walki-talki.com Travel Blog

The walki-talki.com self guided mp3 audio walking tour of London is now available as an iPhone app

I’m happy to report that our London tour is now available as an iPhone app. The app version of the tour features a dynamic map, so no more printing maps! In fact, locals just might ask you, the tourist, for directions.

We designed the app with a self contained map. Therefore no network connection is needed while you are walking, so there won’t be any unpleasant surprises when you come home and get your phone bill.

London is available now in the App Store. Our other destinations will be available in the App Store soon. We are very excited about the possibilities that the iPhone opens for our tours. Stay tuned for more updates …

Jumbo Hostel, Strange but true, world architecture news, architecture jobs

The global economy isn’t so great. You may want to skimp on your next journey to Sweden and elect to stay at a hostel. Fortunately, you do not have to sacrifice on style by doing so. In fact, you can even forego the train fare to Stockholm and stay at the airport.

The new 747 jumbo jet hostel at the Stockholm airport is so innovative in design that it is being featured in architectural in World Architecture News online magazine.

Swedish architects Thomas Blom and Daniel Monsen partook in a novel design challenge when they were chosen to create the world’s first jumbo jet hostel which opened last month. Undergoing a complete overhall of its interior, the Jumbo Hostel, grounded at Stockholm Arlanda Airport since 2002, now accommodates 85 beds in 25 rooms of approximately 6 sq m. The Boeing 747 plane also contains separate bathrooms, a newly fitted seventies-retro lounge/reception area and retains many original features including business class seats and oxygen masks.

Both guests and visitors can enjoy breakfast and snacks in the onboard cafe, as well as being able to heat up your own in the jumbo’s microwaves! With rooms costing from just £28 the re-fit has turned a scrap-heap bound plane into one of Sweden’s newest landmark tourist attractions.

Soon enough, you will be able to skimp some more by taking the walki-talki.com mp3 walking tour of Stockholm. For now, enjoy the ambiance of this chic jumbo jet.

All images from World Architecture News, where you can find more images.

Yes, it’s that time of the year again. In most places where they celebrate it, it is bitter cold. Some view it as the last opportunity to party before the forty days of lent begin. Others insist that it is the age-old tradition of worshiping the Greek and Roman Gods of wine.

Whatever you think are the reasons, you ought to give serious consideration to celebrating theis magnificent party that is known as Carnival, Carenevale, Mardi Gras, Karneval and many other names. In most places, Carnival will begin on February 13 (yes, Friday the thirteenth), 2009, and end, as usual, on Fat Tuesday (i.e., Mardi Gras), February 24. The biggest celebrations fall on Tuesday the 24th, but some of the biggest parties, like Rosenmontag in Cologne, Germany, (by far the biggest celebration in Germany), are on Monday the 23rd of February.

In general, you will find plenty of partying to do at every city where Carnival is celebrated for the entire duration of Carnival: from the 13th through the 24th. In New Orleans, the parades started on Saturday the 7th of February, as a matter of fact, and gradually pick up in size and frequency leading up to Mardi Gras. In Cologne, Germany, (so far, my only and favorite Karneval location) the Fasching festivities start on 10th of February. (Actually, technically, Karneval season in Cologne starts on November eleventh, 11/11 that is, of the previous year.)   In Venice, the Carnevale starts on the 14th of February, and you can find a small introduction to the Carnevale in the walki-talki.com self-guided audio walking tour of Venice.

If you are not going to be anywhere near Venice, New Orleans or Cologne in the next couple of weeks, you need not worry. Follow this Wikipedia article to find the Carnival celebration nearest you. This festival is celebrated from Rio de Janeiro to, oddly enough, India. In Europe alone, Carnival is celebrated in approximately 20 cities in Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain and Poland to name but a few countries. Chances are that there is a party near you. Do attend one and have a great time. The current world situation is not going to provide anyone any solace, not even the smallest quantum of it.

