If Johann Sebastian Bach could join the tourists and university students in Leipzig, Germany’s City Center today, he’d struggle to recognize the place where he lived from 1723 until his death in 1750. Behind the roofline he likely overlooked from his upper-story home, Panorama Tower shoots skyward. Not far from there, passenger trains roll steadily…
Although Phnom Penh dates its origin from the 14th century, it wasn’t until 1863 that the city began to take its modern form. That was when Cambodia became a French protectorate, following King Norodom’s request for assistance in deflecting the armies of Thailand and Vietnam. In 1866, Norodom moved his capital from rural Oudong to the confluence of the Mekong, Tonlé Sap and Bassac rivers. Four years later, he built a Royal Palace in the iconic style of the Khmer Empire. Its spires still soar skyward, its sacred elements reflecting Hindu and Buddhist mythology. Few organized tours in contemporary Phnom Penh consider the colonial architectural heritage. This is a shame. It can easily be explored in a stroll of only about 10 minutes from Wat Phnom, the medieval pagoda that is, in its essence, the center of the city.
People go to Ghana to see historic coastal slave castles. Others come to buy kente cloth for a colorful wall hanging. Reasonably priced tailors adept at creating stylish attire for special occasions attract travelers from Europe and the Americas. And then there are those to come to explore the roots of their African heritage. All…
Today’s visitors to Turkiye’s Cappadocia come for two reasons – spectacular sunrise ascents over the rugged terrain in hot air balloons and stooped-over descents into underground retreats that protected residents from ancient predators traveling through the Tarsus Mountains. These hand-dug hideouts were elaborately engineered, multi-layered warrens of tunnels and rooms, some of which descended more than 275 feet into the earth. Among the people who hunkered down in them were early Christians determined to spread their faith across Asia Minor. The existential threats in the early centuries following Jesus’ resurrection came not only from Roman governors and Jewish Pharisees but also from Silk Road highway men passing through Cappadocia. Disputes could be doctrinal, territorial, or simply monetary. Regardless, the early Christians were not the first to seek underground shelter here.
Ah, to be in Holland when tulips burst into flower—Holland, Michigan. That is in Holland, Michigan, and it would be the first week in May, when the entire community and thousands of visitors turn out to immerse themselves in bloemen abundance at Tulip Time. So it has been since 1929. Given such longevity, Holland has its…
Baseball draws together all generations and classes in the timeless celebration of the game known as America’s Pastime. Stadium screens may pulsate with pixels, but baseball remains proudly analog, played by rules largely codified in the 1800s. Americans learn them at an early age, as players and spectators. That familiarity and sense of continuity fuel the game’s widespread popularity. Major League Baseball, with its grand, big-city stadiums and lucrative TV deals, gets most of the attention. But most fans agree that minor league teams are more fun to watch. They play in smaller, more intimate ballparks with less distance between players and fans, who pay much, much less for a summer evening’s entertainment.
Hill Country settlements between Austin and San Antonio, 80 miles apart in south-central Texas, now form one of the most attractive and historic regions in the entire state. Young families yearn to move there for the good schools and a breezy lifestyle. Chocolate shops, cast-iron-pan factories, and gourmet-salsa-makers thrive. Nouveau-Italian restaurants, hat-and-boot boutiques, and yuppified “saloons” do a land-office business. And tourists are thicker than fleas on a lazy possum. You’ll find scads of them (tourists, not fleas) in Fredericksburg, which bills itself as the most German city in Texas. “On the town’s city limits signs, the population is given as 11,257,” says David Schafer, an author, historian, and driver of the Fredericksburg Trolley tour bus. “We get about 1.5 million visitors annually. Around 25,000 of them show up each year to the town’s Oktoberfest celebration. Fredericksburg has a Texas heart and a German soul.”
By Nancy Wigston The view from our windows at Penang’s Eastern & Oriental Hotel stretches across the pale blue Strait of Malacca all the way to the horizon. It’s early morning and still tolerably cool. Yellow-beaked mynah birds squawk, coconut palms whisper in the gentle breeze and waves break rhythmically below the longest hotel sea…
By Charles Cecil It was 5:25 AM when the voice of the muezzin from the mosque next to my hotel woke me. I lay there, listening, waiting for the line I knew was coming: “As-salaat khairin min an-nom.” “Praying is better than sleeping.” I lay there, momentarily debating the issue. I had arrived the night…
By Cynthia David My first Turkish coffee arrived dark and steaming hot from an electric coffeemaker at Espressolab on Istanbul’s historic Istiklal Avenue. The Espressolab had a long, curved marble bar, high ceiling beams and an Art Deco espresso machine. The 20 and 30-somethings around me chatted and sipped their cappuccinos and pumpkin spice lattes…