Results tagged “Olympics” from Intelligent Travel Blog

Lawrence Ferber timed his visit to Rio de Janeiro well, arriving just in time for the announcement that the city won its Olympic bid for 2016. He sends along a dispatch from the weekend's festivities.
 
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - Obrigado, Olympics Committee! A geyser-like spray of silver confetti greeted the announcement that Rio won the bid to host the 2016 Olympics, and the glittering cloud engulfed the jubilant crowd of Cariocas who had gathered in front of the Copacabana Beach stage, flanked by giant TV screens, to take in the news and par-tay.

With the famed Copacabana Palace Hotel looming to the left, and the ocean to the right, the celebration was one big samba, with music and local celebrities keeping everyone entertained. But come 1:30 p.m. the televised proceedings from Copenhagen held us rapt. Rio had lost its 2012 Olympics bid (and at least two others before it), but now following a two-year campaign it had beat out second front-runner Madrid (which was booed when the name came up during the announcement), Tokyo, and Chicago. Not quite gingerly but politely enough, many Brazilians, and even some North American visitors, remarked that Chicago would have been a boring choice - "it's South America's time!" nodded one visiting American journalist.

For you die-hard Olympic and soccer fans out there, it's not too early to start making travel plans if you dream of heading to Vancouver for February's 21st Winter Games or journeying to South Africa for next summer's FIFA World Cup.
   
In the Practical Traveler column in this weekend's New York Times, Michelle Higgins details the best options for both big events along with handy links and thought-through strategies. She asserts that despite the bad economy, demand is still quite high for both events and the best way of getting tickets and a place to stay is to work with a tour operator.
   
For the Vancouver Games, the third hosted by Canada and the first for the province of British Columbia, only one company, CoSport, is authorized to sell tickets in the U.S. and they're already sold out, though more tickets may be released for sale this fall.

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. 

The decline of honeybees--which are not native to the United States--has been a hot topic of research for some time. The bees are dying from colony collapse disorder, a condition in which worker bees suddenly disappear, and that has killed an estimated one in three colonies a year since 2006. Fortunately, many companies, from farmers to hotels, are working to save the bees.

Environmentally conscious group Fairmont Hotels has a swarm of new guests staying at the hotel chain's D.C. property. The hotel has installed three beehives on its roof, which house over 100,000 Italian honeybees. The bees are part of the hotel's culinary program, and sous chef-turned-beekeeper Ian Bens expects the bees to produce some 300 pounds of honey in the first year. The honey will be used in soups, salad dressings, ice cream, and pastries at restaurant Juniper, and eventually Fairmont hopes to turn the honeycomb into candles and soap. Canadian-based Fairmont has beehives at its Vancouver, Toronto, and New Brunswick properties as well.

In the past two years ice cream giant Häagen-Daz has donated some $500,000 to universities to promote honeybee awareness and to research colony collapse disorder. Blueberry farmers in Maine are also trying to help the dying honeybees. Jasper Wyman and Son, the largest blueberry producer in the United States, imports some 10,000 hives each year to pollinate its blueberry fields. According to president Ed Flanagan, there has been an 80 percent spike in cost of pollination in the past few years. The company just donated $50,000 to Penn State to research colony collapse disorder.

Even the 2010 Winter Olympics is doing its part. The Vancouver Convention Center, which is undergoing a huge renovation in preparations for the Olympic Games in 2010, has installed beehives on its 2.4-hectare green roof. The goal of the installation: bees bring business. According to TMCNET.com, "bees are the new 'it' endangered species and urban planners and architects across... are anxious to bolster their numbers in urban settings."

Photo: skb_inspirations via the Intelligent Travel Flickr pool

Traveler staffer Kimberly Calder offers a preview of the 2010 Olympics outside Vancouver, B.C., on the slopes of Whistler.

Whistler Blackcomb is epic. The terrain is endless, the powder is plentiful, and even the locals see the possibilities for adventure as infinite. In 2010, Whistler Blackcomb will be hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Alpine events; however, while it's still dumping snow in Canada (and probably will be until late spring), now is a great time to get a taste of this playground as it revs up to host the games.

One particular improvement done for the Olympics makes choosing your perfect ski adventure even easier. The Peak 2 Peak lift now links the two mountains in an 11-minute gondola ride. (The previous option included a 40-minute run to the base and, depending on lift lines, another 15-minute ride to the top.) Now mixing a little Jersey Cream (at Blackcomb) into your morning runs at Whistler is sweeter than ever.

No matter where you end up, you can easily spend all day on either mountain. While both have an assortment of skiing levels, Whistler has more terrain and can feel crowded because of its popularity. Blackcomb, on the other hand, has more advanced runs but tends to get icy first. One constant is the beautiful valley views from all directions.