Owner: Walki-Talki.Com Travel Blog URL:http://walki-talki.com/wordpress/ Join Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 10:37:40 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: The ins and outs of the best cities in Europe, including special analysis of how technology is changing the tourist industry. Includes city information, travel tips, festival updates and more. Site statistics:Click here
Top 10 Edinburgh Festival Hangouts 2007-08-11 17:40:01 Top 10 Edinburgh
festival hangouts | Travel | Guardian Unlimited
And, if you need a concise repository of the hippest things to do in Edinburgh, read the above article, or visit the Edinburgh pages of The Guardian’s brand new travel pages. The tips can be especially helpful.
Read more:Festival
The Best City in Europe 2007-07-27 06:47:06
“What’s your favorite city in Europe
?”
We get that question a lot.
For some the debate might take hours: Do you go with an obvious jewel like London or Paris? Or perhaps a more discrete gem in the European crown like Heidelberg in Germany or Sintra in Portugal? What about a modern phoenix like Berlin or Barcelona? Not to mention Prague. And don’t even get me started on Italy.
Fortunately for me, however, the answer is simple: The best city in Europe is Edinburgh…in August.
August is Edinburgh is the time when the artistic universe aligns in the form of the Edinburgh Arts Festival. The festival is the largest in the world and is actually comprised of seven different festivals related to music, books, theater and the arts. For four weeks, the entire city is transformed into one giant arts venue where even the back of a taxi cab is liable to be the set of a roving one man show. The creative energy is contagious and you are guaranteed to
Cinema in Venice 2007-07-16 18:20:04 La Biennale di Venezia: Cinema
. August 29 - September 8, 2007 Director: Marco Müller
The most preeminent film festivals in the world are the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, and the Venice
Film Festival in Venice, Italy (linked above). How do you decide which to attend?
Cannes is a beautiful beach town, but the festival has associated with it a media feeding frenzy that is perhaps unbearable to most. Park City offers a spectacular natural setting for a festival, and Robert Redford has transformed the movie industry by creating the Sundance Film Festival as a showcase for independent filmmakers. However, many claim that the festival has lost its “independent edge”, and that, for example, the Toronto Film Festival offers a better variety and quality of films in North America.
This leaves, of course, the Venice Film Festival as the festival of choice because, frankly, few complain about it. And, if the lack of complaints
The New Globe Theatre on the Thames 2007-06-29 19:55:12 The new Globe
Theatre is stop number 8 on the walki-talki.com mp3 walking tour of London. The original Globe was, of course, host to the master works of the best known playwright in the world, William Shakespeare. From the stage of this theater, the Bard transformed British theater so completely that he came to define it. From this stage, he mocked the royalty, the Church and the laity alike with zest and eloquence unseen heretofore or hence. On this day, June 30, in 1613, the Globe burned down to the ground.
It took nearly 400 years, but a replica of the Bard’s stage has now been built, and it is open to the public. Even if you are not a Shakespeare fan, you will find the many activities offered in this venue to be a most welcome break from the mind-numbing array of temptations that London offers. So, if you’re not quite in the mood for anything else, the new Globe is a worthwhile visit.
Read more:Thames
La Biennale di Venezia: Dance 2007-06-26 16:43:11 La Biennale di Venezia: Dance
. June 14-30, 2007
La Biennale is perhaps the greatest art exhibit on the planet. It is now well under way in Venice, and you have until the 30th of June to partake in the dance portion of La Biennale. You really should partake in this event because there are no bonehead judges of the sort in the “reality” television series. It is the highest form of the art, performed on stage for your enjoyment and intellectual enrichment, should you choose to take a break from your vacation.
So, grab a copy of the walki-talki.com mp3 walking tour of Venice, and enjoy La Biennale.
Many more events remain in La Biennale, which officially lasts through November. We will bring you updates as they draw closer.
