Los Angeles, California
Nearest International Airport: Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Using public transport: The bar is at 8371 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. Buses number 2, 302 and 305 go past. But given that this is Los Angeles, it’s probably going to be far less painful to get a cab.

More information: Saddle Ranch website

Elvis Bar at Glasgow Prestwick Airport, Scotland

2008-08-30T07:05:00.000-07:00

The King was popular across the world, and it doesn’t take much for cheeseburger-munching aficionados to set up something on an Elvis theme.
But the Elvis Bar at Glasgow Prestwick is odd purely because of its location. Memphis or Las Vegas would make sense, but the departure lounge of a minor Scottish airport?
But no, there it is, decked out in King paraphernalia and driving the poor bar staff crazy by playing a non-stop Best Of. One thing’s for certain, the poor souls staffing the bar won’t have Suspicious Minds as their karaoke song of choice.
Bemused passengers sit there, waiting for their flight and wondering what the hell is going on. That is unless they take the time to read the small notice which explains that Prestwick Airport was the only place in the UK that Presley set foot in. Nothing tenuous about that, huh?
Still, it’s better than the ubiquitous Wetherspoons outlets found in most UK airports, so it can be saluted for that alone.

Getting there:

Nearest international airport: Um, no, we don’t really need this bit, do we?

More information: History of Glasgow Prestwick Airport

Hard Day’s Night Hotel review – Beatles themed hotel in Liverpool, England

2008-08-29T06:27:00.000-07:00

The Hard Day’s Night Hotel is a new luxury hotel in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It opened in 2008 as part of the city’s European Capital of Culture celebrations.

A dirty weekend with Ringo Starr?
“I’ve brought a scarf,” said The Good Lady, clearly pleased with her innovative solution to what had become a distressing potential problem.
“Why?”
“Just in case it’s Ringo,” she responded, with an air of conspiratorial wisdom. “The others I can cope with, but I’m not doing anything with Ringo looking down on me.”
Similar thoughts had gone through my mind, although a blindfold for Ringo was probably a little excessive. We were going for a dirty weekend in the world’s first Beatles-themed hotel, and weren’t really sure what to expect. The Hard Day’s Night Hotel has only just opened in Liverpool, and all we had to go on were a few rumours.

Beatles theme
Just how Beatles-themed would it be? The odd signed album cover in the lobby, or full-on regalia in each room? I was plagued by the image of looking up mid-flow to see Paul McCartney grinning, with his thumbs aloft. That sort of thing could scar for life.
And there were other hideous thoughts too. What if the TV suddenly burst to life with “A Little Help From My Friends” the moment that a few saucy extras were pulled out of the suitcase? Would there be Sgt Pepper dressing gowns? Or John and Yoko dolls in the bed on arrival?

Grade II listed building
Mercifully, it appears as though the taste police have largely held sway throughout the whole operation. The Hard Day’s Night is in a Grade II-listed building with marble columns and staircases, and gives off the air of a grand old hotel that has been given a modern twist.
The Beatles-theme is relatively prominent but unobtrusive. It’s feasible that the perpetually unobservant simply wouldn’t notice if they didn’t know in advance.

Statues of the Fab Four
The classic example of this is on the outside. There are four statues (no prizes for guessing who) adorning the building’s imposing facade, but they seem like they’re supposed to be there. A passing glance, and you probably wouldn’t twig it was the Fab Four, despite the guitars they’re holding.
Inside, it’s in the same vein. The staircase is lined by a stream of limited edition photos taken throughout the Beatles’ career, but that’s probably the most in-your-face aspect.

Modern-looking lobby
A modern look is in place for the lobby – a circumspect reception desk and some bold, stylish furniture. The rounded orange chairs would ordinarily not fit well in a building like this, but as everything from the lift to the rooms has been moulded to the contours of the building, everything looks just natural enough to pull off some of the odder quirks.
Throughout the lobby are cabinets containing memorabilia, such as the musical score for Yesterday, and there’s the odd totally incongruous artefact placed for a bit of fun. That’ll be the Yellow Submarine Jukebox then.

Blake’s restaurant in Liverpool
The restaurant – Blake’s - has a sleek modern-classic look to it, with the occasional maverick touch, such as the massive lights with seemingly hundreds of bulbs in. It’s named after Sir Peter Blake, the designer of the Sgt Pepper Album cover, and there’s a hanging wall of his photographs. All of them feature people who were on the world’s most famous record sleeve, and again it’s surprising that they seem to slip into the background.
The bar is a little more heart on sleeve, but the big splashy-paint pictures of the boys are pretty cool, and work nicely amongst the wavy chocolate carpet and settees melded into the wood panelling.

Expensive cocktails
However, it does strike the hotel’s first bum note. It’s trying to appear a lot classier than it is – there’s a £750 (AU$1,635) cocktail on the menu, and even the normal ones cost £8.95 (AU$19.50). That could work if they didn’t have tacky names like Honey Can’t Buy Me Love, Strawberry Fields With Pepper and Yellow Matter Custard. The latter isn’t even yellow.
Bar Four leans a little bit towards what a footballer’s wife would regard as classy. And, sad to say it, it’s impossible to get delusions of grandeur when the cocktail waitresses have broad Scouse accents.

What are the rooms like?
But let’s face it, no-one goes for a dirty weekend to spend their time looking at furnishings downstairs. It’s the rooms that count, and that’s where the true horrors potentially await.
We opened the door nervously, half expecting a movement sensor-triggered blast of “All You Need Is Love” as we crossed the threshold.

Facilities including wireless internet
Such fears were – unfortunately, for those of a more childish disposition - unfounded. The rooms are rather stylish, and mercifully subdued. All the mod cons are there – wireless internet, flat screen TV built into the wall, rain showers and heated towel rails in the bathroom – as well as a few neat extras. You can’t go wrong with a free fruit bowl, complimentary chocs and some posh biscuits near the coffee-making facilities.

Temperature control
There’s a computerised panel by the bed for light dimming/ turning off and temperature control. However, unless you’re made entirely of ice, you’ll probably need to open a window. Who in their right mind thinks that 22 to 28 degrees is a reasonable range of temperatures to sleep in? They may as well park a radiator under the bed.
In fact, we could only find two Beatles-themed touches. The first was on the bathtub’s showerhead – it’s shaped like a microphone, which is unquestionably dead cool.

Picture over the bed
The second, of course, was the picture over the bed.
“Praise George Harrison’s Sweet Lord... it’s not Ringo.”
It was Paul, but mercifully not the Frog’s Chorus and Mull Of Kintyre wacky thumbs version. A young, beardy incarnation, wearing something of the granddad cardigan, his gaze is averted from the bed. Good job there’s an alternative use for scarves...

Getting to the Hard Day’s Night Hotel in Liverpool, Merseyside, England
The Hard Day’s Night Hotel (Central Buildings, North John Street) is just around the corner from the famous Cavern Club in central Liverpool. It’s within easy walking distance of Liverpool Lime Street Station.

More information: Hard Day’s Night Hotel website

Depeche Mode Theme Bar in Tallinn, Estonia

2008-08-28T06:55:00.000-07:00

Devoting a bar to a favourite band might be a cracking idea for a really, really popular artist. Perhaps a U2-themed bar in Dublin, or a Red Hot Chili Peppers pub in California? Heck, even an AC/DC pub in Sydney would probably go down a treat. But a bar entirely devoted to Depeche Mode in the Baltics? Erm...
Never let it be said that the owners of Tallinn’s DM Baar haven't gone the whole hog though. For the undoubted millions of Estonians who just love, um, whatever great songs Depeche Mode happened to do, there is a whole host of memorabilia strung up along the walls. This includes a picture of a distinctly non-plussed member of the band in the bar, probably more frightened than he's ever been in his entire life.
Oh yes, and you'll not need two guesses to work out the music policy. Non-stop Mode hits until closing time...
The clientele tends to be an odd mix of raving, foaming-at-the-mouth Depeche Mode fans, curious tourists and locals who appear to be completely oblivious to what it’s all about.

Getting to the DM Baar in Tallinn, Estonia

Nearest international airport: Tallinn
Using public transport: The DM Baar is in the Old Town, and thus it’s probably going to be easier to walk if staying centrally.

More information: DM Baar website (for the fluent Estonian speakers amongst us)

Love spoons in Llangollen, Wales

2008-08-27T00:56:00.000-07:00

It is, of course, vitally important for any father to know that a prospective son-in-law is able to sustain himself and his family. So what better way to prove it than getting him to carve a spoon?
That’s Welsh logic for you, and this is allegedly how the tradition of love spoons came about.
The basic premise is that an amorous young buck would give the spoon to the apple of his eye, with the delicacy of the carving an indication both of his craftsmanship skills and degree of devotion. If she accepted the spoon, they were officially courting. Well, it’s better than “get your coat darl, you’ve pulled”, isn’t it?
Nowadays, young Welshmen generally prefer flowers, chocolates or alcohol for the same purpose, but a small cottage industry has built up selling kitsch love spoon souvenirs to tourists. Picturesque Llangollen is the capital of this – you can hardly move for them.

Getting to Llangollen, Wales
Nearest International Airport: Liverpool John Lennon is the closest, but still not exactly convenient. Manchester and Birmingham airports are also within a couple of hours’ drive.
Using public transport: Get a train to Wrexham, then a bus to Llangollen.