This week Walki-Talki unveils its latest audio tour, a self-guided walk through the Swiss paradise of Geneva.  The city is a living postcard full of history and one of the most diverse in Europe.   The city is home to the United Nations. the International Red Cross and many other international bodies – a history of tolerance that dates back to the 17^thcentury when Geneva was a refuge for persecuted Protestants from throughout Europe.

This comprehensive tour encompasses fourteen major sites and follows the Geneva waterfront into the heart the Old Town.  Along the way, you’ll learn how the teachings of John Calvin and John Knox led to Geneva becoming known as the “Protestant Rome”;  find out how the city was once saved by a flying tea kettle; and learn just how the Swiss knife got to be so darn useful.  The tour is capped off with a visit to Geneva’s oldest Cathedral, and it ends in Geneva’s most beautiful park.  This tour is a beautiful walk with plenty of history, characters and interesting facts to keep you entertained from start to finish.

So head for the crossroads of Europe and head to Geneva, Pearl of Switzerland. You have a fabulous guided tour to get you started.

Footsteps: Milan Kundera’s Prague – Trumping the Unbearable Darkness of History | Travel | New York Times

The summer travel season is ushered in every year by a bevy of articles on the top travel destinations. The above cited article in the New York Times is no exception, but it is noteworthy for its style and its subject. It is a beautifully complex essay on one of the most complex cities in Europe. 

Nicholas Kulish uses perhaps the greatest contemporary novel on Prague to put the recently opened museum of communism in Prague in its proper perspective. This great Novel is Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and, according to Kulish, the diminutive size and status of the new Museum of Communism clearly demonstrate how the Czech spirit has triumphed thoroughly. 

Kundera’s brilliant novel paints a beautiful portrait of Bohemian spirits that bend under the crushing weight of the Soviet Union but fail to break. Kundera’s masterpiece imparts to the reader a remarkably deep appreciation of how free spirited people (literally Bohemians in this case) suffered and perished under the Soviet yoke and of how the Czech spirit survived, nevertheless.  

As Kulish recounts, the Czechs have triumphed thoroughly over communism, and they have elected to give communism its proper place in Czech history: a small chapter, an afterthought, an insignificant episode in the 1300-year history of Prague. While other cities like Berlin and Warsaw have erected more significant monuments to this ugly chapter in their histories, the residents of Prague have elected to dedicate a tiny space to their communist chapter to leave no doubt about how much they care about the communist era.

Prague has no shortage of attractions, but if you want to learn of Prague’s communist past, the Museum of Communism is located in the center of the city near the Mustek. The Mustek is stop number four on the walki-talki.com self guided mp3 audio walking tour of Prague. 

You should go to Prague!

Payam

At long last, we are proud to announce the release of the walki-talki.com self-guided, mp3 audio walking tour of historic Prague. This is one of best preserved medieval cities in Europe. It has survived the ravages of history and emerged as one of Europe’s premiere destinations and, indeed, one of her crowning jewels.

From Jan Hus to Dubcek and Havel, from Rabbi Pinkus to Kafka, and from wine to pilsner, Prague has it all. Neither Nazis nor communists managed to subdue this vibrant cultural capital, and just about any time of the year is the perfect time to visit Prague.The walki-talki.com tour will take you step by step through all of Prague’s major historical periods. You will encounter famous writers, musicians, composers, writers and astronomers. Seventeen breathtaking stops are guaranteed to make you fall in love with this most romantic of cities. So, pack your bags, get your walking shoes ready, and head to Prague. 

Payam 

That time of the year is drawing near. Yes, Carnival season. There are many choice places to enjoy it in Europe: Cologne, Düsseldorf, Aachen, Maastricht, Basel, and Venice, to name but a few. Wherever you go, you are assured to have a great time.

