Here are a few European hotel suggestions from Travel Between The Pages readers.
Hotel V
Amsterdam: Hotel V Frederiksplein, Weteringschan 136
Brussels: Hotel Café Pacific, Rue Antoine Dansaert 57
Budapest: Mamaison Hotel Andrassy, Andrassy út 111
Lisbon: Living Lounge Hostel, Rua do Crucifixo 116
London: Dean Street Townhouse, 69 Dean Street W1D 3SE
Stockholm: Story Hotel, Riddargatan 6
Warsaw: Westin Warsaw, Jana Pawla II 21
Hotel Cafe Pacific
Galileo
The Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza (Institute and Museum of the History of Science) has undergone a renovation involving a complete redesign of its exhibition areas and displays. On June 11th, it reopened under the new name of Museo Galileo, the Galileo Museum. The event coincides with the 400th anniversary of Sidereus Nuncius—“the Starry Messenger”—the work published in March 1610 in which Galileo announced the sensational observations made with his telescope. The reopening also marks a fitting conclusion to the celebrations of the International Astronomy Year (2009), a U.N./UNESCO initiative specifically intended to commemorate the celestial discoveries of the scientist from Pisa (1609).
The Museum’s subtitle will preserve its earlier name of “Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza” (Institute and Museum for the History of Science). But the new designation “Museo Galileo” emphasizes the central role of the Galilean heritage in the Florentine institution’s activities and cultural profile. The Museum is not only a showcase for an invaluable legacy of instruments and experimental apparatuses. It operates as an institute engaged in research and documentation, offering scholars from around the world the resources of its specialized library, also available online.
The new layout of the Museo Galileo offers on display more than 1,000 instruments and devices of major scientific importance and beauty. The central figure is Galileo, with the history of Florence and Tuscany as the background theme. Under the rule of the Medici and Lorraine, the city and the region were a center of excellence for scientific knowledge as well as a thriving cradle for the arts. The events and discoveries that took place there had a deep impact on the history of modern science.
The Museo Galileo features a series of structural and functional innovations. The restoration of the interior of the Palazzo Castellani (which dates from the twelfth century) has emphasized its monumental dimension and architectural distinction. The elegant, state-of-the-art display cases highlight the esthetic quality of the objects on view, while ensuring their perfect conservation. Portable interactive video-guides—used for the first time in a museum—make the most complex instruments fully understandable even to non-specialist visitors. The devices offer access to hypertext pages, 3D animations, and biographies. Visitors can use the video-guides to select an itinerary through the museum tailored to their specific interests.
For more information please visit the museum website.
This post was provided by UK correspondent Evan Smythe.
Museum and Story Centre
I found the captivating, absurdist fiction of Roald Dahl through James and the Giant Peach, Fantastic Mr. Fox and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but became a committed Dahl enthusiast through his Tales of the Unexpected, Ghost Stories and The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar. I recently made my own literary pilgrimage to the charming Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in the attractive Buckinghanshire village of Great Missenden.
The Museum and Story Centre is dedicated to telling the fabulous story of the world’s most popular children’s writer with interactive exhibits, manuscripts, photos, films and Dahl’s archives. With doors that look and smell like giant chocolate bars, the delightful museum is a must visit for Dahl readers of all ages.
For me, no other writer has offered that magical combination of absurd imagination, quirkyness, macabre
humor and mischief. Dahl was a modern fairy tale writer, who intuitively understood that children need to come to terms with the unfairness of the world, but still need to retain belief in their own ingenuity and hope for the future.
You can learn more about Roald Dahl and the Museum at their website. Great Missenden can be reached by train from Marylebone Station, London, in under forty minutes.
Glacier Express
Here’s an unofficial readers’ top ten European train trips and a few extra journeys too.