East Berlin, Redux 2007-06-20 15:30:01 Berlin Hotel Recreates East Germany | World Latest | Guardian Unlimited
The above Guardian article mentions perhaps the greatest treat for the cost-conscious traveler in Berlin: nostalgia, history and cheap prices. The Ostel in Berlin is a budget hotel that recreates the East German way of life. At nightly rates that are quite low compared to standard hotel rates in Berlin, guests stay in rooms decorated like the standard issue apartments of the communist era. (The beds and sheets, we are assured, are new.) For as little as $20 a night, you can bunk with other travelers in multi-occupancy rooms that harken to the Free German Youth summer camps of the former DDR.
Naturally, you will want to take the walki-talki.com mp3 walking tour of Berlin with you to get a better idea of why the Ostel hostel is so special.
The Ostel’s official web is www.ostel.eu.
You can find complete photo galleries here.
Read more:Berlin
, Redux
Managing an International Business 2007-06-14 14:22:11 When we started walki-talki.com, we certainly hoped that the business would have an international appeal and an international reach. I don’t recall having the expectation to achieve both objectives immediately from the start. To get an idea of how international we are, click on the thumbnail to the right and see how geographically widespread our visitors are.
As it happens, our customers (those who bought tours) are similary distributed all over the planet. Naturally, our primary sources of sales are the US and the UK, but we have sold tours to customers from Poland, Lithuania, South Africa, France, Germany, Australia, Spain, and Brazil. I am certain that additional countries are represented, but I cannot remember them all at this particular moment.
So, if you have any doubts regarding walki-talki.com, lay them to rest. We are a company with a far, international reach. And, if you want to find out how we can help you do business on the international scale, visit our corporate s Read more:International
, Business
, International Business
God’s Banker 2007-06-08 20:17:20 Blackfriars bridge is stop number 5 on the walki-talki.com tour of London. In 1982, it was the site of a ghastly death. This week, five men accused of the murder were cleared of the crime in Rome. The court found insufficient evidence to convict the accused. Surprisingly, the first inquest in the UK concluded that Mr. Roberto Calvi, a troubled Banker
living in Canada, had decided to commit suicide by hanging himself from Blackfriars Bridge one early morning.
Well, whatever the truth may be, as you wander about Blackfriars Bridge, feel free to wonder whether this was a suicide or a murder. Or whether the Mafia is reality or entirely the figment of the active imagination of people like Mario Puzzo and Francis Ford Copola.
Payam
Photo by Bruno Girin.
Selling Digital Audio: DRM or not to DRM 2007-06-03 18:24:29 In case you did not know, walki-talki.com has opted not to use any digital rights management (DRM) scheme in our walking tours. You may surmise that this is purely a consequence of either our lack of resources or of our laziness. Well, you would be wrong on both counts. walki-talki.com is but one of many internet sellers of digital media (music, photos, etc.) who are the avant-garde of digital distribution. We know that we can trust our clients, and we will prove that respect and trust are reliable commodities in the business of digital distribution.
Before you poo-poo this notion, bear in mind that just last week, Apple, Inc., (Yes, their official new name) started selling DRM-free music. Of course, Apple is very clever about it. They are using it as a marketing ploy to charge an extra 30 cents per song–the “theft premium”, if you will. That’s probably what they mean by iTunes Plus. (In the interest of full disclosure: I am an Apple stockholder.) So, this is a Read more:Digital
, Audio
Watching History Unfold Brick by Brick in Barcelona 2007-05-30 18:41:39 Traveling around Europe, I often get the feeling of traveling backwards through time. Everything is so much older here compared to the United States where a mall dating back as far as the 1980’s might be considered ‘ancient.’
But while old Europe’s well preserved cities are of course quaint, fascinating and eminently historic, I can’t help but think sometimes that everything around me was built by dead guys (A thought that first occurred to me after visiting the Catacombs in Paris).
Perhaps that’s why my favorite monument in all of Europe is the Segrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona
. It’s not old. In fact, it’s still growing.
