Results tagged “Easter” from Intelligent Travel Blog

You've been waiting all week, we know. But we're pleased to announce the winner of our Peeps in Places Photo Challenge! Congratulations to Charlotte Johnson of North Hollywood, California, whose iconic peep pic might just have outdone the Hollywood sign itself. To check out the entire gallery of winners, click here.

Thanks to all those of you who participated, and be sure to pack your Peeps with you as you travel this year, as our contest will be back in 2010.

Photo: Charlotte Johnson

If you haven't yet submitted your own photos, now's your chance. Take a photo of one or more Peeps in any travel destination, add your photos to our Flickr pool, and then tag them "NGTpeeps." Please limit your entries to three per person. We'll select photos and feature them on our website and the lucky "peeps" will be featured in an online gallery next week. Check out the photos of the prizes after the jump. 

Photo: hushsweetsharlit via the Intelligent Travel Flickr pool

UPDATE: We've now extended our deadline for entries through Monday, April 13.


Over the last few weeks, we've been promoting our "Peeps in Places" photo challenge, and we've already received over 100 entries from all over the world! Here's a glimpse of the entries so far, feel free to favorite the ones you like best on Flickr. There's still a few days left to add your photos to the mix, you can enter by taking a photo of one or more Peeps (original chicks, pink bunnies, or others--we're not biased) in any travel destination, add your photos to our Flickr pool, and then tag them "NGTpeeps." Please limit your entries to three per person.

We'll select photos and feature them on our website and five lucky "peeps" will be featured in an online gallery. Our favorite Peep photo will get a subscription to National Geographic Traveler and a gift from National Geographic Foods of the World. The winners will be announced on our blog in a week or two, so please submit your Peeps photos by the end of Monday, April 13th, 2009.

With Easter just around the corner, there's only one thing on my mind - chocolate. While I won't be traipsing around London tasting some of the world's finest chocolate anytime soon, I hope to live vicariously through my fellow chocoholics who find the time to do so.

For the Easter holiday, the four-star Mandeville Hotel is pulling out all the stops. You're welcomed with a chocolate gift, and the one-night stay for two includes a traditional English breakfast (sans chocolate), chocolate tea in the afternoon, and a chocolate martini in the Mandeville's bar. 

If you haven't had enough chocolate by the time you check out, head over to Fortnum & Mason, a 300-year-old shop located a mile from the hotel. The store is famous for its Easter egg collection, especially the Ultimate Easter Egg. The outermost milk chocolate shell opens to reveal three more shells of different types of chocolate.  And, at the center of this three-pound treat is a 100-percent dark chocolate egg.

With the beads and revelry of Mardi Gras behind us and in the throes of the Lent season, it's time to look forward to Semana Santa (Holy Week), a elaborate commemoration of the last week of Christ's life. Though I'm not a religious soul, I fell into marking Semana Santa while studying abroad in Seville, Spain.

My initiation to the reams of tradition associated with Semana Santa started our very first day in sticky Seville when my classmate asked our Spanish lit teacher why Ku Klux Klan lollipops were for sale in shops throughout the city. She gasped and launched into an explanation of Semana Santa and the Nazarenos (Nazarenes), members of local churches' cofradías (brotherhoods) who wear capirotes (peaked hats similar to those of the infamous Klan) while accompanying their Baroque wooden sculptures of Christ and the Virgin throughout the city.

Semana Santa has been celebrated in Seville in pretty much its current form since the 16th century. Over 50,000 cofradía members don traditional robes and solemnly traverse the city in over 116 pasos (passes) from Palm Sunday to Easter morning. A capella saetas (sad songs) accompany some processions, brass bands others, while some remain silent. Some pasos occur during the day while others are candlelit and border on spooky at night. During Semana Santa, the sweet smell of azahares (orange blossoms) muddled with incense and loads of candle wax permeates the city.

After the jump, get some tips on how to get the most out of Semana Santa if you're lucky enough to experience it this year, April 5 to 12.

UPDATE: We've extended the deadline for entries until April 13th!

What better way to celebrate the season than to put our readers up to a Peeps in Places Photo Challenge!

We want to know where you take your Peeps--in this case, the sugar-coated, marshmallowy kind! Put your Peeps in your suitcase and photograph them in an iconic travel destination or in your own neighborhood. Pick clever and recognizable settings and show us your Peeps!

Here's how it works: take a photo of one or more Peeps (original chicks, pink bunnies, or others--we're not biased) in any travel destination, add your photos to our Flickr pool, and then tag them "NGTpeeps." Please limit your entries to three per person.

We'll select photos and feature them on an interactive map on our website (stay tuned for our online Easter special, launching March 30) and five lucky "peeps" will be featured in an online gallery. Our favorite Peep photo will get a subscription to National Geographic Traveler and a gift from National Geographic Foods of the World. The winners will be announced on our blog, so please submit your Peeps photos by the end of Monday, April 13th, 2009.

Good luck! "Cluck" here to enter the Peeps in Places Photo Challenge and to start putting your Peeps photos in our Flickr pool!

Photos: Stefan Caiafa and Krista Rossow