Barcelona Travel Guide

Well known as a cultural centre, Barcelona boasts splendid architecture, monuments, historical sites, natural resources, beaches and much more. It is a very modern, multicultural, cosmopolitan city. Almost 4.5 million people live in the Barcelona metropolitan area. The city enjoys a prime location, bathed by the sea and has excellent transport links with the rest of Europe. Some people say that Barcelona is Spain's most European city because it is always open to new ideas and trends. You can note this in its people, the Catalans.

The Catalan capital's is a modern, cosmopolitan city, but has inherited many centuries of history. There are monuments of Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance periods or still before, but most characteristic is what has been built during the last 100 years. Though the 1992 Olympics focused the world’s attention on the city, Antoni Gaudi’s wonderfully weird architecture demonstrates how long Barcelona has been at the vanguard of all that is new and different.

Barcelona, a 2,000-year-old master of the art of perpetual novelty, has catapulted to the rank of Spain's most-visited city. In fact, in 2003 nearly four million visitors came to the city, many on charter flights from Northern Europe. Autumn is the perfect time to visit Barcelona with less heat, fewer tourists and the city’s biggest street party, Festes de la Mercè, on September 24. The city continues to evolve as a centre of design, as a gastronomic powerhouse, as an educational and business centre and potentially the coolest city in the world. And one the world never tires of visiting.

Although Barcelona is a large city, it is easy to get around on public transport and on foot. You can reach any point in the city by metro, bus and taxi. Also, Barcelona attracts tourists from all over the world. The explosion of low-cost, Internet airlines, plus the good value at hotels and restaurants compared to other European cities, has made Barcelona the European weekender capital.

The area around the Catalunya Place, including the city's historical center includes the Passeig de Gracia, the Rambla de Catalunya and the upper half of the Diagonal avenue is the main commercial area of the city. "La Rambla", a pedestrian street, is the best place to watch people go by, to stroll or simply relax. Also, here you can find dozens of outdoor cafes. Nearby is 'Plaça Real', with plenty of bars and restaurants, and 'Palau Guell', built by Antoni Gaudí in his undulating art-nouveau style.

The Balearic Islands lie to the east, the Costa Brava to the north, the monastery at Montserrat to the west, and to the south, the Roman city of Tarragona, and the playground resort of Sitges. Barcelona's inhabitants are open and welcoming. The people of Barcelona speak Catalan, their own language, and Spanish. Many of them also understand a little English and French.

Madrid Travel Guide

Madrid is the capital of Spain since 1562. Madrid is located on the geographic center of the Iberian Peninsula. Due to this central location and high altitude, the climate of Madrid is characterized by warm dry summers and cool winters. Madrid is the political center of Spain. This is also a cosmopolitan city with cultural and political importance. Its position as a centre for economics, finance, administration and services combines the most modern infrastructure with an important cultural and artistic heritage, the legacy of centuries of fascinating history. So, while Madrid possesses a modern infrastructure, it has preserved the look and feel of many of its historic neighborhoods and streets. For instance, some of its main historic places are the huge Royal Palace of Madrid; the Teatro Real (Royal theatre); the Buen Retiro park; the imposing 19th-century National Library building (founded in 1712); an archaeological museum of international reputation; and three superb art museums: Prado Museum, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, housed in the renovated Villahermosa Palace.

But Madrid is not just a cultural destination. It is also a lively metropolis with many pubs, cafes, discotheques and nightclubs open late into the night (nobody is really sure when the Madrileños sleep). It may be the afternoon siesta that gives them the endurance to keep things going well into the night. In fact, on weekends, Madrilenian youth are famous for dancing all night long, stopping off only for having some chocolate y churros at dawn, go home, take a shower, shave, and go to work. Madrid has an amazing quantity of dance halls, tascas, cafes, theaters, movie houses, music halls, and nightclubs. However, many of these offerings are strictly for residents or for Spanish-speakers.