The Temple of the Sacred Family was started way back in 1883. The intent was to built a Cathedral that would represent Christendom, as well as show off Barcelona’s newfound prosperity from the Industrial Revolution. The original architect on the project was fired after a year and replaced by Antoni Gaudi who was just 31 at the time. Despit Read more:Watching
, History
, Brick
Free mp3 Audio Walking Tours of New York City 2007-09-20 21:23:10 Audio Walking
Tour of the East Village and Hell’s Kitchen (Manhattan) - New York
Times
walki-talki.com brings you the premier mp3 audio walking tours of the top European destinations. We have designs on the top American destinations, too. Until the top American cities are given the walki-talki.com treatment, you can get two terrific tours of two of New York City
’s influential neighborhoods from the New York Times. Follow the link above to find the tours.
The tour of the East Village (the part of Greewich Village that resides on the east side of Manhattan Island) takes you on a tour of the places that influenced modern art, including Claes Oldenburg’s studio and CBGB’s. Neither exists anymore, alas, but you can still make pilgrimage to many sites that had a huge impact on modern art and culture.
The Clinton neighborhood is the erstwhile neighborhood of poor, working-class Irish immigrants, whose misery and ambitions fueled racial strife and thuggery in the fo Read more:Audio
, Tours
Subway Maps for the iPhone 2007-09-15 13:47:42 Clint Bagwell Consulting: Subway
for iPhone
We told you earlier about subway maps for your iPod. It is not surprising at all that a similar service is now available for the iPhone. Why should this iPhone service be better than the iPod service? The iPhone offers more visualization features than the iPod. (Although the new iPod Touch matches many of the iPhone’s features.) Along with the bigger screen, the new visualization features of the iPhone and iPod Touch make it possible for you to use the device to follow the pdf map for each tour, as well as examine the additional media that we supply with each track.
This is awfully convenient from walki-talki.com’s point of view, of course, because the iPhone and the iPod Touch can each serve as a single comprehensive solution for deploying our walking tours. You can play our tours, view the pdf map, and decide which subway route to take to your next stop.
Bible on Your iPod 2007-09-08 15:22:34 King James Bible + Proverbs + Psalms for your iPod
In my own travels as of late, I have noticed that fewer and fewer hotels store a copy of the Bible in the desk drawer. This development never bothered me, but there were at times a sense of unease. Nothing bad ever happened, of course, but it felt as if I was being cared for perhaps a bit less than in times past. If you have ever had this feeling, or if you ever feel it is necessary to have a copy of the Bible with you on your travels, follow the link above to take a copy of the King James Bible with you on your iPod along with our mp3 walking tours of Europe.
For a slightly higher price, you can order the Old Testament, too.
None of this should be construed as endorsements of any kind. Rather, these are merely links to satisfy any curiosities you may have had.
Payam
Top 10 Edinburgh Festival Hangouts 2007-08-11 17:40:01 Top 10 Edinburgh
festival hangouts | Travel | Guardian Unlimited
And, if you need a concise repository of the hippest things to do in Edinburgh, read the above article, or visit the Edinburgh pages of The Guardian’s brand new travel pages. The tips can be especially helpful.
Read more:Festival
The Best City in Europe 2007-07-27 06:47:06
“What’s your favorite city in Europe
?”
We get that question a lot.
For some the debate might take hours: Do you go with an obvious jewel like London or Paris? Or perhaps a more discrete gem in the European crown like Heidelberg in Germany or Sintra in Portugal? What about a modern phoenix like Berlin or Barcelona? Not to mention Prague. And don’t even get me started on Italy.
Fortunately for me, however, the answer is simple: The best city in Europe is Edinburgh…in August.
August is Edinburgh is the time when the artistic universe aligns in the form of the Edinburgh Arts Festival. The festival is the largest in the world and is actually comprised of seven different festivals related to music, books, theater and the arts. For four weeks, the entire city is transformed into one giant arts venue where even the back of a taxi cab is liable to be the set of a roving one man show. The creative energy is contagious and you are guaranteed to
Cinema in Venice 2007-07-16 18:20:04 La Biennale di Venezia: Cinema
. August 29 - September 8, 2007 Director: Marco Müller
The most preeminent film festivals in the world are the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, and the Venice
Film Festival in Venice, Italy (linked above). How do you decide which to attend?