More information: Llangollen and Dee Valley website

Hounen Matsuri Penis Festival in Komaki, Japan

2008-08-26T06:42:00.000-07:00

Forget February 14th and try March 15th if you prefer the romantic sight of twelve foot penis being carried through the streets to flowers and chocolates.
Hounen Matsuri is an ancient Japanese fertility rite, which involves a group of 42-year-old men (42 is thought to be an unlucky age in Japan) carrying a comically oversized phallus towards a shrine.
They are backed up by a group of ladies carrying smaller versions of the big bruiser, and it is considered lucky for members of the crowd to touch the traditional todgers as they make their way through the streets.
Those who can’t quite get close enough to gain the immeasurable benefits of handling the goods can settle for second best with all manner of genitalia regalia that is sold in shops and souvenir stalls on the day. Maybe a lollipop? Or a keyring? Either way, there are plenty of phallic presents that will make an excellent present for grandma.

Mulhouse’s Wallpaper Museum - Musée de Papier Peint in Rixheim, France

2008-08-25T21:28:00.000-07:00

There can be few people in the world who love bizarre museums as much as I do. If it’s focused on a disturbingly specific subject matter and cannot possibly be financially viable to run, then I’m all for it.
But sometimes one of these museums can seem a little bit too dull even to me. Step forward France’s finest (and only) museum of wallpaper
Since 1797, the small municipality of Rixheim (near Mulhouse and the Swiss border) has been based on the manufacture of wallpaper. The craft still continues today and, to celebrate, the Musée de Papier Peint can tell you everything you could possibly wish to know about changing tastes in wallpaper over the centuries. Yawn.
If this somehow strikes as being slightly less than exciting, then true purists will be delighted to hear that the machinery on which the wallpaper is made can also be gazed upon.
Oh yes, and demonstrations take place at 3.30pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays during the hectic summer tourist season.
Don’t all rush at once to book a holiday in Mulhouse now, will you?

More information: Musée de Papier Peint

Europe in a day – Mini-Europe in Brussels, Belgium

2008-08-25T06:45:00.000-07:00

Mini-Europe in Brussels, Belgium is the perfect cheat’s tour of the greatest buildings on the European continent. And a very bizarre theme park.

The Parthenon... but not in Athens?
So, at the end of an exhausting trek through the entire continent, comes that great symbol of civilisation: The Parthenon. Perched on top of the Acropolis, its impact is somewhat dulled by the giant water slide in the background, gleeful child screaming down it.
Mercifully, this is not a case of a near-sacred site being desecrated by thoughtless development; the average toddler could probably trample this version of the Greek masterpiece into the ground given a free rein.

Houses of Parliament, Leaning Tower of Pisa and Brandenburg Gate
That is because, although frighteningly detailed, it’s a bit smaller than the real deal - one 25th of the size, to be precise – and it is in good company.
Close by are the diminutive Houses of Parliament, the fun-sized Leaning Tower of Pisa and the pocket Brandenburg Gate. In fact, most of Europe’s iconic buildings can be reached within a short stroll.

Vanity project
This, you may correctly surmise, is one of those fabulous vanity projects akin to the owner of an English stately home building an ornate tower in his garden largely because he can.
It’s just that in this case, the self-indulgent mad old fool is the European Union.
Mini-Europe in Brussels, Belgium is a bizarre combination of art showcase, theme park and propaganda stunt.

Europe at waist-height
Europe is sprawled before you, largely at waist height. That some of it is not is an astonishing indication of how incredibly large some of the continent’s oldest, largest buildings are.
For a rough approximation of scale, bear in mind that the average suburban semi would probably come to just below the knee of a medium height adult male if built to these proportions.
In Mini-Europe, that standard man will reach the first floor of the Eiffel Tower if stood on tiptoe and perched on the hill next to it. The miniature model is still 13 metres high.

Expansion of the European Union
As you wander round, the buildings are arranged by country, an arrangement that has clearly not been thought through properly. The expansion of the European Union has caused all sorts of problems here, as suddenly another ten countries have had to be squeezed in to a park that was already as good as full.
So, whilst the likes of Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Spain receive wee approximations of just about every building in the land, others have a token building each and are crammed into a tiny space.
The Czech Republic and Slovakia have been thoughtfully re-united again, whilst Hungary and Slovenia clearly haven’t got any tourist attractions worth recreating. They have to make do with a signpost in a bush.

Cost of models
Then there’s the issue of splashing out for yet more models. They don’t come cheap, that’s for sure, and given the level of detail, that comes as no great surprise.
According to the park guide, each model cost an average of EUR75,000 to make, using advanced moulding techniques. Workshops from across the Union were called in to shape the tiny wall decorations and statue bumps required, and it didn’t get done quickly.

Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela
The cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, for example, took 24,000 man hours to complete. The real thing probably didn’t take that long.
Being terribly official, there is a certain pomp to the place. By every country’s models, there is a big button to press, which is very satisfying until you get utterly sick of hearing national anthems.
When 25 of them are piping away at a time, the novelty value quickly fades, but it can’t detract from the impressiveness of the work that has gone on here. For example, with Dover, you don’t just get the castle, but the white cliffs and the row of terraced houses at the bottom.

Getting to Mini-Europe in Brussels, Belgium

Nearest international airport: Brussels

Using public transport: If coming to Brussels by train, get off at Brussels Central, then take the 1A Metro service and disembark at Heysel.

More information: Mini-Europe

Museum of Contraception and Abortion in Vienna, Austria

2008-08-24T21:37:00.000-07:00

A short walk from Vienna’s Westbahnhof is a heavy wooden door, almost specifically designed to make people go away. To get through it, you need to press a buzzer, and once finally upstairs you’re ushered into what looks disturbingly like the waiting room of a family planning clinic.
This is the Museum of Contraception and Abortion (though the tourist board literature prefers to leave that last bit out), and it is a bizarre combination of the serious and the frivolous.
Cases are filled with pills and applicators from through the years, while on the walls pie charts and statistics about illegal abortions are opposite cartoons of Victorian types blowing up condoms in some kind of hilarious parlour game.
It covers the whole gamut – diaphragms to sterilisation, via anti-baby lipstick and bidets designed specifically for a post-coital wash. And then there are some implements where it’s probably best to have a limited understanding of German.

Getting to Vienna

Nearest International Airport: Vienna’s airport is well connected to the rest of the world, although budget airline fans can fly into Bratislava just across the border with Slovakia, and take the short train ride in.
Using public transport: The Museum of Abortion and Contraception is just over the busy main road from Vienna Westbahnhof, which is the city’s major train station. It doesn’t really look like a museum, but the address is 37/1 Mariahilfer Gürtel.

More information: Museum website

The abras of Dubai Creek, United Arab Emirates

2008-08-24T06:17:00.000-07:00

The cheapest form of travel in Dubai is also the most fun. The abras – miniature wooden ferries on the Dubai Creek – are a holiday experience in themselves.

A trading hub
Dubai Creek is positively chaotic. The city grew up as a trading hub – surprisingly little of Dubai’s modern-day prosperity is due to oil revenue - and it was this waterway where the merchant ships came in. This is not the case today – huge port facilities have been built to take the big ships – but you wouldn’t know it at first glance.

Dhow Wharfage
The Dhow Wharfage, on the Deira side of the Creek near the Souks, is where the defiantly old-school shipping happens. Lined up the water’s edge is box after box of goodies, be they spices or production-line vacuum cleaners.
All are waiting to be loaded onto the dhows, then taken elsewhere in the Gulf. Quite how they’ll get there is another matter – these big wooden boats look one extra dose of rot away from an ignominious end on the seabed.

The abra ride – one dirham per person
Weaving around the dhows, crunching into the jetties and shunting each other unceremoniously are the abras.
There are seemingly hundreds of these miniature ferries darting across the Creek at any one time, and how there’s not a serious accident every ten minutes is difficult to fathom.
Each one departs when it has enough passengers, taking a dodgem approach until it gets to open water.
The driver collects the one dirham (approx AU$0.30) fare then smashes into the wharf on the other side a few minutes later.

Getting off the ferry
Passengers have to leap off while the abra is vaguely close to the decking, hoping it’s not going to bounce away again before they get the chance. You don’t get that sort of thrill ride in a taxi, that’s for sure.

Getting to Dubai Creek, United Arab Emirates

Nearest international airport: Dubai.

Using public transport: It all depends where you’re staying. If in Deira or Bur Dubai, it’s easily walkable, but buses or taxis are needed from other locations. A taxi is the only viable option from the airport.

Woodlyn Park in Waitomo, New Zealand - Stay in a 1950s plane

2008-08-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

You really have to give top marks to this one. A clearly barking New Zealander has got hold of an old plane and made excellent use of it, converting it into accommodation.
Despite once being the proud supply line to American troops in Vietnam, there’s not much use for the Bristol Freighter these days. Except, of course, as a substitute hotel near Waitomo on New Zealand’s North Island.
The plane still has the camouflage livery, and by the looks of it, much of the original gear and furnishings.
A nice little touch is that it costs slightly extra to stay in the cockpit rather than in the tail of the plane. The riff-raff in cattle class should know their place, after all.
Just in case the warplane rooms are not wacky enough, Woodlyn Park also offers accommodation in a ‘train motel’, a ship that the owner is trying to compare to the Titanic and hobbit houses.
Take a look at the pics on the website – the whole place looks somewhat surreal.
It’s also pretty close to the Waitomo Caves – a bizarre attraction in themselves, particularly if you take on the blackwater rafting through the caves, lit by glow worms.

