Results tagged “Europe” from Intelligent Travel Blog

JT Blatty, a former Traveler photo intern, has been spending the last month traveling through Sweden, and sends us a dispatch from their swath of national parks.

During an impulsive, two-week road trip through the less populated landscapes of Sweden, it only took a few nights for my friend and I to realize that our spontaneous agenda was becoming quite predictable - but in a good way. A few hours before dusk, a quick look at the map would indicate a picture-perfect location to camp for the night and explore the next morning, whether forest, lake, beach, or mountain peak. In other words, there was no way of avoiding the 7,000 square kilometers of Sweden's 28 national parks.

At the time I didn't realize that 2009 is "Nature's Year" in Sweden, a 100-year milestone celebrating Swedish national parks and the successful measures taken to preserve their diverse ecological landscapes. 

Cycle Parade in Copenhagen from Copenhagenize on Vimeo.

Copenhagen ranks as one of the world's friendliest cities for cyclists, with 37 percent of residents in Greater Copenhagen using a bike daily. To encourage more residents to bike to work and school, the city plans to expand bike lanes farther into the suburbs. The city hopes to entice the 85,000 suburbanites who currently commute via car, bus, and train to switch to cycling.

Fifteen thousand people already bike into Greater Copenhagen from the suburbs, so these "bicycle superhighways" will enhance their commute and also make cycling more appealing for those who do not. Some perks of the new routes include fewer detours, service stations along the routes with air and tools, and priority crossing for cyclists at busy intersections. Additionally, cyclists who maintain a pace greater than 12 miles per hour will benefit from the Green Wave, affording them green lights all the way through sections of the city with frequent stoplights.

In the big picture, more cyclists mean fewer cars on the road and less air pollution. The European Cyclists' Federation is pushing for greater funding for bike-friendly initiatives in urban settings. The ECF estimates that increasing cycling levels from 5 to 15 percent in Europe could reduce carbon dioxide emission by 50 million tons and plans to do so by 2020.  

To do its part in saving the environment and bringing European bike-lovers together, Copenhagen hosted a cycling parade as part of CO2penhagen, the "world's first carbon-neutral festival."

While you're visiting, you can take part in "Bycyklen Kobenhavn," the city's bike culture, by snagging one of the 1,300 free bike rentals offered to visitors between May and December.

Sziasztok, City Lovers!

The city that stole our heart today is Budapest, Hungary, shared with us by Carolyn Bánfalvi, a travel writer and award-winning culinary guidebook author (Food Wine Budapest and The Food and Wine Lover's Guide to Hungary are her titles), who writes about the city at Chew.hu, a Hungarian food blog. And remarkably, when she's not doing all that, she's giving culinary tours of the city with her husband.

Want to see your city on IT? Copy and paste our list of fill-in-the-blank questions into an e-mail, fill in your answers, and send your responses to IntelligentTravel@ngs.org. And if you're still waiting for us to feature yours, fear not! We're going to keep posting as long as we keep getting them (please include photos and links!). You can find the entire collection of city-lovers here.

Budapest is My City

When I crave Chinese food I always go Wang Mester Konyhája.

To escape the summer heat I head to Margit Island to swim or picnic in the shade.

If I want to find hidden treasure I go to the Ecseri flea market and browse the antiques/junk/kitsch.

For complete quiet, I can hide away at the beautiful Ervin Szabó Public Library in the eighth district.

If you have to order one thing off the menu from Horgásztanya it has to be Halászlé (a fisherman's soup).

Bortársaság is my one-stop shop for great wine.

Traveler and Photo District News are currently hosting our annual World in Focus Photo Contest, and this year we're letting readers preview the submissions and vote on their favorites. It's the start to a new week, meaning there's a whole new gallery to check out. Here's one of of the featured shots from this week:

Rainer Jenss and his family are currently on an around-the-world journey, and they're blogging about their experiences for us at Intelligent Travel. Keep up with the Jensses by bookmarking their posts, and follow the boys' Global Bros blog at National Geographic Kids.

Most of the correspondence we've received from friends, family and colleagues in the States during the ten months we've been traveling has referred to the terrible economy, the awful mood back home, and what a different country we'll be returning to. Literally everyone has told us we couldn't have picked a better time to skip town for a year.  

As mentioned in my previous post, we couldn't have chosen a better time to go to Greece, either. The big advantages to visiting in May are the weather, lack of crowds and ease of traveling from place to place. So with two weeks to play with, the challenge was figuring out where to go from the multitude of recommendations we received, many more than I had anticipated.  

