Tourist information center is very often the first place you would visit in a new city – to get a map and some useful hints from the staff. Normally, there are very few info centers in a city – sometimes only one, and it is not necessarily on your way.
The Spanish city of Cadiz has introduced several mini-information spots near most visited places in the city – great help for those exploring the place.
Prague has a lot to offer both to newbies and experienced tourists: from art nouveau architecture to graffiti, from street festivals to pub crawling. Still there are places that may ruin the visitor’s impression from Prague. My friend Tanya Galitskaya, who works as a tour guide in Prague for many years, has put together a list of such potential disappointments (link to Russian original on Pretty Prague website), and I translated it to English.
Eye-shopping (or sometimes actual shopping) on flea markets is one of my favorite local experiences in almost any travel, especially in Europe. This retro toys were spotted on Portobello market in London.
In Danish Legoland you can roast "American Indian Bread" on the fire. Incredible transformation of 5-crown piece of bread into 30-crown attraction… and a priceless quality time of parents with children.
At the Public Transport Museum Open Day in Prague children and adults may get inside the fire track, try fireman equipment and feel themselves a "fireman for a day". Fun-fun-fun!
A village of Leavenworth, WA became a point of tourist attraction because of its museum presenting a large collection of… nutcrackers! You can make a museum of literally everything!
A small town of Ry in Normandie has only one point of attraction – a house, where a prototype of Gustav Flober's Madame Bovary lived and is proud of it. This is funny if you remember that the book described the town as an extremely boring and unattractive place.
Prague Towers Tours offer a combined entrance ticket to several iconic spots to look at Prague from the top – Old City Hall, St. Nicholas Church on Malostranska Square, TV Tower and several others. Great way to see your favorite city in a different way.
This article opens the series “10 things you can do in…” – my 100% subjective point of view on cities and countries of the world.
1) Explore the historical part of the city and visit its main places of interest – Wat Phra Kaew Buddhist temple and Grand Palace. Very colorful, very shiny, very beautiful, the only downside is that it is always a huge crowd of tourists there. Note the Emerald Buddha – the Thai king personally dresses him up three times a year, in the beginning of dry, rainy and hot season. The palace includes several small, but interesting museums: an exhibition of Thai currency from anciently to our days, a museum of Crown Jewels and an armory. There is also an unusual market of amulets nearby.
A friendly advice: put the shoes which are easy to pull-off, since you would need to do it every time before entering a temple.
Israeli railway has recently introduced a new feature. They have installed bookshelves on every station – you can take a book with you to make your travel more pleasant and then return it when you finish. You can also bring the books from home to contribute to this "railway library". I have already used it, really nice idea.
Photo credit: Elena Shoubin