More information: Woodlyn Park

Climbing trees in Western Australia's South West

2008-08-23T11:34:00.000-07:00

The three major ‘climbing trees’ around Pemberton in the South West of Western Australia are the Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree, the Gloucester Tree and the Diamond Tree. And they’re terrifying, as I discovered when I tried climbing the Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree.

Childlike dream
It is many a man’s dream to be a child again. The constant diet of icecream and fishfingers, the ability to get away with saying and doing bad things because adults think it’s cute, work being a particularly tough sum in maths… it’s enough to make anyone go nostalgic.
Arguably, though, the best thing about being a child again would be regaining that complete lack of fear. Cars can’t run you over, you’ll never fall off anything, and playing with matches won’t hurt a bit. You can also gleefully scamper up precarious-looking trees whilst adults look on and wince.

Tree climbing in the Pemberton Forest
Nowadays, tree climbing is a bit more risk-packed. It takes a considerable amount of alcohol to feel infallible these days, and the Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree in the Pemberton Forest of South West WA is a thing of stomach-tightening fear rather than glorious opportunity.

Warren National Park
In the Warren National Park, 10km south of Pemberton, this karri tree soars 69m in the air, and someone has thoughtfully built a flimsy looking staircase around it. As protection, you have a mesh that is little better than chicken wire, and you are treading on thin strips of wire. One misplaced foot, therefore, and you’re going to be in an awful lot of trouble.

Fear of heights – not ideal for the task in hand
Hate heights. Hate them, hate them, hate them with knobs on. Climbing something so high and blatantly dangerous is not my idea of fun, but with the rest of the group chickening out (Boo! Hiss!), someone has to restore some honour.
Gingerly stepping onto the first rung, it mercifully doesn’t give way under my elephant weight, but my legs start to turn to jelly as soon as an unsafe jump-off distance is reached.

Viewing platform
Roughly a third of the way up is a viewing/ recovery from impending asthma attack platform. Great view, lovely trees, but after you’ve just clambered up the equivalent of a two story building, any pictures you attempt to take are liable to be shakier than a blancmange on a particularly vigorous washing machine. Especially when there’s the best part of the climb to go, and then the getting down part…

Getting to the top of the Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree
After about twenty minutes of self-flagellation about being a coward to back out now, it’s time to start the baby steps again. Taking on every rung is a triumph of willpower, knowing that coming down is going to be even more terrifying.
‘Aided’ by shouts from the ground of “Look out for the missing rung” and “If you fall, you’ll probably die instantly – no pain,” somehow the top section is conquered. Once there it’s easy to imagine how Sir Edmund Hillary felt. The biggest kid, up the biggest tree of all, the king of the playground.
Then, of course, there is the matter of getting back down. Any chance of a helicopter ride chaps?

Getting to the Pemberton climbing trees in Australia

Nearest International Airport: Perth

Using public transport: The trees themselves – all of which are around Pemberton – are not easy to get to by public transport, but are within a short enough taxi ride. To get to Pemberton from Perth, use the direct TransWA bus.

Globe Museum in Vienna, Austria

2008-08-22T21:34:00.000-07:00

It’s hard to get anything more wholesome than globes, and there are absolutely hundreds of them in the Austrian National Library. Once a private collection, it has now ballooned across an entire floor, and walking in is quite surreal. It’s almost as if someone has gone to the drawing room of every fictional Victorian detective commandeering their globes, then bundled them all willy-nilly into massive glass cabinets. There are 420 of them in total, and just when you think it’s all over, there’s another room with an even higher concentration.
As all good bizarre museums should be, it is ludicrously over-detailed and answers questions you’d never even thought of asking. Has anyone ever seriously thought about how globes are made? Well here you can find out as interactive screens painstakingly go through the process, step by step.
The whole place gives a peek of a whole new world that most of us never knew existed. Making globes is part art, part craft, part science, and old, highly-styled ones are worth a fortune. They date back to 360BC, and a few makers are revered as artists (despite getting countries in the wrong place and covering up parts they didn’t know all that much about with pictures of lions).
One from 1541 is fabulously inaccurate, and we know because an actual map has been superimposed on top of it. Half of Africa is in the Indian Ocean, Jerusalem is in Sudan, New Delhi is where Arabia should be and Tokyo has been transported to Mongolia. Australia, of course, hadn’t been discovered by that time, and is conveniently replaced by a few sea monsters.

Getting to the Globe Museum in Vienna

Nearest international airport: Vienna International Airport.
Using public transport: The Globe Museum at the Austrian National Library can be found in the Palais Mollard, near the Herrengasse U-Bahn station.

World’s oldest show cave - Postojna, Slovenia

2008-08-22T08:55:00.000-07:00

In proof positive that vandalism has its uses, the Postojna Cave in Slovenia has utilised careless graffiti artists to get itself into the record books.
Incredibly, it has been a tourist attraction since 1213, which is the earliest date identifiable from visitors’ etchings on the walls. This makes it the world’s first show cave.
Whilst an unfortunate amount has been destroyed by candles, torches and thoughtless scribbling, a huge system still remains, and due to lashings and lashings of calcium carbonate, there are some incredible features. These include a giant ‘diamond’ column.
The highly popular tours are available year-round.

More information: Postojna Cave

Gibraltar's World War II tunnels - the secret city in The Rock

2008-08-21T21:41:00.000-07:00

During the Second World War, Gibraltar was thought to be a key military target. The British Government assumed that Germany would want to get hold of its small territory in order to get control of the Mediterranean.
It was a major strategic base for the Allies too – both in terms of being the headquarters for the North Africa campaign and refuelling ships.
As part of all this activity, over 50km of tunnels were drilled into the Rock, with stores, command and communications centres, electricity generators and sleeping quarters all included. It took just three years to dig out this secret city, and somehow the Germans never found out about it.
A small section of this mindblowing underground network is open to visitors on guided tours.
An ex-army guide leads visitors through the accessible parts - the rest is still used by the military to train Afghanistan-bound troops in tunnel warfare – and the adventure is packed with tales of conditions, mischief and mind-blowing logistics.
Allied leaders were frequent visitors during the war, and it is possible to see the rooms in which they made key plans. The dank underground barracks where soldiers would be cooped up for six days a week are also on display.
Intriguing graffiti, carefully fortified lookouts and the equipment used to sustain life in the Rock are also part of the tour. For anyone with even a passing interest in history, engineering or tales of derring-do and plotting, it’s a brilliant experience.

Getting to the World War II tunnels in Gibraltar
Nearest international airport: Gibraltar has its own international airport, although in practice
By public transport: It’s possible to trudge up the Rock to get to the innocuous entrance where the tour starts, but a cheap cab ride is a much better bet.

More information

Snake charmers at Djemaa el-Fna in Marrakech, Morocco

2008-08-21T07:35:00.000-07:00

Djemaa el-Fna is the central square of Marrakech's Medina - but the snake charmers mean there's a lot more to it than eating Moroccan tagines and admiring the architecture.

Marrakech’s glorious central square
All I wanted was a photo, but it’s rather hard to stroll through Marrakech’s glorious central square without being molested by snakes.
There are snake charmers everywhere in Djemaa el-Fna, all itching to grab as much tourist dollar as possible.
Step back from a Moroccan who’s waving a python at you with scarcely concealed menace, and you’re liable to bump into another wielding something more deadly.

Covered in snakes
Don’t make the mistake of giving in and nervously posing for the photo, though, as you’ll be absolutely covered in them.
One round the neck, one on the head, a few cobras round the feet that have just been woken up and antagonised with a tambourine... that sort of thing. And the cheeky buggers who’ve just commandeered your camera expect you to smile.
The problems, of course, start when the snakes are removed.
The charmers appear to believe that such a terrifying ordeal is worth hundreds of dirhams, and seem mighty put out when you just hand over a small note as ‘thanks’.

Getting to Djemaa el-Fna in Marrakech

Nearest International Airport: Marrakech Menara Airport is a short drive south-west of the city centre.

Using public transport: The main bus station is roughly a 20 minute walk north-east of Djemaa el-Fna. But that timing is rather dependent on not getting lost in the maze of souqs.

The Plymouth- Banjul Challenge – from England to the Gambia

2008-08-21T06:58:00.000-07:00

Not got the money for the Paris to Dakar Rally? Well why not try the low budget alternative race between Plymouth in England and Banjul in the Gambia?

An alternative to the Paris to Dakar Rally
A novel take on the more established (and infinitely better-funded) Paris to Dakar Rally, the Plymouth - Banjul is about willpower overcoming rusty engineering. And the fact that it doesn’t even go to Dakar is irrelevant, despite also calling itself the Plymouth to Dakar rally in order to get attention.

Banger run through the Sahara Desert
The idea is that the route has to be covered, completely unsupported by back-up crews and the like, in a vehicle that costs under £100. Essentially is a great banger run over two continents, risking all manner of trauma in the harsh, isolated conditions of the Sahara Desert.
Just to make things a little more interesting, the organisers have no specialised arrangements with the governments of the countries that are raced through (unlike the Paris – Dakar).

Travelling as a tourist, not a sportsman
Everyone travels as a tourist, having to detail with little problems like Senegal not letting in cars older than five years old (unless customs officers escort them all the way to the Gambian border) and a Gambian ban on right-hand drive vehicles.
The challenge is almost as much about keeping sane with bribe-hungry officials as keeping sand out of the engine.

More details: Plymouth to Banjul Rally

World's biggest wine collection

2008-08-20T21:25:00.000-07:00

The biggest wine collection in the world can be found in the former Soviet Republic of Moldova. Just remember to bring some cash if you decide to go.