After spending much of the 20th century sequestered at the center of a totalitarian regime, Madrid has burst back onto the world stage with an energy redolent of its 16th-century golden age. Beginning in the early 20th century, Madrid grew to be an important industrial centre. Its commercial and industrial life developed very rapidly after the 1890s and is rivalled in Spain only by that of Barcelona. The city's major industrial products include motor vehicles, aircraft, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, processed food, printed materials, and leather goods. Besides its many manufacturing industries. Most of its industry is located in the Southern fringe of the city, where important textile, food and metal working factories are clustered.

Especially around Puerta del Sol, you'll find a high concentration of everything relating to food, drinking, entertainment and staying away from your hotels as long as possible. Madrid, during the summer, becomes a virtual free festival because the city sponsors a series of plays, concerts, and films. If you're in Madrid during the second half of May be sure to join Madrileños in celebrating the Feria de San Isidro, which has music, operas, concerts, bullfighting and dancing. In the same way, mid August is when the city celebrates the Verbena de la Paloma.

Spain Travel Guide - Travel to Spain

Spain Travel Guide - Travel to Spain

Spain Beaches

Excellent and quiet beaches can be found near Malaga, Huelva and Almería in the south as well as near the coasts of La Manga, Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria and Euskadi. If you do enjoy extremely developed resort towns, there are plenty of crowded beaches on the Costa de la Luz and the Costa del Sol. Interesting is the harbour of Almerimar with cosy bars, just south of El Ejido (Almeria).

Very unique architecture can be found in Córdoba, Salamanca, Granada, Toledo, Madrid... The visionary architecture of Antoni Gaudí and the Picasso museum are in Barcelona while Madrid is home to Spain’s top three art museums.

Costa Blanca Holidays

Spain Countryside

If you would rather get some fresh air, Spain is filled with opportunities to visit wildlife parks as well as trekking. The Pyrenees, especially around the Aragón area, are the best areas for trekking. Andalucía has its Sierra Nevada mountain chain with luxurious skiing resorts near Granada. Ski-sports are possible from November up to May. Between Guadix and Baza (famous horsemarket) one can find cave-dwellings, cave hotels, and beautiful natural parks. North and between these towns still are unexplored desert sceneries, with hamlets not even found on maps! The highway infrastructure in this "wild" part of Andalucia is excellent.

Travel in ease with Toledo Spain hotels by Hilton.

Spain Social culture

Spanish people are very open-hearted and comunicative. You won't have any problems to get to know someone, especially in the big cities like Madrid or Barcelona, and you can attend a big football match if you buy FC Barcelona Tickets. It's often said that the Spanish living room is the bar where the people usually spend a lot of time in the mornings and in the evenings.

London Travel Guide

Why?

England's historic capital was the centre of the British Empire for generations, and is imbued with a sense of history. Modern London has retained its ancient heritage and remains the focus of world events. Anyone wishing to understand and explore the origins of Western culture will revel in a holiday in London, where traditional attractions still amaze and astound.

When?

London is famed for its abundance of rain and fog, so an umbrella is a necessity when planning to travel to London on holiday any time of year. The best time to holiday in London is during spring (May and June) when the parks erupt in a profusion of flowering bulbs, or autumn, when the trees turn into golden hues and skies are often a murky blue. The long summer evenings make June and July good months to travel, although public transport can become oppressive on hot days. Winters are gloomy, dark and cold.

Who for?

A holiday in London is enjoyable for anyone and everyone. Families with children can visit numerous entertaining attractions, from the Tower of London with its bloody history to the London Dungeon and Madame Tussaud's waxworks museum or the London Eye with its stunning vistas of the city. Couples can enjoy the restaurants and nightlife, see a West End show, and explore the markets and famous shopping streets.

More Info: Our London travel guide includes recent reviews of where to eat and what to do in London, whether on holiday or business. The Basics section includes essential advice for international travellers on entry requirements, customs, currency, tipping and more.



Overview

Whether you arrive in London via the underground or inside one of the city's ubiquitous black taxicabs, you will immediately be greeted by a deep sense of history and met with the unique vibrancy of this incredible destination.

