Lanette Canen and Johan Bodin gave up life on land to become seaborne nomads on a years-long cruise. Months later, the couple has yet to spend a night at sea. Their ship, the Odyssey, is stuck in Belfast undergoing repair work that has postponed its scheduled May departure for a 3 ½-year round-the-world voyage. Bodin said Friday that they have enjoyed their pit stop in the Northern Ireland capital, but “when we’d visited every pub and tried and every fish and chips place and listened to all the places that have Irish music, then we were ready to go elsewhere.” “We’re ready to set sail, for sure,” added Canen. Villa Vie Residences’ Odyssey is the latest venture in the tempest-tossed world of continuous cruising. It offers travelers the chance to buy a cabin and live at s...
Read MoreDay: September 1, 2024
Partial reopening of the Rubens House in Antwerp gives glimpse of painter’s life
The city palace of Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens is partly reopening this weekend, allowing Antwerp to show off the life and work of perhaps its most famous citizen. The Rubens House may not have as many paintings as Madrid’s Prado museum or the canvas surface spread around the port city’s Cathedral of Our Lady. But if there is any place that Rubens himself felt more at home, it was his own house in Antwerp looking out over his garden. While the core of the house remains closed until at least 2030 for ongoing renovations, the dazzling new welcome center and the redesigned garden will open doors on Friday. What it lacks in actual paintings — a self-portrait is the only major piece on view during the renovations — it hopes to make up in atmosphere, exuding the spirit ...
Read MoreContestants from all over the Netherlands gathered in the central village of Polsbroekerdam on Saturday for the yearly national 'fierljeppen' or canal vaulting contest. Over 2,000 people gathered to watch 48 competitors across five categories battle it out for the championship where contestants have to vault the greatest distance across the water using a pole. "Fierljeppen is a really extreme sport," organiser Danny Baas told Reuters. A contestant takes part in a yearly national 'fierljeppen' or canal vaulting contest in the village of Polsbroekerdam, Netherlands August 31, 2024. REUTERS/Bart Biesemans Contestants run at a long pole on one side of a canal, jump in and while the pole is tipping over to the other side they climb in as high as they can, to land as far as possible...
Read MoreIndonesia will conduct an audit to reform tourism on the tropical island of Bali to improve tourism quality and preserve local culture and jobs, a senior minister said on Friday. About 200,000 foreigners currently live in Bali and have created problems such as crime, over-development and competition for employment, Luhut Pandjaitan, senior minister overseeing tourism said on his Instagram page. "Foreign tourists who bring problem here, such as narcotics, gangs, and other issues, we can deport them from Indonesia, from Bali, and we don't want them to enter Bali anymore," he said, speaking in English in a video clip. FILE PHOTO: A foreigner rides a motorbike at the Ubud street market in Bali, Dec. 8, 2022. Agung Parameswara/Getty Images Foreign arrivals in Bali have surged since...
Read More
You must be logged in to post a comment.