Going to the Acropolis in Athens is pretty much mandatory, but can easily be done in a day. There are lots of other interesting things to see around the city (a newly refurbished museum opens in July), but with two kids in tow, we didn't feel compelled to seek them out. Albeit among the most famous historical sites in the world, the Parthenon and surrounding ruins did not inspire us as much as others throughout the country.  Most of the site was covered in scaffolding and if you didn't have a tour guide like us, it's hard to make out exactly what happened here in its peak period some 2,500 years ago. By contrast, we had the archaeological site of ancient Corinth almost all to ourselves, while the well-preserved artifacts in its museum really helped us understand its significance. As a port city, the modern day Corinth also offers some nice seaside restaurants and shopping, which made it perfect for a day trip away from the congestion and big-city challenges of Athens. 

Rainer Jenss and his family are currently on an around-the-world journey, and they're blogging about their experiences for us at Intelligent Travel. Keep up with the Jensses by bookmarking their posts, and follow the boys' Global Bros blog at National Geographic Kids.

Every marriage has compromise.  Where to go when we had only limited time to explore Europe was just one of the challenges that put our marital conciliation to the test. When to discipline the kids; How to manage the budget; What to do about dinner. These were just some of our other points of contention . . . but I digress.  

"You only want to go because of the golf!" That was Carol's reaction when I first recommended including Scotland.  Truth be told, I am a golfer, but that's not solely why I suggested it. Come on! I figured the boys would get a thrill out of seeing where the Loch Ness Monster resides and that all the castles would be a source of unending fascination.

What ultimately persuaded my wife to acquiesce, however, was a personal invitation to stay in the home of our Bhutanese expedition leader we met back in October.  It seemed odd at first that a Scotsman would be the leader of a tour through the mountains of a Buddhist country, but it became obvious that few were better qualified than Richard Whitecross. The fact that he lives less than an hour outside Edinburgh ended up securing our ticket to Scotland.

Rainer Jenss and his family are currently on an around-the-world journey, and they're blogging about their experiences for us at Intelligent Travel. Keep up with the Jensses by bookmarking their posts, and follow the boys' Global Bros blog at National Geographic Kids.

It might have seemed impractical to give ourselves only two weeks to visit France, Germany, and Italy on this trip, especially since we were on a one-year journey and could theoretically allocate a lot more time for each (or go to fewer of them). But these were places we definitely wanted the boys to see, so we just decided to be well thought-out with where we'd go. Besides, when you compare this to the amount of time a typical American can allot for a vacation, this didn't seem like such a stretch.   

We left France after spending three days in Paris and two in the countryside. Euro Disney was not on our agenda. Instead, we opted for the real-life place that in part inspired Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty castle: the Neuschwanstein Castle, nestled amid the stunning landscape of southwest Bavaria. The traffic was extra light on Easter Sunday, so we got to the German border relatively quickly, but not after having to dish out over 60 euro (about $90) in tolls that covered only about 200 miles of roadway. Then I was forced to break my vow not to use any GPS on this trip, not because I wanted to, but because our rental car had it installed. This proved not to be such a bad thing since the roads around the Alps are tricky and one wrong turn could end you up in a different country. Furthermore, reading a map while trying to negotiate hairpin turns wasn't the best idea.    

After choosing one of several pleasant outdoor restaurants for lunch along the bustling shores of the Bodensee (Lake Constance), we got back in the car and followed our trusty new navigation assistant straight to the castle.  Arriving without any prearranged accommodations (which is inadvisable in the busy summer months), we discovered that the Akzent Hotel Muller right at the base of the castle had a family suite for the same price we'd pay for two modest B&B-type rooms found in town. Even though it's catered specifically for tourists, which is something we generally try to avoid, it was a treat to be within easy walking distance of the castle and not have to spend any time in the car the next day, so we booked it.

It's rainy and bleak here in D.C. today, so my "I Want to Go to There" (IWTGTT) locale of the day is the sustainable mountainside co-op, Vamos, in Crete. Featured in this weekend's Guardian Travel section, the little town located in the White Mountains has a collection of 19th century sandstone guesthouses available for rent, with on-site cooking classes, nearby beaches, and hiking trails through the snow-capped mountains. Here, author Jane Foster explains its history:

It started in 1995, when five local couples clubbed together and began renovating three old stone family cottages for use as guesthouses. Worried by the village's gradual depopulation and economic stagnation, they planned to revive the rural community through sustainable tourism, offering visitors the opportunity to explore the Cretan interior while providing locals with a new livelihood.

The Guardian has a roundup of other smaller cottages that will let you escape the bustle of the seaside resorts of Crete. All I know is, I want to go to there.

Photo: Vamos

Fifteen years ago, a recently-graduated British archaeologist decided to walk 2,000 miles across Turkey, following a section of Alexander the Great's ancient path from Troy to Iskenderun (with a heavy backpack and plenty of stops at ruins and ancient battle sites along the way).

