Google Maps. Discovering Iran: from Caspian Sea to Persian Gulf | Travel. 'Foreigners! Welcome to Tehran! You may also line up here," announces a smiling airport official dressed in a long, black chador who is pointing to a newly opened immigration booth. A throng of young Dutch, Polish and German travellers pick up their rucksacks and peel off from the back of our queue and rush towards the new one. Queues for foreign passport holders at Imam Khomeini International airport have been conspicuously short for almost a decade, but 2014 is tipped to be the biggest year for western tourism in the Islamic Republic's 35-year history.
The populist and bombastic former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad left office late last year and his replacement, Hassan Rouhani, has assumed a softer diplomatic style, lifting many barriers that kept tourists away. The news, this week, that the British embassy is to reopen in Tehran should see the Foreign and Commonwealth Office change its advice against all but essential travel to Iran. Turkmen and the north-east Desert plateau Tehran. Prayer, food, sex and water parks in Iran's holy city of Mashhad. The Iranian shrine city of Mashhad has much to offer visiting Iraqis wanting to escape violence at home - but locals have mixed views about their guests. The ticket agent at the gate in Mehrabad airport, Tehran, is irate. He’s shouting at a group of middle-aged Iraqi men, who are having trouble making sense of his flustered Farsi. “Why didn’t you tie up your baggage before you got to baggage check?” He says with a heavy sigh. The men, some wearing unassuming pants and shirts and others sporting more traditional Arab dress, search for somewhere to set their baggage down and tie some string around it.
The Iraqi passengers on today’s flight to Mashhad number no more than 50, but that’s 30% of the cabin on this old Boeing. But the attendants’ voices lose a little something when they address the Iraqi passengers. “See how noisy they are?” “I’m guessing that most of the Iraqi tourists to Iran do visit Mashhad,” a tourism expert in Mashhad tells Tehran Bureau. “No problem,” he said. Champagne wine route: top 10 guide | Travel. Champagne is like no other wine region in France.
Although it is the ultimate in bottled glamour, it is doubtful if even most French people have much idea of how champagne is made – the almost feudal relationship between the rural growers and the luxury champagne houses, the difference between, say, a champagne that is an "assemblage" and a Blanc des Noirs, or a "millesime" vintage and an NV, the anglicised non-vintage.
While the famous international brands demand a hefty fee for a tour of their cellars, there is an increasing number of smaller vignerons who receive visits from the public, and don't charge for tastings, while winemakers are also opening their own B&Bs all over the region. The nearest vineyards are only an hour from Paris, and a few days stopping off at small cellars, meeting the people who make the bubbly, is the perfect way to begin to understand the mysterious world of champagne.
Champagne Tribaut, Hautvillers Ghislain and Marie-José Tribaut at Champagne Tribaut. Top 10 alternative city breaks in Europe | Travel. Ghent, Belgium Why go? While Bruges can sometimes feel a little like a tourist toy-town, Ghent keeps it real. The city still offers picturesque Flemish architecture and historical sites - St Bavo Cathedral is the obvious one - but you’ll also find a buzzing contemporary creative scene too, with trendy hang outs such as bar/cafe/co-working space Bar Buro, cycle cafe Bidon and cutting edge restaurants such as JEF.
Evenings are far livelier too, with a big student population revelling in the city that spawned electro legends Soulwax. When to go? Lyon, France Why go? Where to stay? Leipzig, Germany Why go? Segovia, Spain Why go? Porto, Portugal Why go? Linz, Austria Why go? Rotterdam, the Netherlands Why go? When to go? Turin, Italy Why go? Gothenburg, Sweden Why go? Belgrade, Serbia Why go? New York's Grand Central – and nine other beautiful train stations | Jason Farago | Art and design. This week it was announced that relief may finally come to long-suffering New York rail commuters, with the news that the lease for Madison Square Garden, which since 1968 has crushed Pennsylvania Station underfoot, has been renewed only for 10 years. The city council now has the chance to right the calamitous wrong that was perpetrated by the destruction of the old Penn Station, by coming up with plans to replace the Garden with a new structure.
Our earlier post on the ugliness of New Penn, and other stations around the world, brought calls for a more positive outlook on railway stations. Here, then, is a celebration of 10 of the world's finest. Grand Central Terminal, New York In the late 1960s, the finest railway station in America nearly suffered the same fate as the old Penn Station, when developers attempted to replace the Beaux-Arts terminal with an office building. Union Station, Chicago Atocha station, Madrid Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai Antwerp Central Newcastle Central.
One day you will thank me. 20 Cool Abandoned Places in the World. Find Us | 65 Rivington Street, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 3AY | Callooh Callay. The Anarchists of Friedrichshain « An English man in Berlin. They cannot be ignored any longer – the anarchists are demanding attention. Cars have been burning in Friedrichshain every night over the past few weeks due to police raids and the shutting down of ‘housing-projects’, buildings illegally occupied by anarchists and usually identified by graffiti or the black-and-red flags flying from their roofs or windows. In addition, on 3rd December anarchists attacked police stations, cars and government buildings in Berlin, coinciding with anarchist riots in Greece over the anniversary of the death of a 15 year old boy who was shot and killed by police one year ago. All this proved to be a bit too much for the Interior Senator of Berlin, Ehrhart Körting from the SPD, who further fuelled the fire on Wednesday by comparing the radical left to fascists.
DDR Flats Most of the city’s artists, intellectuals and generally unruly types have traditionally lived in Prenzlauer Berg and Friedrichshain because this is where all the old houses are. Like this: The Book Club. I know this great little place in London... | Reclaiming Travel. The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless.
What compels us to leave home, to travel to other places? The great travel writer Bruce Chatwin described nomadism as an “inveterate impulse,” deeply rooted in our species. The relentless movement of the modern world bears this out: our relative prosperity has not turned us into a sedentary species. The World Tourism Organization, an agency of the United Nations, reported nearly a billion tourist arrivals in 2011.
Some 200 million people are now living outside their country of birth. Our once-epic journeys have been downsized to cruise ships and guided tours. This type of massive movement — the rearrangement, temporary or permanent, of multitudes — is as fundamental to modern life as the Internet, global trade or any other sociopolitical developments. For the most fortunate among us, our travels are now routine, devoted mainly to entertainment and personal enrichment. St. Leif Parsons.