AKSense – Zurich Films (June 21, 2023) – A train driver’s view aboard the Goldenpass panoramic train of the Montreux Oberland Bernois (MOB) railway. The train journey is from Saanen, through Gstaad, on to Zweisimmen, in Switzerland.
The Montreux Oberland Bernois Railway, is an electrified railway line that operates in southwest Switzerland. It is one of the oldest electric railways in the country. Its main line, 62.4 km in length, is built to the 1,000 mm gauge.
THE TIMES (June 21, 2023) – A list of 20 of our favourites that are still available. We’ve also highlighted some of the county’s hottest restaurants and its most eye-catching holiday activities. Visitors will notice a renewed push towards sustainability, including an even bigger emphasis on local ingredients in restaurants — think edible seaweed or chickens reared on site.
Polurrian on the Lizard, Mullion Yes, OK, the approach to this family-friendly bolt hole and the village of Mullion itself are a touch suburban. But look westwards instead of east and there’s Cornwall in all its wild magnificence. At the bottom of the garden, just beyond the swings, the coastal path clings to clifftops before tumbling down to a little cove. The views reach out towards Penzance and the open ocean.
Hotel Tresanton, St Mawes It may be 25 years old this year, but Olga Polizzi’s Arts and Crafts-influenced hotel is not resting on its laurels. Most of the bathrooms have recently been redecorated with mosaics, Carrara marble, and tongue and groove panelling. It has new wallpapers, new fabrics and even a new suite. The effect, however, is unchanged. This is probably Cornwall’s most elegant hotel: thoughtful, arty and peppered with eye-catching patterns and colours.
St Michaels Resort, Falmouth Down on Gylly beach, St Michaels Resort is burnishing its wellness credentials with the opening of four spa garden lodges on July 1. Guests will be able to step straight into the revitalised spa garden and take advantage of a bubbling hot tub and barrel saunas. They can also soak in their own outdoor copper bath in the privacy of the lodge terrace.
A nearly two-mile walk circumnavigating Zadar’s Old Town is a journey across a timeline that spans nearly every stage of Croatian history. And it’s a long history, dating back to the 9th century B.C., when the Liburnians first settled this peninsular spit of land on Croatia’s spectacular Dalmatian coast.
Start your stroll on the northwest corner of the peninsula at the Morske Orgulje, or Sea Organ: a set of 35 pipes spread under a 230-foot section of the city’s seaside promenade, known as the Riva. Awarded the 2006 European Prize for Urban Public Space, the Morske Orgulje plays beautifully discordant melodies as the Adriatic laps the stone and pushes air through the pipes beneath — converting the walkway into an invisible, ethereal orchestra.
The wail of snake charmers’ horns will lead you to your departure point: Jemaa El Fna. This carnivalesque, open-air market in the medina — the ancient neighborhood where Marrakesh was born — brims with juice stands, restaurants and souvenir shops, to say nothing of musicians and performers.
Before you embark on this meandering 2.2-mile walk, you should have water and sunscreen (summer temperatures can pass 100 degrees Fahrenheit in this Moroccan city); outfits that cover most of your skin (doubly useful in Islamic societies, which discourage revealing clothes); and a willingness to lose your bearings. Nearly twice the size of Central Park, the medina enfolds a vast spider web of passageways that seem designed to disorient outsiders.
To walk along the Seoul City Wall is to walk in the footsteps of scholars of bygone centuries, trace scars of war and take in the modern behemoth of a city built around it all. Its history stretches back to 1396, to when present-day Seoul first became the capital of what was then a kingdom called Joseon.
Then, the wall encircled an area that’s but a small fraction of today’s sprawling city, incorporating the slopes of the four mountains that afforded natural fortification. Like Seoul itself, the wall has been destroyed and rebuilt several times — and after restorations in recent decades, it’s become a popular urban walk.
The Traveler Films (June 20, 2023) – Gimmelwald is one of the few traffic-free villages in Switzerland where access by car is not possible due to a missing road connection. The Schilthorncable car stops here, where it is possible to board another cable car which runs to Mürren.
Farming and tourism are the main source of income today. Farmers raise hay on tiny plots of land to feed small herds of cows. In winter, farmers often work as well for the Schilthorncable car by performing jobs like running ski lifts or ski-slope grooming.
Massimo Nalli Films (June 19, 2023) – Split, Italian Spalato, seaport, resort, and chief city of Dalmatia, southern Croatia. It is situated on a peninsula in the Adriatic Sea with a deep, sheltered harbour on the south side.
A major commercial and transportation centre, the city is best known for the ruins of the Palace of Diocletian (built 295–305 CE). Collectively with the historic royal residences, fortifications, and churches in the city, the palace was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979.
From 812 Split developed as a major Byzantine city. In 1105, after brief incursions by Venice (998) and Croatia (1069), the city acknowledged the nominal suzerainty of Hungary-Croatia and fought sporadically with its rival Trogir; from 1420 to 1797 it was held by Venice. The Austrians ruled from 1797 to 1918 with a brief French interregnum in 1808–13. Split became part of Yugoslavia in 1918 and of independent Croatia in 1992.