In its dark and troubled past, the city of London has survived Roman occupancy, sackings from the Celts, Romans, Vikings and Saxons, a Norman invasion, two great fires, the bubonic plague, Nazi bombings, the Spice Girls and Damien Hirst.

But the London of today promises something for everyone. The London Eye lifts visitors high above the river into vistas that stretch tight across the fading skies. Further down on the South Bank, the Tate Modern contains one of the world's most incredible collections of Modern Art, while the city's 30,000 stores and boutiques will exhaust even the most avid shopper, and its 6,000 restaurants are only too eager to demonstrate why Britons revere their chefs as celebrities.

For those interested in exploring the country's heritage, the Tower of London is an excellent starting point. First constructed in the 11th century, the Tower has been rebuilt several times as later monarchs have left their mark. Still one of London's biggest attractions, and a great celebration of pomp that is free to all visitors is the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, which happens daily.

As the great dome of St Paul's reflects the colours of the setting sun, London comes alive with an unrivalled nightlife. For those up for something more thrilling than dinner and the theatre, London has a vast number of bars and nightclubs catering to all tastes.

mystery of the Bermuda Triangle

The Un-mystery of the Bermuda Triangle

Five Avengers

The Bermuda Triangle is a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean bordered by a line from Florida to the islands of Bermuda, to Puerto Rico and then back to Florida. It is one of the biggest mysteries of our time - that isn't really a mystery.

The term "Bermuda Triangle" was first used in an article written by Vincent H. Gaddis for Argosy magazine in 1964. In the article Gaddis claimed that in this strange sea a number of ships and planes had disappeared without explanation. Gaddis wasn't the first one to come to this conclusion, either. As early as 1952 George X. Sands, in a report in Fate magazine, noted what seemed like an unusually large number of strange accidents in that region.

In 1969 John Wallace Spencer wrote a book called Limbo of the Lost specifically about the triangle and, two years later, a feature documentary on the subject, The Devil's Triangle, was released. These, along with the bestseller The Bermuda Triangle, published in 1974, permanently registered the legend of the "Hoodoo Sea" within popular culture.

Several books suggested that the disappearances were due to an intelligent, technologically advanced race living in space or under the sea.

The only problem was that the mystery was more hype than reality. In 1975 a librarian at Arizona State University, named Larry Kusche, decided to investigate the claims made by these articles and books. What he found he published in his own book entitled The Bermuda Triangle Mystery-Solved. Kusche had carefully dug into records other writers had neglected. He found that many of the strange accidents were not so strange after all. Often a triangle writer had noted a ship or plane had disappeared in "calms seas" when the record showed a raging storm had been in progress. Others said ships had "mysteriously vanished" when their remains had actually been found and the cause of their sinking explained.

More significantly a check of Lloyd's of London's accident records by the editor of Fate in 1975 showed that the triangle was a no more dangerous part of the ocean than any other. U.S. Coast Guard records confirmed this and since that time no good arguments have ever been made to refute those statistics. So the Bermuda Triangle mystery disappeared, in the same way many of its supposed victims had vanished.

Even though the Bermuda Triangle isn't a true mystery, this region of the sea certainly has had its share of marine tragedy. Perhaps the best known one was the story of Flight 19.

The tale of Flight 19 started on December 5th, 1945. Five Avenger torpedo bombers lifted into the air from the Navel Air Station at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at 2:10 in the afternoon. It was a routine practice mission and the flight was composed of all students except for the Commander, a Lt. Charles Taylor.

The mission called for Taylor and his group of 13 men to fly due east 56 miles to Hens and Chicken Shoals to conduct practice bombing runs. When they had completed that objective, the flight plan called for them to fly an additional 67 miles east, then turn north for 73 miles and finally straight back to base, a distance of 120 miles. This course would take them on a triangular path over the sea.