I had a bit of a disaster on my trip to Moldova in April 2008. I lost my Visa bank card in Lithuania beforehand, and couldn’t withdraw any cash on my credit card from the ATMs in Chisinau for some reason.
This meant I was down to approximately EUR100 for three days, including accommodation, train and taxi fares.
After a bit of shouting down the phone at my bank and a fair amount of despair in one of the grimmest Soviet-era hotels imaginable, I realised that I had absolutely no chance of getting to the one place I wanted to get to.
Milestii Mici is the world’s biggest winery. And that’s not just the promotional blurb from the people that run it – it’s recognised by Guinness World Records. Apparently, over 1.5 million (conservative estimate) bottles of wine are stored there in a 200km network of ‘streets’.
Unlike other wine tours where you are driven around a series of wineries, you need a car to get round just the one winery.
Alas, I was foiled, so if anyone has been to Milestii Mici, I’d be interested to hear from you. Apparently it’s not just quantity either – the wines are reportedly amongst the best in the old Soviet Union.

More information: Milestii Mici website

The Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim, Northern Ireland

2008-08-20T11:16:00.000-07:00

A tour to the Giant's Causeway in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, involves stunning coastal scenery, honeycomb rocks and a tall tale about the giant, Finn McCool.

Walk along the County Antrim coastline
The walk to the Giant’s Causeway on the County Antrim coast in Northern Ireland is fabulous, with cliffs and bluffs jutting out into the angry sea. There’s a wealth of colours in the rocks, grass and trees, but it’s the huge collection of hexagonal stepping stones that make this a World Heritage site.
While the coastline is pretty cool from afar, it’s really only up close that the magic of the Giant’s Causeway reveals itself. There are thousands and thousands of these rock columns, all tessellated together as if in a sprawling honeycomb.

Hexagonal columns
Clambering over, and hopping from hexagon to hexagon is tremendous fun – a little like a giant version of an odd Japanese board game. There are around 40,000 of these columns. Not all are six-sided – some are five or eight – but it’s the sheer scale and setting that makes it. And, of course, yet another unlikely story – this time about the giant that made it.

How was the Giant’s Causeway made?
If you ask scientists, the Giant’s Causeway was formed during a period of intense volcanic activity. They claim that the molten basalt poured out through a bed of chalk, forming a lava plateau. When it cooled, it did so at varying rates, and thus the unusual column structure was created.
This, of course, is utter nonsense, and the real story goes as the locals tell it. A local giant called Finn McCool made the Causeway in order to make it over to Scotland, where he was spoiling for a fight with a rival giant.
Upon getting to Scotland, he noticed that his foe was much bigger so ran away back home. However, the Scottish giant got wind of this, and followed him over the Causeway to Ireland.

Fear of the giant baby
Luckily, McCool’s wife was considerably cleverer than he was, and dressed Finn up as a baby. After seeing the size of the baby, the Scottish giant was terrified. How big must the dad be? So he turned and fled, destroying the Causeway on the way so that he couldn’t be followed. And that’s true, that is.

Getting to the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland

Nearest International Airport: Belfast City and Belfast International Airport are closest.

Using public transport: This isn’t really practical. It’s best to hire a car in Belfast, or join a tour. Allen’s Tours offers a relatively cheap daily coach trip up the Antrim Coast Road that includes the Giant’s Causeway, along with the Bushmills Whiskey Distillery, the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge and Carrickfergus Castle.

More information: Allen’s Tours

Prypyat: The Chernobyl ghost town, Ukraine

2008-08-19T23:48:00.000-07:00

Before April 26th, 1986, Prypyat was a model Soviet town. It was the place where dignitaries were taken to see how well the system was working, and was full of young families and high-tech workers.
And then came the Chernobyl disaster. Everything changed.
Prypyat was the town built to service the massive Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine, and when the world’s worst nuclear disaster occurred, it was rapidly evacuated.
The town’s 35,000 – 50,000 residents (as with everything about Chernobyl, numbers are disputed) were rushed out of the city within two days.
Their belongings remained behind, as it was thought they would return.
They never did – the radiation levels from the Chernobyl reactor just 2km away still remain too high. And now the model city is overgrowing with plants, weeds and radioactive moss.
On a tour of the Chernobyl nuclear exclusion zone, one of the ‘highlights’ is visiting Prypyat.
The visit takes in a fairground that was scheduled to open shortly after the Chernobyl explosion – the iconic big wheel and rusting dodgems are still there.
It also takes in a derelict hotel and swimming pool.
But most heart-wrenching of all is walking around the school. Like the other buildings it is overgrown, crumbling and vandalised. But some clear remnants remain.
Library books are spilled over the floor, other books with rudimentary drawings in remain on tables, while the sports hall is still full of rotting basketballs and footballs.
It’s an altogether eerie experience, and the over-riding impression is that humans will never return to Prypyat on a full time basis.

Getting to Prypyat

Nearest international airport: Kiev Borispol
Using public transport: It’s not going to happen. Special permission is needed to enter the 30km-radius exclusion zone around Chernobyl, and the only way to get it is joining a tour group. Solo East Travel is the best bet. The zone is approximately two to two-and-a-half hours north of Kiev.

The World’s Scariest Beach – Sint Maarten, Caribbean

2008-08-19T08:19:00.000-07:00

Extreme bronzing on Sint Maarten
Maho Beach on the Caribbean island of Sint Maartin has to be the least relaxing stretch of sand in the world. In fact, it manages to turn sunbaking into something of an adrenalin sport.
Most people who attempt to catch some rays on the beach place their towels on the far left or far right hand side. Don’t be tempted to opt for the spare spot in the middle though – that’s where the planes fly over.

Juliana International Airport
The beach is a very narrow strip. This is followed by a very narrow road. And that is followed by a great big runway. Yup, what makes Maho Beach so ‘interesting’ is that every few minutes, a plane lands at Juliana International Airport. It’s one of the biggest and busiest hubs in the Caribbean, and the planes fly so low over the beach that any minor misjudgement could see the landing gear dragging through the sand.

Jet blast warning signs
Maho is probably the only beach in the world with such a dire warning sign. Forget sharks and strong currents - the notices have a simple, stark message. “Jet blast of departing and arriving aircraft can cause severe physical harm resulting in extreme bodily harm and/or death.” Nice.
As the locals say, a pebble caught by that jet blast may as well be a bullet.

Sunset Beach Bar
It’s undeniably cool, though, especially when the huge Air France jumbo comes into land. Luckily you don’t have to be on the beach itself. Right next to it is the Sunset Beach Bar, which is something of an institution. It has top burgers, cheap-ish drinks and a party vibe.
More importantly, though, it makes an excellent viewing platform. The sunsets here are awesome, but watching the planes come in is even better. They look like they’re coming straight at you – especially at night when you can only see the lights – before diverting away at the very last second.
And that requires a stiff drink or eight...

Walk around the Monaco Grand Prix Circuit

2008-08-19T07:57:00.000-07:00

In the tiny principality of Monaco, it is possible to emulate the likes of Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna and Lewis Hamilton by walking around the famous Formula One Grand Prix circuit.

Tricky navigation is something of enduring theme in Monaco, as can be seen from a stroll round the famous Grand Prix circuit.
When the Formula One circus isn’t in town, the racetrack reverts back to being ordinary streets. Brazilian driver Nelson Piquet once compared the Monaco GP to “riding a bicycle around your living room,” and it’s easy to see his point.
The streets used have helpful red and white markings on the kerbs, so it’s easy to plot your own course around, making screechy engine noises in your head. Dear lord, there’s little room for error on foot, let alone screaming round at full pelt in a Ferrari.
And as for the poor bus driver trying to get round the hairpin by the Fairmont Hotel... his nerves must as frayed as the crotch on a pair of fifteen year old jeans.

Tokyo's giant tapeworm - Meguro Parasitological Museum

2008-08-18T21:23:00.000-07:00

While other museums would regard Egyptian sarcophagi or priceless artworks as their main highlight, the Meguro Parasitological Museum’s major draw card appears to be a 10 metre tapeworm that was pulled out of some unfortunate soul in Yokohama.
This Tokyo oddity is primarily a privately-funded medical research facility, but still finds space to exhibit over 300 specimens of parasites.
By all accounts, the curators seem genuinely disappointed that their lovable little creatures have had to be preserved – apparently they couldn’t get away with displaying them inside a live animal or human.
It’s difficult to know whether this one is best visited before or after lunch, however.

More information: Meguro Parasitological Museum

The Pub With No Beer in Taylor’s Arm, New South Wales, Australia

2008-08-18T08:49:00.000-07:00

Made famous by legendary Australian singer Slim Dusty, this hostelry no longer lives up to its name.
The Pub With No Beer, near Kempsey, New South Wales, now has plenty of beer. It even has its own brewery.
Local songwriter Gordon Parsons immortalised what used to be known as the Cosmopolitan Hotel when it allegedly went dry back in the 1950s. The song was recorded by Slim Dusty, and the rest is history. And, boy, have the owners cashed in on the good PR.
The Pub With No Beer now has accommodation, live entertainment and the sort of fancy bistro menu that doesn’t really fit the Dusty image.
But before the trades descriptions people come a-knocking, where better to toast Australia Day with a cold one in hand, a band playing classics in the background and good old-fashioned Aussie tucker on the menu?