By far the best and biggest celebrations are to be found in Cologne (Köln), Germany, andinVenice, Italy. The Karneval in Koeln is quite an experience. I had the pleasure of attending this event in 2006. It consists of of an entire week of celebrations that culminates in a gargantuan parade on Rose Monday (Rosenmontag). During this parade, you will see over a million costumed Germans drinking, eating sausages and scrambling to catch carmele (candy) being thrown from the various trains in the endless parade. Upon catching a carmele, a man may present it to a women and demand a bütze (kiss in the Cologne dialect) in return.

The entire affair is totally friendly, the trains in the parade are invariably hilarious and edgy (and not for the prurient, see image), the beer (Kölsch, a pilsner) is good, the sausages aretasty, and the entire affair is difficult to forget. Of course, the giant parade on Rosenmontag is almost an afterthought for the informed traveler. It is best to arrive on the Thursday before (see link above) and enjoy the weekend. The entire city (Germany’s gayest city, by the way) is dressed in costumes and drunk for the entire four days. Every bar one enters will be full of costumed people singing traditional German music and dancing to disco. There will be Brazilian drum sections traveling the streets, and classical troupes spreading mirth everywhere in the city. So, arrive early, party early, and leave in one piece.

The Carnevale in Venice is a decidedly more elegant affair, though equally hectic. The Venice Carnevale is a festival of masks. Elegantly dressed people will parade the city in the most beautiful and elaborate masks that one can imagine. The masks themselves have evolved into remarkable works of art and one of the many crafts for which the city is renowned. You can learn more about the Carnevale from the walki-talki.com mp3 walking tour of Venice. This tour will also get you acquainted with the major attractions should you find time before or after the party. As with Cologne, you are advised to arrive early to enjoy the festivities before the final parade.

This year (2008) Karneval, Fasching, Mardis Gras, Carnevale (whatever you want to call it) happens on Monday, February 4.

Payam

Happy Hotelier » Paris: Hotel Everland, The One Room (One Suite) Cube Hotel has arrived.

Happy Hotelier is a superb travel blog with a lot of fantastic tips on unusual places to stay in Paris. This particular article is about perhaps the most unusual hotel anywhere in the world, Hotel Everland. It consists of one room, it offers a spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower, and it does not look particularly easy to reach. Read the article linked above to learn more.


Image from Happy Hotelier.

Hotel Everland is not cheap, however. So, you may want to invest in the superb walki-talki.com mp3 audio walking tour of Montmartre to make up the difference. Just take the subway across the river to the Blanch Metro stop, and press play.

Audio Walking Tour of the East Village and Hell’s Kitchen (Manhattan) – New York Times

walki-talki.com brings you the premiere mp3 audio walking tours of the top European destinations. We have designs on the top American destinations, too. Until the top American cities are given the walki-talki.com treatment, you can get two terrific tours of two of New York City’s influential neighborhoods from the New York Times. Follow the link above to find the tours.

The tour of the East Village (the part of Greewich Village that resides on the east side of Manhattan Island) takes you on a tour of the places that influenced modern art, including Claes Oldenburg’s studio and CBGB’s. Neither exists anymore, alas, but you can still make pilgrimage to many sites that had a huge impact on modern art and culture.

The Clinton neighborhood is the erstwhile neighborhood of poor, working-class Irish immigrants, whose misery and ambitions fueled racial strife and thuggery in the form of organized crime, thus earning neighborhood the title “Hell’s Kitchen”. Like the rest of Manhattan, it is now largely gentrified and occupied by decidedly civilized and affluent people of all races. Nevertheless, you can visit the places that inspired countless stories, as well as a few destinations that are still noteworthy.

Of course, neither tour nor the combination of both is enough to see New York City, and that is probably why the are free, but they should be enough to whet your appetite for the rest of the city and the walki-talki.com mp3 walking tour of New York City.

Stay tuned…

Top 10 Edinburgh festival hangouts | Travel | Guardian Unlimited

And, if you need a concise repository of the hippest things to do in Edinburgh, read the above article, or visit the Edinburgh pages of The Guardian’s brand new travel pages. The tips can be especially helpful.