About an hour and a half after the flight had left, a Lt. Robert Cox picked up a radio transmission from Taylor. Taylor indicated that his compasses were not working, but he believed himself to be somewhere over the Florida Keys (the Keys are a long chain of islands south of the Florida mainland). Cox urged him to fly north, toward Miami, if Taylor was sure the flight was over the Keys.

Planes today have a number of ways that they can check their current position including listening to a set of GPS (Global Positioning Satellites) in orbit around the Earth. It is almost impossible for a pilot to get lost if he has the right equipment and uses it properly. In 1945, though, planes flying over water had to depend on knowing their starting point, how long and fast they had flown, and in what direction. If a pilot made a mistake with any of these figures, he was lost. Over the ocean there were no landmarks to set him right.

Apparently Taylor had become confused at some point in the flight. He was an experienced pilot, but hadn't spent a lot of time flying east toward the Bahamas which was where he was going on that day. For some reason Taylor apparently thought the flight had started out in the wrong direction and had headed south toward the Keys, instead of east. This thought was to color his decisions throughout the rest of the flight with deadly results.

The more Taylor took his flight north to try to get out of the Keys, the further out to sea the Avengers actually traveled. As time went on, snatches of transmissions were picked up on the mainland indicating the other Flight 19 pilots were trying to get Taylor to change course. "If we would just fly west," one student told another, "we would get home." He was right.

A Mariner similar to Training 49 (USN Photo)

By 4:45 P.M. it was obvious to the people on the ground that Taylor was hopelessly lost. He was urged to turn control of the flight over to one of his students, but apparently he didn't. As it grew dark, communications deteriorated. From the few words that did get through it was apparent Taylor was still flying north and east, the wrong directions.

At 5:50 P.M. the ComGulf Sea Frontier Evaluation Center managed get a fix on Flight 19's weakening signals. It was apparently east of New Smyrna Beach, Florida. By then communications were so poor that this information could not be passed to the lost planes.

At 6:20 a Dumbo Flying Boat was dispatched to try and find Flight 19 and guide it back. Within the hour two more planes, Martin Mariners, joined the search. Hope was rapidly fading for Flight 19 by then. The weather was getting rough and the Avengers were very low on fuel.

The two Martin Mariners were supposed to rendezvous at the search zone. The second one, designated Training 49, never showed up.

The last transmission from Flight 19 was heard at 7:04 P.M. Planes searched the area through the night and the next day. There was no sign of the Avengers.

Nor did the authorities really expect to find much. The Avengers, crashing when their fuel was exhausted, would have been sent to the bottom in seconds by the 50 foot waves of the storm. As one of Taylor's colleagues noted, "...they didn't call those planes 'Iron Birds' for nothing. They weighed 14,000 pounds empty. So when they ditched, they went down pretty fast."

What happened to the missing Martin Mariner? Well, the crew of the SS Gaines Mill observed an explosion over the water shortly after the Mariner had taken off. They headed toward the site and there they saw what looked like oil and airplane debris floating on the surface. None of it was recovered because of the bad weather, but there seems little doubt this was the remains of the Mariner. The plane had a reputation as being a "flying bomb" which would burst into flame from even a single, small spark. Speculation is that one of 22 men on board, unaware that the unpressurized cabin contained gas fumes, lit a cigarette, causing the explosion.

So how did this tragedy turn into a Bermuda Triangle mystery? The Navy's original investigation concluded the accident had been caused by Taylor's confusion. Taylor's mother refused to accept that and finally got the Navy to change the report to read that the disaster was for "causes or reasons unknown." This may have spared the woman's feelings, but blurred the actual facts.

The saga of Flight 19 is probably the most repeated story about the Bermuda Triangle. The planes, and their pilots, even found their way into the science fiction film classic, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Where is Flight 19 now? Well, in 1991 five Avengers were found in 600 feet of water off the coast of Florida by the salvage ship Deep Sea. Examination of the planes showed that they were not Flight 19, however, so the final resting place of the planes,and their crews is still the Bermuda Triangle's secret.