More information: Pub With No Beer

Galleries of Justice in Nottingham, England

2008-08-18T07:27:00.000-07:00

In the courtroom
The door of the dock is closed and the judge stares with a piercing gaze. He seems remarkably young for the job, but there isn’t really time to concentrate on this, as the prosecution lawyer is already launching into me.
In his eyes, I am scum, the lowest of the low, and there is a dreadful sense that this is a show trial. I’m going down, no matter how good my defence is.
For the purposes of this reconstruction, I am George Beck, a bit of a trouble-maker who has finally been collared for burning down a silk mill.

Freedom fighter in a kangaroo court
I’d like to think of myself as a bit of a freedom fighter, a martyr to the cause of getting the vote for the poor and disenfranchised, but this kangaroo court in front of me doesn’t seem to agree.
A public execution on the courthouse steps awaits, as I’m led down the stairs to the cells.

Mock trial in Nottingham, England
This mock trial is all part of the tourist experience at the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham, England.
We’re greeted by an actor in his full Victorian lawyer’s garb, then taken through the history of the courtroom by throwing us all straight into it.
Everyone’s a witness, defendant, officer or member of the press, and we play out a miniature version of Beck’s excuse for a trial.
Beck was just one in a long line of rabble-rousers that has shaped this city’s attitude over the years.

The Reform Act of 1832
His particular bugbear was the House of Lords refusing to pass the Reform Act in 1832, which would have made Britain’s laughable excuse for a democracy of the time a whole lot fairer.
The gentry, of course, didn’t particularly like the idea of giving those ghastly middle classes a say in how the country was run, and blocked it.
Understandably, the bulk of the population wasn’t happy about this and started rioting.
Nottingham took a particularly nasty hit in the melee, with various buildings being set upon by the mob, and the city’s castle being burnt down.
Beck was thought to be behind that torching too.

Prisoners’ quarters
Following the trial in the old courtroom, we get a look at the conditions in the prisoners’ quarters.
We’re greeted by the gaoler, another actor in character. He makes no secret of the fact that if we want decent treatment, we’re going to have to continually grease his palms.
He walks us past all manner of nasty instruments of torture. There are stocks, in which people were put all day, having things thrown at them. There are whips, used to flay backs raw. There are scold’s bridles, which literally hold the tongue, and prevent speech.

The horror of the cells
That’s bad, but then comes the room. Three people share it, and there is room for nothing but the three hammocks.
The prisoners would be expected to live, sleep and eat in this room, and all waste products would stay with them, ready to be cleared out with the bare hands the next morning.
The only natural light is covered by bars, ensuring that it’s unbearably stifling in summer, and intolerably icy in winter.
“And that’s the good room,” the gaoler says, as he takes us further down into the dungeons.

The pit of hell
With no bribes, it seems, you get consigned to hell. It’s a pit, with no light, in which 30-odd men are expected to sleep in a cramped circle, elbow to elbow.
Disease-ridden, sleeping in their own filth, these men had no life at all. True, some of them may have been murderers, but we’re all given a convict number so that we can check what we’ve been sent to this hideous place for.
I stole some linen, and that’s enough to consign me to this fate.

Getting to the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham, England

Nearest International Airport: East Midlands International Airport is the closest, but Birmingham International Airport is a better bet for intercontinental flights.

Using public transport: The Galleries of Justice are on High Pavement, within easy walking distance of both Nottingham train station and the Broadmarsh bus station.

More information: Galleries of Justice

Train journey from Bucharest, Romania to Chisinau, Moldova

2008-08-17T21:18:00.000-07:00

For the rail journey fan of a more masochistic bent, the Prietenia train from Bucharest in Romania to Chisinau in Moldova is a real treat.
For the rest of us, it’s a hideous trial of endurance on a slightly dirty train where the windows don’t open and the air conditioning doesn’t work. For approximately twelve-and-a-half hours.
Nearly half of that time is spent travelling the 100km-or-so from Iasi near the Romania-Moldova border to the Moldovan capital, Chisinau.
This is partly due to passport checks and customs officers overturning the train in the hunt for drugs and illegal immigrants, but it’s largely due to having to change the entire undercarriage of the train.
Popular myth has it that the old Soviet Union adopted a broad gauge system under Stalin in order to slow down any potential invasion from the west. This isn’t true – the Russians decided to go with the wider gap between the rails well before the Soviet Union existed.
Nonetheless, there is a slight problem when entering one of the former Soviet Socialist Republics (including Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Belarus and the Ukraine) from the rest of Europe. Sometimes this is solved by getting off the train and getting on a new one, but going into Moldova, it’s the train that gets switched over.
So, in the middle of the night, while passengers are trying to sleep in their dirty sweatbox, all manner of clanking and lifting and shunting goes on outside. It’s a bit like a rubbish rollercoaster, only far more disturbing.

Getting on the Prietenia train

Nearest international airports: For Bucharest, it’s either Otopeni or Baneasa airport – the budget airlines tend to use Bucharest Baneasa, which is a filthy little hellhole. Visitors landing in Moldova will land at Chisinau’s airport, which is a short distance from the city centre.
By public transport: The train leaves from Bucharest’s Gara du Nord and arrives at Chisinau’s relatively modern (by Moldovan standards) station.

Peak District Cave Boat - Speedwell Cavern in Castleton, England

2008-08-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

Castleton, a pretty little village in the heart of Europe’s most visited National Park, isn’t exactly short on caves. The whole landscape of this part of the Peak District is dotted with underground caverns.
Of these, the Blue John and Treak Cliff Caverns are well worth a visit, as is the amusingly-named Devil’s Arse. But for sheer novelty factor, Speedwell Cavern wins hands down.
Entrance is via over 100 rather steep steps, so it’s not suited for visitors of limited mobility. Or, for that matter, anyone who suffers from claustrophobia.
What makes the Speedwell Cavern tour unique is that once down those steps, visitors leap aboard a small boat, which then ploughs its way through a flooded mining tunnel.
There’s not much room for manoeuvre in this tunnel. Tall people need to bend over a little, while any fingers dangling over the side of the boat are liable to get crushed against the sides of the walls.
The tunnel took four years to build, and the boat chugs through, the tour guide tells horrific tales of the life of a lead miner.
They would spend eight hours a day in these dark, dingy conditions, blowing up the rock and getting all manner of poisonous dust into their lungs.
The boat goes past the tiny holes that three or four miners would cram into to escape the blasts, and it’s easy to see why life expectancy didn’t even hit 30.
The cavern at the end of the boat ride is actually something of a disappointment, but this is one instance where it’s the journey that counts.

Getting to Speedwell Cavern in Castleton

Nearest international airport: Manchester International Airport
By public transport: Castleton is on the Hope Valley train line between Manchester and Sheffield. Buses also go reasonably regularly from both cities.

More information: Speedwell Cavern

World’s biggest ice cave – Eisriesenwelt near Salzburg, Austria

2008-08-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

Whilst caverns made of rock are all well and good, sometimes you want something a little more spectacular. That’s what ice is for, and this complex near Salzburg, Austria is home to the world’s largest ice cave.
Over the years, the flow of air has ensured that walls, stalagmites and stalactites have formed, and some of the frozen formations are up to 20 metres thick.
The result is something that looks like a science-fiction film set, and a walk through the surreal crystalline world is fascinating, if a little on the cold side.
The Eisriesenwelt is open from the end of April to the end of October, and you’ve got a choice of getting there on foot or by cable car.

Oresund Bridge between Sweden and Denmark

2008-08-15T12:55:00.000-07:00

The Oresund Bridge is one of those things best viewed from the air. If flying over the coast of Southern Sweden, suddenly this incredible structure appears in the water, snaking all the way across the channel to Denmark.
The bridge, which was completed in 1999, is one of the most spectacular border crossings in the world. It’s one of the longest bridges on the planet – nearly 8km long - and it links the Swedish city of Malmo with the Danish capital, Copenhagen.
The toll to cross in a car is fairly hefty, but it’s worth it for the views. Coming from Copenhagen, you emerge from a tunnel onto an artificial island. The road then runs alongside the train track before climbing on top of it, and taking on the main span.
Should renting a car just to go over a bridge seem a little unnecessary, then it’s possible to go over on the train. There are still great views from the sides, but alas you can’t see what’s ahead of you and that’s half of the wow factor.

Getting there

Nearest international airport: Copenhagen
Using public transport: The train from Copenhagen central stops at Copenhagen Airport before crossing the Oresund Bridge and ending up in Malmo, Sweden.
More information: Oresund Bridge

Tazmazia near Sheffield, Tasmania, Australia

2008-08-15T07:19:00.000-07:00

Getting lost on holiday
For many of us, getting lost whilst on holiday is a thoroughly unpleasant experience. Even from a young age, we are programmed to shudder at the thought of dad driving faster, refusing to ask for directions, whilst mum makes pitiful attempts to read a map.
However, there are clearly some out there who get a big kick out of wandering around aimlessly, barking up dead ends in a bid to find something.

World’s largest maze?
For these people, the predictably-named Tasmazia, near Sheffield in the north of Tasmania, Australia, is the stuff of dreams. It purports to be have the world’s largest maze, plus six others with varying themes.
The polite phrase for it would be ‘eccentric’, and the impolite one ‘mad as snakes’. It is the brainchild of a lavender farmer who, perhaps quite accurately, prefers to go under the name of Laird Crackpot of Lower Crackpot.
Brian Inder (as he was known to his mum), and his wife Laura, are the sort of people that have longed so much for their own little world, that they have simply created one themselves.

