Travel Briefs

In a salt mine in a hill by the city of Turda, Romania, visitors can enjoy a 20-minute boat ride on an underground lake (RON10 [near $2.50]), a carnival wheel (RON5), mini-golf (RON10) and bowling (RON10).

The Salina Turda mine operated from 1075 until 1932. Using the same shaft that miners used, visitors take an elevator nearly 400 feet to the mine’s floor. An English-speaking guide may be booked in advance for RON50. 

At the base of the hill, at another entrance to the mine,...

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On Aug. 6, the Suez Canal opened a new expansion that allows greater amounts of 2-way traffic to move through the waterway.

The 21-mile bypass along the center of the 120-mile canal cost $6 billion and took one year for 43,000 laborers to complete. It is estimated it will reduce wait times for ships queuing to enter the canal by as much as eight hours. It is the third expansion of the canal since the passage first opened in 1869.

Originally built in Canada in 1958 to house Prime Minister John Deifenbaker and key members of the government in case of a nuclear attack, The Diefenbunker (3929 Carp Rd., Carp, Ontario; 613/839-0007, http://diefenbunker.ca) is now a museum dedicated to preserving Canada’s role in the Cold War.

The 100,000-square-foot bunker and museum offers guided and self-guided tours through its restored rooms, including the government situation center, the Bank of Canada vault, the Prime Minister...

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The Soviet-era KGB, which was known as “Cheka” in Latvia, performed espionage and secret-police work in Eastern Bloc countries, including the Baltic States and East Germany. The KGB’s activities in Latvia are the focus of a permanent exhibition that opened in February 2015 in the former Latvian KGB Headquarters, the Corner House (Brivibas Street 61, Riga, Latvia; phone +371 27875692, www.liveriga.com/en/7166-the-corner-house). Visitors will see prison and dungeon cells, KGB offices and a...

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In Shandong Province in eastern China, a $48 million restoration of the Temple of Kongfuzi (Confucius) began on July 18 in the city of his birth, Qufu, and is expected to take three to five years. Kongfuzi was an important politician, philosopher and religious leader in ancient China whose work inspired the philosophical system and religion known as Confucianism.

Parts of the temple, which includes pieces of his family’s mansion, date back to his lifetime, 551-479 BC. Confucian...

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The 180-page “Vincent van Gogh Atlas” has maps detailing places the painter lived and worked, including Amsterdam, London, Paris and Auvers-sur-Oise, plus photographs, drawings and letters related to each location. 

Released by the Van Gogh Museum (Paulus Potterstraat 7, 1071 CX Amsterdam, Netherlands; phone +31 20 570 5200, www.vangoghmuseum.com), it’s available in English, French and Dutch at the museum and on its website. €23.54 plus €18.15 shipping to the US (near $47 total).

3,300 fossilized footprints from three species of dinosaur — an herbivorous ornithopod similar to a duck-billed dinosaur, a chicken-sized carnivore and a tyrannosaurus-type carnivore — which paleontologists have determined were created during one predatory event, have been preserved in a climate-controlled building at the Lark Quarry Conservation Park on Winton Jundah Road, southwest of Winton, Queensland, Australia.

The Dinosaur Stampede (www.dinosaurtrackways.com.au) reopened for...

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For visitors to South Africa, the app “Official Guide to Cape Town,” released by Cape Town Tourism, helps users to find transportation, landmarks, hotels, restaurants and shops. Including a calendar of events and an easy-to-use map, it also suggests itineraries and shares advice from other users. 

The app is free for iPhone, iPad and Android and does not need to be connected to the Internet to work.

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