Also mentioned: Le Petit Train Jaune, French Pyrenees; Zugspitzbahn, Germany; Semmering-Eisenbahn and the Mariazellerbahn, Austria
Cinque Terre
Brandenburg Gate (photo:Thomas Wolf)
Earlier this month, I posted a short review of Hans Fallada’s riveting saga Alone In Berlin (Every Man Dies Alone) which generated some interesting comments and emails. One of these led me back to my travel notes from my last trip to Berlin and my impressions of some of the war nostalgia tourist attractions that I visited. In particular, I was reminded of that unique site, the Topography of Terror, which is the only memorial or museum in Berlin which focuses on the perpetrators rather than the victims of Nazi atrocities.
The Topography of Terror Museum is built on the site that was the Gestapo headquarters from 1933 to 1945, as well as the SS High Command and Reichs Security Main Office from 1939 to 1945. The Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse complex was also the headquarters for concentration camp administration and the place that enemies of the Nazi regime were often brought for torture. Quite a few of Fallada’s characters ended up in the interrogation rooms or prison cells here.
When I visited the museum in late 2008, it was a disappointing site, with the overgrown ruins of a few Gestapo brick prison cells and a meager outdoor exhibition that consisted of a wall of posters. Most of the original buildings had been either destroyed during the war or pulled down during the 1950s.
Topography of Terror 2008
So, I was pleased to read that on May 7th, just days before the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, a new museum was finally opened at the site to document Nazi state persecution and terror. The Topography of Terror website (which is still a bit sketchy) underscores the museum’s goal of educating future generations about mechanics of state-sponsored repression and the role of individuals in workings of state terror.
Readers have been weighing-in on their top European rail routes. Here are a few favorites:
The Inlandsbanan is one of Scandinavia’s most scenic railways. Beginning at Kristinehamn in the south and terminating in Gällivare in the north, the route travels along the backbone of Sweden through lush Darlarna to rugged Lapland.
Running entirely above the Arctic Circle, the Ofotbanen (the Malmbanan on the Swedish side) connects Kiruna, Sweden to Narvik, Norway. The line winds its way through steep, rugged mountainous terrain, with a variety of fantastic scenery—from arctic tundra, pristine national parks and awesome fjords.
Outside Narvik
The Rauma Railway runs between Andalsnes on the shores of the Romsdal Fjord and the charming mountain village of Dombås, Norway. The entire run offers spectacular Nordic scenery with views ranging from precipitous crags plunging vertically to valley floors to verdant, unspoiled wilderness.
Rauma
Photographer Valerie Jardin recently visited Stillwater, Minnesota, “The First Book Town in North America”, and sent us this marvelous photo essay. You can see more of Valerie’s fine work on her website or her blog.
Historic Stillwater
Located less than 30 minutes from Minneapolis-St. Paul, on the banks of the St.Croix River, historic Stillwater, Minnesota was officially designated the “First Book Town in North America” by the notorious Richard Booth of Hay-on-Wye in August, 1994. Although the town has only five book stores remaining, there are more than 500,000 antiquarian and secondhand books available for sale. Loome Theological Booksellers (North America’s largest specialist in Theology, Philosophy and Religion) alone has 250,000 titles.
You can learn more about Stillwater Book Town at the website
Bernina (photo by Marco Kluber)
Railway to Heaven
New Berlin Hauptbahnhof
Next month’s issue of National Geographic Traveler has two charming, short articles on the joys of European rail travel that have me longing for the days when I could spend the Summer on the rails with a backpack and a three month Eurailpass.
Essayist Bruce Selcraig revels in the glories of the European rail services and extols the wonderful efficiency, civility and comfort of Continental trains. And, as Selcraig points out, “train stations are dramatically happier places than airports”, where we train nuts “worship the European train culture and think that its finest cathedrals, say Antwerpen Centraal or Milan’s massive Stazione Centrale to be just as spiritual as Notre Dame”.
Antwerp Central Station by Ad Meskens
The issue’s second paean to European train travel is Randall Duckett’s take on “The Top Ten Trains, Our Pick Of The Best Rail Experiences In Europe”. I was pleased to see that he included some of my favorite rail journeys, including the Chur, Switzerland to Tirano, Italy run through the Graübunden Alps on the Bernina Line. It brought back found memories of stops along the route to hike the Morterasch Glacier valley and a side trip up to the top of Piz Bernina, which at 13,284 feet is the highest peak in the Eastern Alps. I was dead chuffed that he neglected to mention the little villages of the Albula Pass, where I spent idyllic August days camping and hiking; too many travelers know about the area already. Please forget that I brought it up.