Cannes is a beautiful beach town, but the festival has associated with it a media feeding frenzy that is perhaps unbearable to most. Park City offers a spectacular natural setting for a festival, and Robert Redford has transformed the movie industry by creating the Sundance Film Festival as a showcase for independent filmmakers. However, many claim that the festival has lost its “independent edge”, and that, for example, the Toronto Film Festival offers a better variety and quality of films in North America.
This leaves, of course, the Venice Film Festival as the festival of choice because, frankly, few complain about it. And, if the lack of complaints
The New Globe Theatre on the Thames 2007-06-29 19:55:12 The new Globe
Theatre is stop number 8 on the walki-talki.com mp3 walking tour of London. The original Globe was, of course, host to the master works of the best known playwright in the world, William Shakespeare. From the stage of this theater, the Bard transformed British theater so completely that he came to define it. From this stage, he mocked the royalty, the Church and the laity alike with zest and eloquence unseen heretofore or hence. On this day, June 30, in 1613, the Globe burned down to the ground.
It took nearly 400 years, but a replica of the Bard’s stage has now been built, and it is open to the public. Even if you are not a Shakespeare fan, you will find the many activities offered in this venue to be a most welcome break from the mind-numbing array of temptations that London offers. So, if you’re not quite in the mood for anything else, the new Globe is a worthwhile visit.
Read more:Thames
La Biennale di Venezia: Dance 2007-06-26 16:43:11 La Biennale di Venezia: Dance
. June 14-30, 2007
La Biennale is perhaps the greatest art exhibit on the planet. It is now well under way in Venice, and you have until the 30th of June to partake in the dance portion of La Biennale. You really should partake in this event because there are no bonehead judges of the sort in the “reality” television series. It is the highest form of the art, performed on stage for your enjoyment and intellectual enrichment, should you choose to take a break from your vacation.
So, grab a copy of the walki-talki.com mp3 walking tour of Venice, and enjoy La Biennale.
Many more events remain in La Biennale, which officially lasts through November. We will bring you updates as they draw closer.
East Berlin, Redux 2007-06-20 15:30:01 Berlin Hotel Recreates East Germany | World Latest | Guardian Unlimited
The above Guardian article mentions perhaps the greatest treat for the cost-conscious traveler in Berlin: nostalgia, history and cheap prices. The Ostel in Berlin is a budget hotel that recreates the East German way of life. At nightly rates that are quite low compared to standard hotel rates in Berlin, guests stay in rooms decorated like the standard issue apartments of the communist era. (The beds and sheets, we are assured, are new.) For as little as $20 a night, you can bunk with other travelers in multi-occupancy rooms that harken to the Free German Youth summer camps of the former DDR.
Naturally, you will want to take the walki-talki.com mp3 walking tour of Berlin with you to get a better idea of why the Ostel hostel is so special.
The Ostel’s official web is www.ostel.eu.
You can find complete photo galleries here.
Read more:Berlin
, Redux
Managing an International Business 2007-06-14 14:22:11 When we started walki-talki.com, we certainly hoped that the business would have an international appeal and an international reach. I don’t recall having the expectation to achieve both objectives immediately from the start. To get an idea of how international we are, click on the thumbnail to the right and see how geographically widespread our visitors are.
As it happens, our customers (those who bought tours) are similary distributed all over the planet. Naturally, our primary sources of sales are the US and the UK, but we have sold tours to customers from Poland, Lithuania, South Africa, France, Germany, Australia, Spain, and Brazil. I am certain that additional countries are represented, but I cannot remember them all at this particular moment.
So, if you have any doubts regarding walki-talki.com, lay them to rest. We are a company with a far, international reach. And, if you want to find out how we can help you do business on the international scale, visit our corporate s Read more:International
, Business
, International Business
walki-talki.com: Essential to the iPhone 2007-11-17 20:09:37 A while ago, I wrote about how the new iPhone
and the iPod Touch may well be the perfect platform for our walking tours. It was awfully nice to read that the Telegraph of London agrees! The Telegraph recently reviewed mp3 walking tours, and in one article, The Telegraph placed walki-talki.com in its list of essential links for the iPhone.