Inspired by Hampton Court Palace
The inspiration has clearly come from far and wide. One of the mazes is an exact replica of the famous one at Hampton Court Palace in England, another has a Wizard Of Oz theme, whilst there is a memorial to the inventor of the toilet at the end of the utterly infuriating Cage maze.
But it goes well beyond the painstakingly sculpted hedgerows and walls. The Crackpots have also created themselves a village. Admittedly, even Hobbits, Munchkins and Oompah-Loompahs would struggle to fit into it, but the 20% scale models are frighteningly detailed.

From churches to banks
Not prepared to settle for just a couple of identikit houses, they have created churches, pubs, radio stations and banks, plus the cheap gag of a ‘GST house’ – one tenth is missing.
There is also a decidedly seedy side to Lower Crackpot. The more adult end of town has less-than-salubrious joints such as Wild Jo’s Disco and the Dirty Shame. The less said about what the Little Lilliputian types are getting up to in there, the better.

For all the family
While ostensibly aimed at children, who will always attack a maze with obdurate gusto, it is probably adults who will get more out of it. The level of effort and intricacy put in is genuinely applaudable, even if you’d never dream of going to such lengths yourself. And the clever little touches make it far preferable to arguing over whether you should be reading a map upside down or stopping a passer-by to ask where the hell you are.

Getting to Tazmazia
Tasmazia is in the Cradle Mountain and Lakes District, by Lake Barrington and a short drive South West of Sheffield.

World's oldest golf course – Musselburgh Links near Edinburgh, Scotland.

2008-08-15T01:54:00.000-07:00

It may not be the most challenging of adversaries, but golfers have been fluffing their putts on the Musselburgh Links in Scotland for longer than anywhere else in the world.
It’s only nine holes long, and par 34, but the club has documentary evidence showing that people have been spoiling good walks here since 1672.
Hoary old legends suggest that Mary Queen of Scots turned up on the course for a quick round on the world's oldest golf course in 1567, but this may well be wishful thinking.
Being a short course, and not that prestigious, green fees are very reasonable, should you wish to swing your way through history.
Musselburgh is in East Lothian, a short drive (that's as in car, not golf shot) from Edinburgh.

More information: Musselburgh Links

Saga Museum in Reykjavik, Iceland - bloodthirsty Viking history

2008-08-14T12:59:00.000-07:00

Iceland has a thoroughly odd history. Much of it is known through sagas, which are longwinded and often exaggerated stories passed down through the generations.
It is mostly from these sagas that we know how Iceland was settled by Scandinavians running away from persecution in their homeland, that the country formed the world’s oldest parliament and that its people all elected to convert to Christianity simultaneously on one day.
This unique form of record-keeping is celebrated in one of Reykjavik’s best museums. The Saga Museum is in a strange building – the Perlan has been made out of huge water tanks, and stands on a hill above the city skyline.
Inside, it is crammed full of waxworks, all of which have been modelled on Reykjavik residents who volunteered to be immortalised as characters from the sagas.
Icelandic history is covered in a reasonable depth – enough to be interesting, and not enough to bore the pants off someone with only a passing interest.
More importantly, it’s all blood and guts. Models have been whacked with axes and riddled with the black death, while just about every character seems up for a fight.
Freakiest of the lot is the scary-eyed woman who is holding a sword to her bare breast, threatening to cut it off.

Getting to the Saga Museum in Reykjavik, Iceland
Nearest international airport: The Saga Museum is very near Reykjavik airport, but that’s only really used for domestic flights. All the major international carriers fly to Keflavik International Airport, around 45 minutes away by bus transfer or taxi.
Using public transport: Perlan and the Saga Museum are walkable from the main street, but it’s probably easier to take bus number 18 from Laekjartorg.

More information: Saga Museum

Icelandic Phallological Museum in Husavik

2008-08-13T12:50:00.000-07:00

My biggest regret when I went to Iceland for three days in May 2008 was that I didn’t take the twelve hour round journey from Reykjavik to Husavik.
I was supposedly on a romantic weekend, and explaining such a journey in order to visit the Icelandic Phallological Museum was a tough task.
The northern Icelandic town hosts possibly the most bizarre museum of them all – the Phallological Museum is devoted to the penis. And it has over 240 specimens for the avid todger fan to observe.
This includes every animal from Iceland and Icelandic waters, and details are given of where every reindeer rod, polar bear protrudence and walrus wanger was obtained from.
There’s also a overseas section for foreign phalluses. So those desperate to look at the genitalia of a German badger, New Zealand wallaby or Alaskan ermine are in luck.
One key Icelandic mammal is missing, unfortunately. But never fear – four humans have generously agreed to donate their penises to the museum when they die.
For an even more childish giggle, why not check out the list of ‘Honorary Members’ on the museum’s website?

Getting there:
Nearest international airport: Akureyri is the nearest international airport, but hardly any flights go there. Most visitors are likely to arrive at Keflavik International Airport near the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik.
By public transport: Buses from Reykjavik to Husavik take around six hours and aren’t overly regular. Hiring a car is the best bet.

More information: Icelandic Phallological Museum

The Barbary Apes of Gibraltar

2008-08-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

The tiny British territory of Gibraltar is essentially one big rock, and for a long time it was under control of the British military.
If there’s any uncertainty about who’s in charge now, head on up there with a plastic bag full of food.
The Barbary apes are at the same time the best loved and most cursed inhabitants of Gibraltar. Technically, they’re Barbary macaques, but almost no-one calls them that – and they roam free across the Upper Rock.
Aside from a colony that was taken from Gibraltar to Germany, they are the only wild apes in Europe. Superstition has it that if the popular primates ever leave, the British will lose Gibraltar. In World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered that the numbers should be topped up – just in case.
They’re incredibly entertaining. Some just sit staring out over the Mediterranean Sea to Spain and Morocco, but others are far more active. And that can mean jumping on top of buses, trying to steal any food going, or running away with camera straps.
Signs warn tourists about their monkey business, but visitors still get jumped out, robbed and – if they’re really stupid – bitten or scratched.
But for those who take care, and don’t take food, the Barbary apes (or macaques) are totally adorable.

Getting there:
Nearest International Airport: Gibraltar has its own airport, though flights only tend to go there from Spain and the UK. Otherwise, Malaga and Jerez are nearby. The ferry from Tangier in Morocco is another alternative.
By public transport: The best way of getting up to the Upper Rock, and where the monkeys are is either on a tour or in the spectacular cable car that goes from ground level.

Loughborough, England – the world’s oldest package holiday destination

2008-08-12T01:12:00.000-07:00

People have been leaving their home town to have an explore somewhere else for centuries, but the first time it was done in an organised manner was 1841, when Thomas Cook arranged the first package holiday. Yep, that’s the same Thomas Cook that the major holiday firm is named after.
Ironically, given the hard-drinking reputation of today’s packaged trips, the tourists were all temperance campaigners, going from Leicester in the English Midlands to nearby Loughborough for a rally against the perils of alcohol.
The 11 mile journey can still be done in the same way today, by steam train on the Great Central Railway.
Once in Loughborough, you’ll find an archetypal market town, the main claim to fame of which is the world’s largest bell foundry. The John Taylor Bellfoundry Museum has a small museum on site, and can arrange tours.
Loughborough’s other claim to fame is that it’s home to the largest indoor cricket centre in the world – it’s where the England and Wales Cricket Board trains cricketers in its National Cricket Academy.
And, on a less important note, it’s also the home town of the creator of Bizarre Places. And he can well understand why no-one organises package holidays there now.

Getting to Loughborough

Nearest international airport: Nottingham East Midlands airport is a short bus ride away, and a train connection is in the planning process.

Using public transport: Loughborough is well connected to London, Sheffield, Leicester and Nottingham by direct trains.

World's smallest book in Kiev's Micro Miniatures Museum

2008-08-11T12:37:00.000-07:00

If there was any justice in this world, Mykola Syadistry would be regarded as one of the greatest artists in history. Granted, the Ukrainian-born genius is hardly the best painter or sculptor the world has ever seen, but his achievements are huge.
Or, rather, they’re small. Very small. And that’s what makes them so unique.
In Kiev’s World Heritage-listed caves monastery (Kiev-Pechersk Lavra), there is a room given over to an exhibition of Syadistry’s ‘micro-miniature’ art. It’s essentially a museum packed with powerful microscopes and some very tiny (and very odd) masterpieces.
‘Long Live Peace’ (in Ukrainian), is engraved on a human hair. There are miniscule portraits of Ernest Hemingway and Yuri Gagarin, and Kobzar – claimed to be the world’s smallest book.
The latter has twelve pages, including some of Syadistry’s verse and a portrait of himself. It comes in at just 0.6 square millimetres.
Most impressive, however, are the golden chess set on a pin head and the picture of Russian composer V V Andreev. He is etched onto glass and fitted into one half of a poppy seed, while his balalaika fills the other half. For a sense of scale, information plaques tell the visitor that the strings of the balalaika in this picture are 40 times thinner than a man’s hair.

Getting to the Micro Miniature Museum in Kiev, Ukraine
Nearest international airport: Kiev Borispol.
Using public transport: Get the Metro to Dnipro or Pecherska – it’s about a fifteen minute walk from both.
More information: Go to the Kiev caves monastery website.