Kjosfossen Myrdal Line
Duckett also covered one of the best short train trips in the world, the little Myrdal to Flam excursion in Western Norway. This detour off of the main Oslo-Bergen rail line is de rigueur for any true railway aficionado. The Flam Railway covers just 12 miles, and descends nearly 3,000 feet, on a steeper route than any other non-cog, normal gauge railroad in the world. The spectacular trip takes about an hour to descend from the Myrdal Plateau to the jaw-dropping beauty of the tiny village of Flam on the shores of the Aurlandsfjord. Along the way, the train traverses twenty tunnels and passes plunging waterfalls.
I won’t quibble with his other eight choices, except possibly the Montreux to Broc, Switzerland run. Granted, it’s gorgeous (and there’s lovely medieval Gruyères along the route),but I would have chosen the Glacier Express run from Zermatt to St. Moritz, or maybe the Lucerne to Interlaken route though gorgeous Brienz, or maybe the stunning Samedan to Scoul-Tarasp route via Zernez, or maybe…Well in Switzerland they’re almost all top ten trips.
Brienz
So, what are your votes for top ten European rail trips? How about Edinburgh to Skye via the Highlands? Or, Pisa to Genoa by way of the heavenly Cinque Terre?
Edinburgh Castle (photo by David Monniaux)
The hugely popular Edinburgh Book Festival has unveiled its 2010 program. The annual bibliophilic love fest is being held in the beautiful Charlotte Square Gardens from August 14th through the 30th and is expected to draw more tha 250,000 visitors. With an abundance of prize-winning authors—Pulitzer, Booker, Orange and Costa—as well as Nobel and Poet Laureates and nearly 800 other writers from 50 nations, this year’s festival has something for every book lover.
The festival launches on Saturday August 14th with Philip Pullman debating his controversial, re-imagined story of Christianity, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, with Richard Harries, the former Bishop of Oxford. The festival was scheduled to close on Monday August 30 with an appearence by Jose Saramago, the first Portuguese language Nobel Laureate in literature, but the author died unexpectedly last Friday.
A 2010 festival highlight will be the first-ever Short Story Project for which the festival has commissioned 50 British authors to write stories based on the theme “Elsewhere”. The festival website has posted the first five stories by Louise Welsh, A L Kennedy, Allan Radcliffe and Eleanor Thom.
Scott Memorial
In another innovation, the festival is also introducing a free, unticketed mini-fringe festival called “Unbound”, which will include a mix of readings, performances, music and “a healthy dose of the unexpected”. Unbound will take place nightly at the Highland Park “Spiegeltent”.
If you can’t wait until August, West Port (Edinburgh’s Soho) neighborhood holds its own Book Festival this week, from June 24th through the 27th. The events are being held at 10 venues around West Port, including the beloved Edinburgh Books shop, Old Town Books, The Illicit Still and the Wee Red Bar. For more information visit the festival website.
Ian Rankin & Ruth Rendell 2009 Festival
The following post is courtesy of Susan Moore from Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
Sidney Pier
The picturesque town of Sidney-by-the-Sea is Canada’s only Book Town. Situated on the beautiful Saanich Peninsula, at the southern tip of Vancouver Island just twenty minutes from Victoria, Sidney is a bucolic little town with twelve unique book stores. The Sidney Book Town was created in 1996 and centers on the marvlous Haunted Bookshop, which is Vancouver Island’s oldest book store .
Sidney is also a very popular “green” tourism destination. It’s the gateway to the southern Gulf Islands National Park Reserve and a great place for whale watching, boating, fishing, biking, hiking and camping. It’s also the only Canadian port of call for the Washington State Ferry Line from the US.
The best time to visit Sidney is on Thursdays in the Summer when Beacon Avenue is transformed into the Summer Market with over two hundred vendors and the book stores stay open late.
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