Sound crazy?

Well, maybe a little. But it seems to have worked out, because right now Peter Sommer (the aforementioned archaeologist and Alexander the Great enthusiast) is embarking on yet another tour that hits many of the same highlights he explored back in 1994. These days, however, he is paid to do it.

Sommer runs Peter Sommer Travels, which offers expert-led tours throughout Turkey and Greece. Given the background of the tour guides (historians and archaeologists - many with PhDs), the tours are certainly educational, but there is also plenty of time for fun, relaxation, and eating wonderful Turkish meals...oh, and did I mention that the tours get from one place to the next on hand-built gulets?

"We tend to cruise for about three to four hours per day, with stops in idyllic coves for swimming, snorkeling, or something more physical like kayaking or windsurfing," says Sommer. "We normally visit one ancient city per day, usually in the late afternoon, when the heat of the day has passed. That's when our specialist guides bring the ruins and the history to life."

So, basically, sail through paradise, then let an expert tell you stories of past civilizations while you stand on the ground where history was made. I'm sold!

A variety of tours are offered spring through fall. Check out www.petersommer.com for more details. And stay tuned for more amazing and enriching tours in the May/June issue of Traveler.

Photo courtesy of Peter Sommer Travels

Every trip should have a soundtrack, so we've asked CJ Fahey with Nat Geo Music to select artists from their catalog whose songs will inspire you to get going.


Raquel Tavares, "Fado Lisboeta"

One thing I love about this video from Portuguese fado singer Raquel Tavares is that in the first 30 seconds it seems like a low-budget music special from public access television and then, unexpectedly, the shot cuts to a dramatic close-up of the singer's bright red lips as she begins the bittersweet lament of the fado. It's an abrupt reminder that as spectators of the fado we're here primarily for the voice, which, even if you can't understand the words, conveys longing and nostalgia.

Fado music comes from Lisbon, Portugal's capital city, which is located on the Tagus River just before it flows into the Atlantic Ocean. The best place to find a traditional fado bar in Lisbon is in Bairro Alto (literal translation: high neighborhood), one of the oldest parts of the city where Lisbon's youth intermix with tourists, drug dealers, and long-time older residents. The neighborhood is the heart of Lisbon's nightlife and in addition to being the perfect spot to catch nightly fado performances, is a good place to come for dinner, drinks, and dancing.    

Check out Nat Geo Music for more fado videos. And read Traveler's story about the best fado festivals in Lisbon.

When friend of IT and Nerd's Eye View blogger Pam Mandel saw Traveler's feature story on Austria's Lake Country in our current issue, it brought back fond memories of when she used to live in the area. So we asked her to dish on some of her favorite spots in the region.

When I lived in Austria, the Salzkammergut was sort of like the cool neighbor's backyard. We'd go over to their house to play -- it was a short and very scenic drive to the Salzkammergut from where we lived, in the Ennstal, a bucolic farming region smack dab in the middle of Austria. Guests who showed up to visit us were promptly bundled into the car, regardless of time of year, and taken to the locations listed in the April issue of National Geographic Traveler -- and then some. Depending on the season, we'd see the sights on skis or on foot, and where we sat to eat was seasonally dependent too -- in summer, it was balcony or garden seating, in winter, as close as possible to the fireplace, if there was one. The Salzkammergut is a great place to travel, so picturesque as to be cliche, loaded with outdoor activities that fit your style, and filled with great places to eat. Here are a few of my favorite things:
 
Bad Aussee Kurbad: This huge indoor swimming pool is the place to wait out inclement weather. Pay extra for the sauna privileges, though if you're of a modest disposition, be sure to ask if it's men, women, or mixed on that day.

Gasthof Zauner in Hallstatt: If you have the good fortune to be in Hallstatt around lunchtime on a September day after the tourists are gone, get a balcony seat, order the fish, and take in the scenery at this excellent historic restaurant and inn. It's also nice in winter - the cozy dining room may be empty and the waiter will let you taste new things that the chef is cooking up. Hey, it happened to me. It could happen to you.

IT contributing writer Andrew Evans sends along a carbon footprint-free blog post after spending this afternoon at the Centre for Alternative Technology in northern Wales.

The question isn't whether or not to travel in this economy, it's how to travel smart and get the most value out of your trip. Hotel Central editor Susan O'Keefe begins a series of posts that will feature affordable lodgings that don't break the bank, but are also worthwhile for their location, amenities, and unique character--real gems you should know about. Along with great hotels, she'll share strategies, deals, and insider tips on the destinations. And we encourage you to share your own lodging finds and recommendations for things to do in the city featured.