St Patrick’s Grave in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland

2008-08-11T12:30:00.000-07:00

For someone so universally popular, St Patrick’s grave isn’t all that impressive. It’s covered by a modest, unsculpted slab of stone with his name carved on. Well, part of the name is anyway – there’s a great chunk missing that has taken the C, K and half the I with it.
The grave is outside Down Cathedral, which is perched on a hillside above the small town of Downpatrick, Northern Ireland. It’s the sort of place that is invariably buffeted by huge winds, and you feel heartfelt sympathy for any old ladies trying to get up.
According to legend (and most of what we know about St Patrick should be taken with large pinches of salt), St Patrick died in nearby Saul. From there, angels descended and told those in charge of the body to put it on a cart and bury it in the first spot that the oxen stopped. Well, after lugging him up that hill, it’s no wonder they stopped there.

Getting to St Patrick’s Grave in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland

Nearest International Airport: Belfast International Airport or Belfast City Airport, depending on which airline you’re travelling with.

Using public transport: Take bus 15 or 15A from Belfast’s Europa bus station. The journey takes around an hour. Then prepare for an uphill walk.

More information: Down Cathedral

Mendel Museum in Brno, Czech Republic

2008-08-10T12:32:00.000-07:00

For a place with such huge significance, the Abbey of St Thomas in Brno, Czech Republic, is remarkably understated. It's arguably the birthplace of modern science.
The patch of grass outside once played host to the world’s most important greenhouse, while a small flower bed of red and white begonias demonstrates the scientific laws that were discovered there.
The man who put this loveable Augustinian abbey on the map was Gregor Mendel, the former abbot.
He was the monk who discovered the laws of genetic inheritance. So much has come as a result of this discovery – confirmation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory, many medical treatments, cloned sheep, the human genome project – that his name should be far better known.
The small museum by the begonia bed explores the importance of Mendel’s work, and tries to explain in layman’s terms how dominant and recessive alleles work.
It also goes into his life, and tells the extraordinary story of a monk from a European backwater who revolutionised the way we think about ourselves. His work was 99% drudgery – meticulously growing peas and logging their characteristics.
But from those humble garden peas came so much – and the Mendel Museum is a fascinating little diversion for any traveller visiting this part of Central Europe.

Getting to the Mendel Museum in Brno, Czech Republic

Nearest International Airport: Brno Turany airport receives a few international flights (usually the budget airlines such as Ryanair and Smart Wings), but most international visitors will fly into Prague then get the train. That said, Vienna (Austria) and Bratislava (Slovakia) are actually closer to Brno than Prague.
Using public transport: There are good train links to Brno from Prague, Bratislava and Vienna. Take tram number 1 from the central train station.

More information: Mendel Museum

Hotel Fox in Copenhagen, Denmark - design hotel

2008-08-09T12:06:00.000-07:00

Design hotels are now cropping up all over Europe, but one of the oddest can be found in the Danish capital, Copenhagen. Welcome to the Hotel Fox.
Travellers staying in this unique accommodation can expect to find hugely individual rooms, all of which have been created by a team of artists from around the world.
Room 202 is a classic example. Dreamt up by German artist Boris Hoppek, it is called “You Are A Baby”. It’s done in bright red, blue and white, and has octopuses and fish made from terry-towelling hanging from the ceiling. It also has a topless lady dominating one wall, and she looks suspiciously like Ariel, Disney's (and Hans Christian Andersen’s) Little Mermaid. Well, there’s the Denmark link anyway.
Other strange places for visitors to rest their heads include Room 309, designed by London collective Container. It somehow manages to straddle themes of royalty, nightclubs and cards.
Perhaps most amusing of all is the ultra-kitsch Heidi room. Knocked up by a Swiss artist, the walls are covered in goats (one of which looks positively satanic), wrinkled shepherds and other mountain stereotypes. And the carpet is green for good measure.
The Hotel Fox is a trendy kind of place, but not too cool for school – it’s rather loveable too.

Getting to the Hotel Fox in Copenhagen, Denmark
Nearest international airport: Copenhagen
Using public transport: The hotel is approximately 10 – 15 minutes walk away from Copenhagen Central Station, which has a direct train connection to the airport.
More information: Hotel Fox

Marzipan Museum in Keszthely, Hungary

2008-08-08T12:27:00.000-07:00

To the rest of the world, marzipan is only useful for making the ultra-sickly layer on a wedding cake, but try telling that to the Hungarians. Astonishingly, there are two museums devoted to marzipan in the country (the other being at Szentendre), and it appears as though there is much more that can be made out of the almond-based treat.
Keszthely’s Marzipan Museum features staggering displays of sculpture, with shields, faces and miniature palaces all made out of… you guessed it.
The scaled-down model of the Festetic’s Palace just down the road is particularly impressive, although the cake made from marzipan most definitely isn’t. That’s a bit like putting a Mars Bar in a museum of chocolate, or paddling pool in a museum of water.
Essentially, it’s a marzipan shop with a darkened room in the back. They don’t seem to get all that many visitors, and those that do come tend just to go in to stock up on sickly treats.
It’s worth going in though, if only for the sheer mind-numbing pointlessness of it. And once you’ve done that, enjoy Keszthely – it’s a lovely little town on the shore of Lake Balaton. Which we’re reliably informed is the biggest lake in Europe outside of Scandinavia.

Getting to the Marzipan Museum in Keszthely
Nearest international airport: Budget airlines such as Ryanair fly into the nearby Balaton airport. It’s essentially a cattle shed/ old military base in a field though. Otherwise, fly into Budapest or Zagreb (Croatia) and get the train.
Using public transport: Keszthely is a pretty small town, largely existing for the benefit of fat Germans and Austrians on their holidays. Everything is within easy walking distance of each other, and buses go somewhat infrequently to and from the airport. A taxi is probably a better bet.

More information: Marzipan Museum

Sweden's Ice Hotel in Jukkasjarvi near Kiruna

2008-08-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

One place I have always wanted to stay in is Sweden’s famous Ice Hotel. It’s a stunning architectural achievement, not least because it’s made from scratch every year.
Well inside the Arctic Circle, the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjarvi (near Kiruna) is constructed from ice taken from the nearby river. And just about everything is made of ice – glasses in the bar, the bar itself and a replica of Shakespeare’s Globe theatre amongst them.
Best of all are, reportedly, the rooms. No prizes for guessing what they’re made of – even the beds. And in order to make things comfortable, the beds are covered with reindeer skins and industrial strength sleeping bags.
The hotel tends to be open from December until it melts (usually mid-to-late April). And, unsurprisingly, it’s not cheap. But then again, you wouldn’t expect the world’s most luxurious igloo to be easy on the wallet.

More information: Ice Hotel Website

Boomerang-throwing in Charleville-Mézières, France

2008-08-07T01:58:00.000-07:00

Despite being more popularly associated with Crocodile Dundee and the Australian outback, France has taken the boomerang to heart, and is at the forefront of turning into an international sport.
It all kicked off properly in Charleville-Mézières in the Ardennes, where a sketchily-organised world championship was held in 2004.
From that point, the world’s boomerang-throwing federations got together in order to make the rules agreed upon internationally. It’s never going to overtake football, but the sport is growing at a phenomenal rate, and there are now 21 clubs across France who regular travel huge distances to compete against each other.
There are various events in these contests, some specialising in accuracy, some in endurance, and some in showing off with fancy catches. France currently has one world record-holder too, with Arnaud Tribillon managing to keep one of the old Aboriginal Australian hunting devices airborne for 190.2 seconds in Dijon last year.
Tournaments are held throughout the year, and given the small attendances, there’s a real feeling of discovery when you turn up to watch. Charleville-Mézières is still a major staging post, but a list of tournaments can be found at the French Boomerang Federation’s online arm.

Leksakland Toy Museum in Malmo, Sweden

2008-08-06T12:18:00.000-07:00

Quite a lot of us collect things when we’re children. But there’s taking things to extremes, and that’s clearly what the geniuses/ mentalists between the Malmo Toy Museum have done.
Leksakland, as it is also known, has amassed huge collections of some of the most popular years from the last 100 years, and arranged them in displays. Anything that can whirr, whirrs. Anything that can make move or makes noises, moves and makes noises. The monthly battery bill must be enormous
So model trains go through miniature Wild West villages, Scalextrics are set up with every imaginable add-on, and scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean are replicated with little Johnny Depps and Keira Knightleys.
The displays are utterly charming in their dedication and sheer pointlessness, but it’s the scale of the collections that are really impressive/ scary.
There are:
- Over 1,000 McDonalds Happy Meal toys from 1987 to 2002.
- 350+ Disney merchandising dolls and toys
- 400+ Star Wars figurines
And that’s before we even start with the cabinets full of Lord of the Rings, Action Man, Barbie, Lego, Tintin and Harry Potter figures.

Getting to Leksakland Toy Museum in Malmo, Sweden

Nearest international airport: Malmo has a small international airport, but it’s actually easier to get to the city centre from Copenhagen International Airport in Denmark – just get the train over the Oresund Bridge.
Using public transport: Leksakland is a short walk away from Malmo Central Station.
More information: Leksakland

Ars Electronica Centre in Linz, Austria

2008-08-06T07:49:00.000-07:00

Museum of the future?
The Ars Electronica Center in Linz, Austria is something quite unlike anywhere else on earth. Billing itself as the Museum of the Future, a taste of what’s to come is available at the entrance.
To the left of the ticket desk, a little girl is flying.
She’s strapped into a contraption called Humphrey II, suspended from the ceiling with wires and harness, and fixing her gaze on the screen in front.
According to the display, she’s flying through the streets of a digitally-rendered Linz, and the whole shebang is operating like a Jetsons-era hang-glider.
Movements of the hands steer left and right, as well as allow her to plunge up and down. And, when she does the latter, she goes straight into the Danube.
Little did we know that the mighty river contains an Atlantis-like civilization, huh?