Incidentally, in the other review, The Telegraph mentioned walki-talki.com as one of the best overall tours. So, if you’ve been looking for that perfect travel companion for your iPod or iPhone, look no further.
Read more:Essential
Managing Music, Part II 2007-11-22 11:33:58 Some time ago, I wrote about iTunes Agent, a free program that allows you to synchronize your iTunes library with any device.
Another fabulous and free program that can be used to manage your iTunes library and to synchronize your music with a large variety of music players and mobile phones is Floola. Floola is difficult to describe, but it promises to be the ultimate piece of software to read, to process, to manage and to synchronize your iTunes playlist with your iPod, certain mobile phones and mp3 players. Best of all, Floola is available for all platforms: Linux, Windows, and OS X.
So, bear in mind that you need not get trapped into the iTunes/iPod juggernaut. It’s not total freedom, but a definite break from the mainstream.
Read more:Music
Audio Walking Tour of Munich 2007-11-27 19:16:57 Walki-talki.com is proud to announce the release of our self-guided mp3 audio walking tour of historic Munich
. See the city that was once the center of the European salt trade and the capital of the Holy Roman Empire. This is the city that took beer to new heights and gave us names like Diesel, Mann and BMW.
Jed Payne has written a beautiful introduction to this European–indeed, world–capital. Your guides Ben Silburn and Francesca bring this wonderful narrative to life in 15 splendid tracks that will guide you from Karlzplatz to Hofgarten. See where kings dwelled and drank beer. Take some time and drink! There is no better place to drink a refreshing wheat beer (or weizenbier, if you prefer).
So, load up your iPhone, iPod, or other mp3 player of choice, print the map, and get to learn the city made famous by monks: Munich.
Read more:Audio
, Walking
How “Smart” a Traveler Are You? 2007-12-17 16:36:02 Traveler IQ Challenge
I just heard about this fantastic geography quiz on the radio, and I immediately rushed to my computer and took it. I took the world quiz, and much to my disappointment, I only made it to level 10. I amassed a meager 372,662 points for a total travel IQ of 112. (I blame this on my outdated Mac and my bluetooth mouse. The combination makes for slow mouse movement). I imagine I will do better on the IQ tests that are limited to North America or Europe, but my lack of time has saved me the embarrassment of finding out otherwise.
In the mean time, you take the Traveler IQ Challenge and report back your results here for a comparison. Should your performance be less than you had anticipated, traveling to Europe and taking our self-guided mp3 audio walking tours is guaranteed to improve your score.
Read more:Smart
, Traveler
, ldquo
, rdquo
Carnival in Europe 2008-01-20 00:45:24 That time of the year is drawing near. Yes, Carnival
season. There are many choice places to enjoy it in Europe
: Cologne, Duesseldorf, Aachen, Maastricht, Basel, and Venice, to name but a few. Wherever you go, you are assured to have a great time.
By far the best and biggest celebrations are to be found in [...]
Don’t Like the Operating System on iPod? Change It! 2007-12-20 21:20:59 iPodLinux Installer 0.1 - MacUpdate
For those who are not particularly fond of the iPod’s operating system and who are rather technically inclined, there is now a solution. Get the software (linked above) and install your favorite flavor of Linux on the iPod.
“Why?” you may ask? There is no other motivation for the geek other than [...] Read more:Operating
, System
, iPod
, Change
Walking the Medieval City of Prague 2008-03-20 00:36:49 At long last, we are proud to announce the release of the walki-talki.com self-guided, mp3 audio walking tour of historic Prague
. This is one of best preserved medieval cities in Europe. It has survived the ravages of history and emerged as one of Europe’s premiere destinations and, indeed, one of her crowning jewels.
From Jan Hus to Dubcek [...] Read more:Walking
Milan Kundera’s Prague 2008-04-06 22:54:35 Footsteps: Milan
Kundera’s Prague
- Trumping the Unbearable Darkness of History | Travel | New York Times
The summer travel season is ushered in every year by a bevy of articles on the top travel destinations. The above cited article in the New York Times is no exception, but it is noteworthy for its style and [...]
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