Category Archives: Travel

Nature: Reinstein Woods Preserve In New York

CBS Sunday Morning (February 25, 2024): We leave you this Sunday at the Reinstein Woods Nature Preserve in Depew, New York.

Reinstein Woods Nature Preserve is located near the city of Buffalo in the Town of Cheektowaga in Erie County, New York, USA. Reinstein Woods Nature Preserve is a 292-acre forested complex that also includes wetlands and ponds, located within a developed suburban area.

Videographer: Carl Mrozek.

Travel: A Walking Tour Of Verona In Northern Italy

VIRTUAL TOUR (February 25, 2024): Verona is a city in northern Italy’s Veneto region, with a medieval old town built between the meandering Adige River. It’s famous for being the setting of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

A 14th-century residence with a tiny balcony overlooking a courtyard is said be “Juliet’s House.” The Verona Arena is a huge 1st-century Roman amphitheater, which currently hosts concerts and large-scale opera performances.

Hyperlapse Travel: A Tour Of The Dolomites In Italy

Timestorm Films (February 24, 2024): The Dolomites, also known as the Dolomite Mountains, Dolomite Alps or Dolomitic Alps, are a mountain range in northeastern Italy. They form part of the Southern Limestone Alps and extend from the River Adige in the west to the Piave Valley in the east. 

Travel Guide: A One-Day Tour Of Madrid, Spain

DW Travel (February 18, 2024): Madrid is one of the most visited cities in Europe and a popular travel destination for the LGBTQAI+-Community. The Spanish capital also boasts spectacular architecture, delicious cuisine and a relaxed, inclusive atmosphere.

Video timeline: 00:00 Intro 00:32 Churros 00:53 The Royal Palace of Madrid 02:22 Plaza Mayor 03:12 Retiro Park with Palacio de Cristal 04:20 Chueca district, Madrid’s queer neighborhood 04:44 Meeting @enriquealex 06:46 San Anton food market

Diana Piñeros shows you how to get the very best out of a day in Madrid: from the Royal Palace and the Plaza Mayor, to the queer-friendly Chueca neighborhood.

National Geographic Magazine – March 2024

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National Geographic Magazine (February 14, 2024) The new issue features ‘The Hidden World of Hyenas – Why these misunderstood – and maligned – animals are one of Africa’s most successful predators…

These creatures of the ‘twilight zone’ are vital to our oceans

With with big eyes and very long teeth.

The species help harness carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, deep in the ocean, but much is still unknown about this region and its fascinating inhabitants.

Love them or hate them, hyenas are getting the last laugh

The spotted hyena is Africa’s most successful predator—and one of its most misunderstood animals. But decades of cutting edge research is yielding greater understanding, respect, and protection.

Culture And Traditions: The Porters Of Slovakia

DW Documentary (February 13, 2024) – Delivery service in the world’s smallest high mountain range is still done the traditional way. In the Alps and other European mountains, porters have long been replaced by helicopters and cable cars.

But not in the High Tatras of Slovakia. When loaded, the wooden carrying frames used by the so-called ‘Tatra Sherpas’ weigh up to 100 kilos or more. The porters climb up to 2,000 meters with their loads, supplying essentials to remote mountain huts in the Slovakian national park. Števo Bačkor is one of around 60 porters in the region today. Two to three times a week, the 47-year-old loads his self-built frame with firewood or food.

With the goods stacked on his back, he climbs up the mountains to deliver them, come snow, ice, heat, rain or storm. The mountain huts of the High Tatras depend on the porters’ deliveries, as there are hardly any roads or cable cars. The high mountain region in the Carpathians is a strictly protected nature reserve and, together with the Polish national park, a UNESCO biosphere reserve. This film accompanies Števo Bačkor on his dizzying ascents. He falls into a meditative stride to cope with the exertion.

Strength and courage are not enough – passion is also a requirement for the tough job. It takes him just under three hours to climb 1,000 meters, ultimately reaching the Zbojnícka hut at an elevation of almost 2,000 meters. ‘Reaching the top is always a special moment. You may be exhausted, but you feel complete.’ Some of the ‘Tatra Sherpas’ have already lost their lives on delivery missions through the high mountains. In memory of colleagues who have died, the ‘Sherpa Rally’ takes place as a memorial run every year.

#documentary #dwdocumentary

Arts/History: Smithsonian Magazine – March 2024

Smithsonian Magazine (February 12, 2024) – The latest issue features ‘Recovering The Lost Aviators of World War II’; Inside the search for a plane shot down over the Pacific – and the new effort to bring its fallen heroes home…

The Remarkable Untold Story of Sojourner Truth

a close up a Sojourner Truth statue

Feminist. Preacher. Abolitionist. Civil rights pioneer. Now the full story of the American icon’s life and faith is finally coming to light

On May 29, 1851, a woman asked to address the attendees of the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron. She cut a striking figure, close to six feet tall even without her crisp bonnet. She was more than likely the only Black person in the room.

A procession of participants had already sounded off about the plight and potential of the “fairer sex” during the two-day gathering. “We are told that woman has never excelled in philosophy or any of the branches of mathematics,” said abolitionist Emily Rakestraw Robinson before noting that women were largely barred from higher education. Lura Maria Giddings lamented: “The degraded, vicious man, who scarcely knows his right hand from his left, is permitted to vote, while females of the most elevated intelligence are entirely excluded.” A dispatch about women’s labor from Paulina W. Davis, who would later create the women’s rights periodical The Una, painted a verbal picture of “mother and sister toiling like Southern slaves, early and late, for a son who sleeps on the downiest couch, wears the finest linen and spends his hundreds of dollars in a wild college life.”