walki-talki.com Travel Blog

The new Globe Theatre is stop number 8 on the walki-talki.com mp3 walking tour of London. The original Globe was, of course, host to the master works of the best known playwright in the world, William Shakespeare. From the stage of this theater, the Bard transformed British theater so completely that he came to define it. From this stage, he mocked the royalty, the Church and the laity alike with zest and eloquence unseen heretofore or hence. On this day, June 30, in 1613, the Globe burned down to the ground.

It took nearly 400 years, but a replica of the Bard’s stage has now been built, and it is open to the public. Even if you are not a Shakespeare fan, you will find the many activities offered in this venue to be a most welcome break from the mind-numbing array of temptations that London offers. So, if you’re not quite in the mood for anything else, the new Globe is a worthwhile visit.

La Biennale di Venezia: Dance. June 14-30, 2007

La Biennale is perhaps the greatest art exhibit on the planet. It is now well under way in Venice, and you have until the 30th of June to partake in the dance portion of La Biennale. You really should partake in this event because there are no bonehead judges of the sort in the “reality” television series. It is the highest form of the art, performed on stage for your enjoyment and intellectual enrichment, should you choose to take a break from your vacation.

So, grab a copy of the walki-talki.com mp3 walking tour of Venice, and enjoy La Biennale.

Many more events remain in La Biennale, which officially lasts through November. We will bring you updates as they draw closer.

Berlin Hotel Recreates East Germany | World Latest | Guardian Unlimited

The above Guardian article mentions perhaps the greatest treat for the cost-conscious traveler in Berlin: nostalgia, history and cheap prices. The Ostel in Berlin is a budget hotel that recreates the East German way of life. At nightly rates that are quite low compared to standard hotel rates in Berlin, guests stay in rooms decorated like the standard issue apartments of the communist era. (The beds and sheets, we are assured, are new.) For as little as $20 a night, you can bunk with other travelers in multi-occupancy rooms that harken to the Free German Youth summer camps of the former DDR.

Naturally, you will want to take the walki-talki.com mp3 walking tour of Berlin with you to get a better idea of why the Ostel hostel is so special.

The Ostel’s official web is www.ostel.eu.

You can find complete photo galleries here.

When we started walki-talki.com, we certainly hoped that the business would have an international appeal and an international reach. I don’t recall having the expectation to achieve both objectives immediately from the start. To get an idea of how international we are, click on the thumbnail to the right and see how geographically widespread our visitors are.

As it happens, our customers (those who bought tours) are similary distributed all over the planet. Naturally, our primary sources of sales are the US and the UK, but we have sold tours to customers from Poland, Lithuania, South Africa, France, Germany, Australia, Spain, and Brazil. I am certain that additional countries are represented, but I cannot remember them all at this particular moment.

So, if you have any doubts regarding walki-talki.com, lay them to rest. We are a company with a far, international reach. And, if you want to find out how we can help you do business on the international scale, visit our corporate services page to learn of the options that we offer. If you have any questions, our contact form is always at the ready. Self-guided mp3 audio walking tours are what walki-talki.com does. If you think your business could use our tours, we will integrate them into your business seamlessly and flawlessly, anywhere in the world.

Of course, you are free to enjoy our tours, too. That’s the primary reason we make them.

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Blackfriars bridge is stop number 5 on the walki-talki.com tour of London. In 1982, it was the site of a ghastly death. This week, five men accused of the murder were cleared of the crime in Rome. The court found insufficient evidence to convict the accused. Surprisingly, the first inquest in the UK concluded that Mr. Roberto Calvi, a troubled Banker living in Canada, had decided to commit suicide by hanging himself from Blackfriars Bridge one early morning.

Well, whatever the truth may be, as you wander about Blackfriars Bridge, feel free to wonder whether this was a suicide or a murder. Or whether the Mafia is reality or entirely the figment of the active imagination of people like Mario Puzzo and Francis Ford Copola.

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Photo by Bruno Girin.

In case you did not know, walki-talki.com has opted not to use any digital rights management (DRM) scheme in our walking tours. You may surmise that this is purely a consequence of either our lack of resources or of our laziness. Well, you would be wrong on both counts. walki-talki.com is but one of many internet sellers of digital media (music, photos, etc.) who are the avant-garde of digital distribution. We know that we can trust our clients, and we will prove that respect and trust are reliable commodities in the business of digital distribution.

Before you poo-poo this notion, bear in mind that just last week, Apple, Inc., (Yes, their official new name) started selling DRM-free music. Of course, Apple is very clever about it. They are using it as a marketing ploy to charge an extra 30 cents per song–the “theft premium”, if you will. That’s probably what they mean by iTunes Plus. (In the interest of full disclosure: I am an Apple stockholder.) So, this is a very real trend, and we are pleased to be at its frontier.

And, unlike Apple, we do not embed any personal information into the audio files that we deliver to you.

So, if you want DRM-free media to become the norm, put your money where your mouth is. Buy your walking tours from walki-talki.com, and buy your music from DRM-free outlets like www.audiolunchbox.com, ww.pastemusic.com, www.bleep.com, and www.betterpropaganda.com among many, many other outlets of DRM-free music. Of course, it’s now fair to count the iTunes Music Store as one of these outlets.
You will be shocked to learn how little it costs to start a revolution. To be precise, it costs roughly $0.99 a track. Substantially less at walki-talki.com.
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