DW Travel (June 17, 2023) – San Sebastián is a resort town on the Bay of Biscay in Spain’s mountainous Basque Country. It’s known for Playa de la Concha and Playa de Ondarreta, beaches framed by a picturesque bayfront promenade, and world-renowned restaurants helmed by innovative chefs.
DW’s Sebastian Heemann – the perfect name for this job – shows us around the city on Spain’s northern coast.
the Luxury Travel Expert Films (June 17, 2023) – Nestled on the secluded island of Bodufushi in Raa Atoll, amid crystalline lagoons, pristine beaches and lush coconut palms, JOALI BEING is a 40-minute seaplane journey from Malé International Airport. With 68 villas, each with its own butler or “Jadugar”, we are the region’s first wellbeing island of its kind.
The Maldives, officially the Republic of Maldives, is an archipelagic state and country in South Asia, situated in the Indian Ocean. It lies southwest of Sri Lanka and India, about 750 kilometres from the Asian continent’s mainland.
Video timeline: Video chapters: 0:00 Intro 3:25 Seaplane transfer 13:12 Welcome pavilion 15:38 Exploring the island 19:10 Overwater villa 18:17 Mojo Restaurant & Bar 31:33 Swimming pool 39:53 Lunch 42:52 Tea tasting 43:48 Spa 51:18 Herbology center 52:54 Gym 56:09 Sound discovery path 1:02:50 Sunset 1:04:06 Dinner at Ocean Sala 1:07:43 Dinner at Flow Restaurant 1:14:27 Breakfast 1:20:47 Art gallery & boutique 1:22:41 Beach walk 1:40:55 Departure
touropia (June 16, 2023) – Colombia, officially Republic of Colombia, country of northwestern South America. Its 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of coast to the north are bathed by the waters of the Caribbean Sea, and its 800 miles (1,300 km) of coast to the west are washed by the Pacific Ocean.
The country is bordered by Panama, which divides the two bodies of water, on the northwest, by Venezuela and Brazil on the east, and by Peru and Ecuador on the south. It is more than twice the size of France and includes the San Andrés y Providenciaarchipelago, located off the Nicaraguan coast in the Caribbean, some 400 miles (650 km) northwest of the Colombian mainland. The population is largely concentrated in the mountainous interior, where Bogotá, the national capital, is situated on a high plateau in the northern Andes Mountains.
The only American nation that is named for Christopher Columbus, the “discoverer” of the New World, Colombia presents a remarkable study in contrasts, in both its geography and its society. The lofty snow-tipped peaks of the country’s interior cordilleras tower high above equatorial forests and savannas where surviving indigenous groups still follow the lifeways and traditions of their ancestors. In the cooler mountains, at intermediate elevations, modern cities are juxtaposed with traditional rural landscapes where mestizo farmers cultivate their small plots of coffee, corn (maize), and other crops. The more accessible Atlantic lowlands, dominated by large livestock haciendas and a tri-ethnic population, have a distinctively different character.
The Times and The Sunday Times (June 15, 2023) – The most popular way to access all this from the UK is via the ports of Dieppe (ferries from Newhaven; dfds.com), Le Havre, Caen and Cherbourg (from Portsmouth and Poole; brittany-ferries.co.uk).
Le Tribunal, Mortagne-au-Perche
Hotel in the Perche region’s main hub Southern Normandy’s Perche region is a succession of gentle hills clad in beech and oak. Much of it is designated a natural park. There is great diversity here, in landscape and architecture, which come in a palette of colours thanks to different building materials. Its main hub is Mortagne-au-Perche, a market town of cobbled streets, antique shops, magnificent mansions and its famed black pudding.
Domaine de la Cour au Grip, Repentigny
Rustic retreat in cider country The Pays d’Auge, to the east of Caen, is an unhurried, painterly landscape, mixing oak and hazel woodland with cattle-filled orchards where morning mists lie low in the valleys and the autumn colours are magnificent. This is cider country, and there are still 20-odd cider makers on the 25-mile Cider Route. The former farm of Domaine de la Cour au Grip is on that route in the village of Repentigny, not far from Beuvron-en-Auge, one of the prettiest villages in France.
Le Landemer, Urville-Nacqueville
Restaurant with rooms west of Cherbourg Not every ferry traveller wants to hurry home. Le Landemer, barely ten miles along the coast from the ferry port of Cherbourg, is for those who like to linger. This designer conversion of a coastal house is as much an eating as a sleeping place, with five traditional rooms in the main house, and four yacht-style rooms — more modern with big picture windows — smuggled away in an adjacent building.
Carsan Choong Films (June 13, 2023) – Jordan, an Arab nation on the east bank of the Jordan River, is defined by ancient monuments, nature reserves and seaside resorts.
It’s home to the famed archaeological site of Petra, the Nabatean capital dating to around 300 B.C. Set in a narrow valley with tombs, temples and monuments carved into the surrounding pink sandstone cliffs, Petra earns its nickname, the “Rose City.”
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