Travel Briefs

July 2008 issue

Suez Canal with OAT

For its 19-day Suez Canal transit cruises, visiting Egypt, the Sinai, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, Overseas Adventure Travel (Cambridge, MA; 800/493-6824, www.oattravel.com) has added two new ships.

Available January-April 2009, cruises on one of the three 50-passenger ships cost $5,495-$6,395 (plus tax), including airfare from New York.

May 2008 issue

Barcelona museums

The Arqueoticket provides admission to five museums in Barcelona, Spain, with archaeological collections. Ticket holders can visit the Archaeology Museum of Catalonia, the City History Museum, the Barbier-Mueller Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, the Egyptian Museum and the Maritime Museum.

At €18 (near $28), the ticket saves €7.50 over the regular admission prices of the museums and can be used for unlimited visits for one year from purchase date. It can be bought from the Barcelona Tourist Board (phone [34] 932 853 832 or visit www.barcelonaturisme.com).

September 2008 issue

China’s new holidays

To revive ancient culture, the government of China last December revised the nation’s official holiday schedule to include three traditional festivals.

• Qingming, or Tomb-Sweeping Day, takes place every April 4 or 5 and centers around honoring ancestors’ graves and memories. 

• Duanwu, or the Dragon Boat Festival, takes place on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar year. (In 2009, the holiday falls on Thursday, May 28; many businesses and workers are expected to take a 4-day weekend.)

This festival commemorates poet Qu Yuan, who 2,500 years ago drowned...

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March 2009 issue

Smallest subway

 The tiny alpine town of Serfaus, Austria, is home to the world’s smallest subway, the Dorfbahn. This 1,280-meter (about eight-tenths of a mile) underground funicular holds 270 people and is free to use. It was built in 1985 to transport skiers from a parking area at one end of the pedestrian-only village to the ski lifts at the other end.

August 2008 issue

Travel bottles

Pitotubes (199 E. 52nd, Ste. 362, Boise, ID 83714; 208/853-1416, www.pitotubes.com) offers TSA-compliant travel containers. All the bottles hold fewer than three ounces and are shatterproof, leak-proof (even under pressure changes) and refillable. Tops can interchange a pump or spray head.

Bottles and small jars at $5 to $10 each are sold at various retail stores and online. The biggest kit includes six bottles (two each of 0.5, 1.0 and 1.7 ounce) in a quart bag for $52.

October 2009 issue

Discover AsiaNow.com

The national tourism organizations of Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Macau, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand are promoting travel to the region with an interactive website, www.discoverasianow.com. For each destination, it offers maps; info on weather and currency; discounted travel deals, etc.

January 2009 issue

Elizabethan garden

Kenilworth Castle, one of the most spectacular castle ruins in England, is re-creating one of the greatest gardens of the Elizabethan age. It will be fully open to the public in May 2009, with carved arbors, a bejeweled aviary and an 18-foot-high fountain.

Sneak-preview guided tours are offered at 2 and 3 p.m. each Friday through March 31. Kenilworth Castle & Gardens (www.english-heritage.org.uk/kenilworthcastle) is open 10-5 daily. £6.20 adult, £3.10 child. 

July 2009 issue

Eiffel Tower touchup

The job of repainting the Eiffel Tower — by hand using small brushes — began this spring. The 18-month task is done every seven years. It will cost €4 million (near $5.3 million).

The world’s most-visited tourist attraction, drawing six million people a year, the tower was built in 1889 for the World’s Fair. Now “Eiffel Tower Brown,” at various times in the past it has been red, orange or yellow.