The Best Celebrations Around the World For You To Ring In the New Year
At long last, 2020 is wrapping up, and a New Year full of hope is just around the corner. This feels like the kind of year you’d toast the year past as early as possible, then call it a night, hoping when you wake up in the New Year, we will have turned the page on the disappointments, challenges, cancelled travels and special events missed during the past year. No need to wait for the clock at home to strike...
Italy Names Its First 'City of Wine'
Wine lovers have one more reason to get traveling again next year. In celebration of one of its oldest and most beloved products, Italy has declared its first-ever ‘City of Wine’. The Italian association of communities that collaborate to protect and promote their regional wine designations held a competition for the new honor. Barolo - the town with the famous red wine of the same name – was crowned ‘City of Wine’ for the award’s inaugural year in 2021. Nestled between...
3 Hallowe'en Traditions With Roots in Ancient Celtic Ireland
Frightful Hallowe’en is many people’s top holiday of the year – but did you know that we can thank ancient Ireland for our favorite Hallowe’en traditions? Travel to Ireland these days, and you’ll still be able to connect with the origins of Celtic culture that still swirl in the mists of time in Ireland’s Ancient East.Today’s Hallowe’en is the descendent of the Celtic festival of Samhain (Sow-ann). The celebrations included feasting on the harvest and lighting fires to mark the end...
How the Postponed Tokyo Olympic Games Will Feature Japan's National Sport
We should be watching the opening ceremony of the XXXIII Olympiad right now. But COVID has changed the history of the Olympics along with so many other features of our lives. Tokyo 2020 retains the name, but the dates have changed.Originally scheduled to take place from July 24th through the second week of August this year, Tokyo 2020 now opens on July 23rd 2021. They are the first Summer Games to be postponed instead of cancelled due to an international crisis.You can still...
Summer Solstice at Stonehenge Goes Virtual: How You Can Attend this Mystical, Ancient Celebration This Year
Mark dawn in England on June 21st on your calendar. It will be worth or staying up late at night in North America to experience the online broadcast of one of the world’s most famous celebrations of pre-historic spirituality.Summer Solstice is the astrological event that marks the longest day (the most sun) - and the shortest night (the least moon) of the year. Usually on June 21st, it’s the beginning of the Summer season in the northern hemisphere.A Wonder of the...
Milan's Shuttered Duomo will Ring with the Voice of an 'Angel' as Bocelli Performs Easter Concert
The COVID-19 pandemic is cancelling Easter celebrations large and small around the world. Thousand-year-old cathedrals will make history as they remain empty and silent.Enter Andrea Angel Bocelli.Celine Dion has said that, 'if God has a singing voice, he must sound a lot like Andrea Bocelli.'The Italian tenor who made pop music audiences fall in love with classical opera, who has received cultural honors in his home country and also has Grammy awards and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame…...
The Chinese New Year Dish You Need To Try This Year
Kung Hey Fat Choi! Chinese New Year celebrations brighten up the winter months throughout Asia and Asian communities around the world. It's the most important date on the Lunar calendar and includes weeks of festivities with family and friends from late January through March. Many activities give everyone a chance to get into the spirit of a fresh, healthy, happy and prosperous upcoming year.Among the many outstanding traditions like lion dances, flower markets, decorations of lanterns, red and gold banners, and orange...
Discover Dazzling Winter Evenings at Hong Kong's New Light Festival
For a city whose nighttime skyline overlooking Victoria Harbour is already a global icon of urban lighting and signage, a light festival might seem like overkill. But the new Hong Kong Pulse Light Festival expands the effects of Hong Kong's famous neon signs and lit-up skyscapers to a street-level playground of luminous artworks during the darkest months of the year.Debuting in 2018, the Pulse Light Festival runs from the last week of November through late February. Not only does the artistic light...
Video: Where to Travel to Find the World's 2nd Largest Oktoberfest
Munich's annual extravaganza of beer halls, buxom girls in dirndls, pretzels and the best of the 'wurst' (pun intended!) actually gets underway in September. Its origins in Germany involve a wedding and a harvest festival, but now, Munich's Oktoberfest is one of the most famous multi-day parties in the world.If you're missing Bavaria's biggest party this year, you're not out of luck yet: Germans have taken the festival's spirit of beer hall fellowship ('gemutlichkeit') and love of great German food...
America's Tallest Monument Park Transformed in Time for One of Nation's Biggest 4th July Parties
The view 630 feet above St. Louis from the top of its defining monument has changed after an immense, multi-year, $380-million renovation to the city's Gateway Arch National Park .The 1965 Gateway Arch became a global architectural icon and helped cement Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen's position as one of the masters of American mid-century design. The striking, modernist monument to the westward expansion of the United States is the world's tallest stainless steel arch, the tallest man-made monument in the United...