Year 3000 guitar fretboard
The building is absolutely crammed with such gadgets, games and simulations. One acts as a giant Year 3000 guitar fretboard. A beam of light passes along a bench (you can control the speed at which it does so), and you can place bits of felt and plastic along it. Depending on where you place them, it makes a different sound as the beam hits. It’s difficult to make anything more than a tuneless racket though.

Bizarre table
Then there’s the bizarre table with what appears to be a kids cartoon village on it. However, the images change depending on what you put on top of it. Stick down a coffee cup, and a few buildings emerge. Put a bit of rope in a circle, and it suddenly grows into a pond, full of ducks. Break the loop and the ducks fly away in formation.
In truth, many of these whizz-bang outpourings of inventiveness are utterly bewildering. They’re all undoubtedly very clever, but often it’s impossible to work out what something’s meant to do or how to make it do it. Sometimes it’s obvious that the fish move when you hit the drums, but in others it’s just an intimidating mess of screens and largely pointless interactivity.

Virtual Cave
One of the star attractions is a ‘Virtual Cave’ and it’s a crushing disappointment – 12 people huddle into a small alcove wearing silly glasses and are guided around virtual worlds by a staff member with a controller. It’d be fantastic if you could explore yourself in your own private booth, but travelling through a cyber-Renaissance city behind a crowd isn’t all that gripping.

Visitor photos
Amongst the weird flappy arm-y things and digital marionettes, it’s actually the simpler things that enchant the most. Pictures emerging when you pour sand through a funnel, merging your photo with that of previous visitors... that sort of hi-jinks is pure gold every time.

Getting to the Ars Electronica Centre

Nearest International Airport: A few budget airline flights go direct to Linz’s small airport, but many will fly into Vienna. Linz is approximately 90 minutes by train from Vienna’s Westbahnhof.

Using public transport: The trickiest thing about the Ars Electronica Center is finding it. The tourist board maps say it’s just over the Danube from the main town square. Go there, however, and you find a giant building site with nary a magical flower or computer-animated dragon in sight. The workmen don’t look too interested in that sort of thing either.
It turns out that the Center WILL be there, but not until next year. The new home will be a mammoth, ultra-sleek, beautifully designed centrepiece for the Capital of Culture 2009 festivities. Until then, it’s at Graben 15. Get tram number 3 from the train station.

More information: Ars Electronica Centre

Kiev Caves Monastery, Ukraine and its mummified monks

2008-08-05T12:14:00.000-07:00

Kiev’s astonishing monastery complex, which is full of cave churches and golden domes, is well worth its place on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The Caves Monastery (or Pechersk Lavra) is the size of a small village, and is crammed with museums, churches, treasures and bizarre passageways. It sits on the hills above the Dnipro River, and supposedly dates back to 1051.
This was when the Greek Saint Antoniy and his lackey Feodosiy started digging caves out of the rock for their fellow monks to worship and study in.
It’s still regarded as the holiest place in the Ukraine and the lower Lavra (as the part with the caves is known) is still run by the church. Bearded monks can be seen sweltering in their long black robes as they work the gardens.
But the monks everyone comes to see are dead. They lie in glass tombs underground, and can be visited via a series of dark, claustrophobic passageways. Travellers can just buy their candle at the gate, then head down the steps.
Silence, respectful dress and “no blackguarding” are expected, as the Caves Monastery is a pilgrimage site.
For non-believers, however, the sight of women in headscarves frantically crossing themselves every few seconds, then attempting to kiss the feet of the long-dead holy men is rather unusual.

Getting to Pechersk Lavra
Nearest international airport: Kiev Borispol is a fair trek out of the city, but only domestic flights tend to go to the smaller (but closer) Zhulyany airport.
Using public transport: Get the Metro to Dnipro or Pecherska – it’s about a fifteen minute walk from both. Taxi drivers will happily take tourists there as well, but may impose special nationality and gullibility surcharges.
More information: Go to the Kiev caves monastery website.

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

2008-08-05T07:04:00.000-07:00

Cuddle a koala
As I gently stroke her neck, ruffling her hair, Elise moves closer. I can feel the pounding of her heart, her warmth against my chest. Moving my hand down her back, she reaches for me, sliding her delicate wrist and hand further up my shoulder.
If Elise wasn’t a koala, this would be a truly romantic moment. As it is, she’s rather hairy and definitely not my type, but despite attempts to pretend I am being gruff and manly, I can’t help going “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwww cuuuuute!” inside.

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane, Australia is one of the few places in the country, let alone the world, where you can get this up close and personal with a koala. The cuddling is strictly not allowed south of the Queensland border, and Lone Pine, being rather big, has a crack squad of koalas that can hug ever the sternest soul into submission.
There are strict rules that govern the man to beast bonding. The little furry things can only be handled for half an hour at a time, and must get every fourth day off. This ensures that they get plenty of time to eat and sleep, and aren’t just passed around like the salt pot at a High Cholesterol Anonymous dinner party.

Koalas? Dull?
I have to confess that, before this point, I have never been the greatest fan of koalas. From previous experience, they are really dull creatures, constantly sleeping and about as liable to do entertaining tricks as the world’s worst magician. However, here there must be something extra-special in the eucalyptus leaves. They actually do things, and two little cubs steal the show by clambering on each other, scurrying across the floor and leapfrogging their parents. I’m sorry koalas – I was completely wrong about you in the past.

Getting to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

Nearest International Airport: Brisbane

Using public transport: Get bus number 430 from George Street.

More information: Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

Pelote in St Jean de la Luz, Basque France

2008-08-04T01:42:00.000-07:00

Played primarily in the Basque regions of far south western France, the most extreme forms of pelote look like squash as played by those with a death wish.
To reduce it to the simplest level, pelote involves hurling a tightly-wound ball against the wall, hoping to do it so well that the opposition cannot return fire. Given that the ball can be travelling at speeds of up to 180mph, it’s a wonder that anyone would want to try and get it back.
That the sport has not really ventured for out of southern France and northern Spain comes as no great surprise. There are many versions of the game, played with different instruments, ranging from the bare hand to frightening basket-like Chistera, which can send the ball hurtling at very painful speeds indeed.
While the courts can be found in just about every town in the area, they are of varying size, ranging from 30m to 80m. The major hub of pelote activity is in St Jean De Luz, a fishing port south of Biarritz, and most competitive matches of a good standard are played here at International Arena Jaï Alaï during the summer months.
The truly brave/ barking mad can hire equipment to try the sport out at the town’s tourist office.

Palace of the Parliament, Bucharest, Romania

2008-08-03T02:32:00.000-07:00

Whilst most of Romania was suffering under strict rationing, former tyrant Nicolae Ceauşescu decided that the best use of the funds at his disposal would be to build an enormous palace. In 1984, construction began on the building, which is 10% bigger than the Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt, and it still hasn’t quite finished.
Entire suburbs of Bucharest (approximately a fifth of the old city) were torn down to accommodate it and the surrounding plazas, and the only bigger government building in the world is the Pentagon in the United States.
Unsurprisingly, the House of the People (as it was then ironically known) was regarded with contempt by the poverty-stricken population, and it was nearly pulled down during the 1989 revolution for symbolising the regime. To destroy it would have been even more wasteful than building it in the first place, though, and Ceauşescu’s folly was saved.
The palace is open for tours in several languages daily, and inside you’ll find one of the most elaborately decorated interiors in the world. Amongst the paintings, sculptures and gold-tassled curtains you’ll find over a million square metres of Transylvanian marble and 200,000 square metres of carpet.
The palace now houses the Romanian Parliament as well as many other organisations.

Rungnado May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea

2008-08-03T02:30:00.000-07:00

When neighbours South Korea were handed the Olympics in 1988, North Korea’s barmy dictator Kim Jong-Il decided whatever they could do, he could do better. So, he built a venue that was twice the size of Seoul’s Olympic Arena - Rungnado May Day Stadium
With a 150,000 capacity it is the biggest stadium in the world, and will probably never see a sporting spectacle worthy of that scale due to the country’s isolationist policies. Still, it’s the perfect location for all those preposterous military displays that Kim is rather fond of.
The biggest two shows to date have been somewhat strange. The latest was the Dear Leader’s 60th birthday party in 2002, which involved an astonishing 100,000 participants and was largely designed to overshadow South Korea’s World Cup opening ceremony celebrations.
The other, in 1995, was the biggest ever attendance for a wrestling event, where a scarcely believable 190,000 grappling aficionados piled through the gates to watch some obscure Japanese C-grade wrestlers in action.

Palace of Versailles near Paris, France

2008-08-03T02:28:00.000-07:00

When Louis XIV of France’s finance minister made himself a hugely expensive château at Vaux-le-Vimcomte, the young king was outraged that his majesty was being overshadowed.
Taking the mature approach to the situation, he had Nicholas Fouquet arrested, stole his design team and set to work on something even more overblown.
The result was the Palace of Versailles near Paris, justifiably one of France’s great tourist draws. With adjustment for inflation, the gigantic royal residence cost the French economy billions, but it suited Louis’ purposes. His court and every arm of the Government was run from Versailles, meaning he kept those who would plot against him within close reach.
Today, much of the palace can be explored, although a large part of it is available only on a guided tour.
Amongst the things that will send jaws to the floor are the chapel, the expansive and immaculately kept gardens and the famous Hall of Mirrors. The latter, if nothing else, shows that whatever the pragmatic reasons for building the palace, vanity often came first.