Ever been to Alexandria? If yes, have you been to Al-Montazah Park? If you haven’t been there before then you’ve never been to Alexandria.

Let me tell you why, Al Montazah Gardens is one of the biggest spots-if not the biggest- in Alexandria along the courniche. It belongs to the royal family of Mohammed Aly which ruled Egypt for over 100 year, and now –and after king Farouk has left Egypt- it’s open for public to visit and enjoy what’s in it only for 5LE (almost 1$)

Al Montazah Park is located in region called Al Montazah -named after the park’s name- and it’s in the east of Alexandria. In 1892 king Abbas II built a large palace there and called it “Salamlek”. But in year 1932 king Fouad built a larger palace and called it “Haramlek”, beautiful gardens were made with a permission of King Farouk who also asked to build a bridge across the sea so he could see the whole place.

The park has many gates most important 2 of them are one by the sea and the other is by the train. Talking a walk inside the Gardens of Al-Montazah you’ll see a lot of green areas and that the gardens are perfectly organized. And it has a beach called “Aida” which is considered the best beach of Alexandria, there’s also plenty of hotels around the area if you’d like to stay near the place like “Sheraton” and inside there’s the Helnan Palestine Hotel, and El Salamlek Palace Hotel.

Feel hungry? No problem as there you can find McDonald’s where you can sit and have your meal or take it away, Al-Montazah has also clubs where you can practice your favorite sport, and places to have weddings held at. So what I’m trying to say here is that Al-Montazah is a complete city inside the city of Alexandria.

This Art Gallery is definitely a must for all the design-addicted and art lovers! The Triennale Gallery is located in Sempione Park, just beside Castello Sforzesco.

Besides the wonderful location, and the perfect set up of modern pieces of art, what I do really love is having a cup of coffee at the DesignCafè, very white, very design!

By Alessandra Nigro, from SpottedbyLocals.com/milan
See full original article including details & map

An island with in the Princess Islands group at Marmara Sea in Istanbul, called Buyuk Ada…
During Byzantine periods, prince and other royalty were send to exile in this island.
In history, Byzantine empresses Irene, Euphrosyne, Theophano, Zoe and Anna Dalassena were born to this small 5.36 km² island. As well as Princess Fahrelnissa Zeid , the mother of Prince Ra’ad the present claimant to Iraqi Throne.

Aya Yorgi Church and Monastery from 6th century stands stil on the hills of the island, facing Marmara Sea jeweled with dolphins and sailing yatchs.

Many fish restaurants are set by the iskele (ferry landing). It is amazingly calm and peaceful during winter and just oppositly joyfull during spring and summer. Narrow streets with colonial architecture are as pages of a novel that is stil alive and challenging.

In each corner of it, history of Byzantine, Otoman and Turkish characteristics are blended with such multicultural community.

An escape to novelty has never been such easy with a week end stay in this magical island.
Bicycles and horseback carriages are sole means of transportation which makes this piece of land a fairytale to be discovered in fresh, blossomed beaches.

Photo “Turkish Landscape – Marmara Sea” by Philippe Leroyer on Flickr

Up to 70% of travelers report an illness or impairment while traveling abroad. What’s worse is that a staggering proportion of these illnesses are preventable, with the right amount of knowledge and risk management.

The good news is that there’s now a resource for us travelers to figure out what we need to know to stay healthy and happy on the road: Travel Medicine.

Let’s say you are planning a trip abroad. In addressing the finer details, you will be researching visa requirements, health and government warnings, vaccination recommendations, and if you’re lucky – electrical standards, the local time, and other particulars that can mean the difference between a good trip and a great one.

Everything you want to know about a country can be found on Travel Medicine’s country profile pages, like this one. Here you can browse each country’s vaccination requirements, time zones, recent medical updates and outbreaks, risk summaries, maps, embassy contact information, and a list of hospitals and physicians, among other precious tidbits of information.

Want to know where the closest travel clinic is to you in preparation for your trip? Go here.

And travelers and health practitioners alike all flock to the beefy International Travel Health Guide for comprehensive information about a variety of travel-related illnesses as well as tips for making your trip safe and successful.

While browsing, you may also realize you need mosquito protection gear, first aid kits, or a variety of travel accessories. These are also available on Travel Medicine too.

Travel Medicine is one of the most comprehensive worldwide health-oriented websites I have found to date, and is a great way to plan a trip abroad: to anywhere, from anywhere.

Note: The author has no vested or affiliate interest in Travel Medicine.

Photo “Medicine” by KB25 on Flickr

With this we start a weekly series of wrap ups, featuring the best posts published on Tripwolf Blog.

This week they reported from the launch party of Tripshake Italy, held in Milan, where lots of people gathered to meet the Italian team.

Very interesting also the post about hostels, where Adena explains how hostels have improved their condition and hospitality, representing now a real way to save money without giving up too much comfort.

A nice wrap up of the best and worst airlines of 2008 reveals which carriers to avoid if you don’t want your luggage to get lost.

Come back for more from Tripwolf Blog next Saturday!

My last day in Ulan Ube was leisurely. I was woken at 6am by my current weird sleep pattern problem and read for an hour until a 7am breakfast in the hotel bar. It was not due to get light until 9.30am at the earliest and the temperature was hovering around -30c at this unearthly hour, putting you off going for an early morning walk.

To cut a long story short, I did not have enough time on my Russian Visa to obtain a Mongolian Visa so I am taking the train that skirts Mongolia and ends up in Beijing.

I unpacked my backpack and decided to have a sort out, emptied it’s entire contents all over the room and threw out anything that was not absolutely necessary. I was not planning to do much, my train was leaving 4pm local time so I re-packed my bag, read for a bit, did a bit more packing and a bit more reading.

Midday I went on a fruitless attempt to procure some warmer clothes. After an hour of trecking round the small town centre I failed to find a clothes shop which resulted in contracting the first stages of hypothermia. Not nice. I could not get warm, I was shaking and sweating and then the panic attacks came. This was obviously the worst thing that could have happened as my train was at 4pm and I had to get out of the country or risk overstaying my Visa and having to deal with the corrupt and unstable Russian border officials (a recent report shows that 60% of Russian border guards are mentally unstable), they regularly have mass shootouts with each other.

I medicated myself with three cups of tea and a large bar of nutty chocolate which seemed to do the trick as by 3pm I came round a little and managed to drag my back pack over the ice to the station. By the time I reached the station I was back on form again and eager to get out of Russia.

I boarded the train and found my cabin. I was sharing with a Russian woman in her fifties who spoke no English. She was nice, she made my bed for me and generally mothered me and was concerned that I was travelling on my own. We had a chat about family and friends for a couple of hours and I headed for the bar to read my book and have a beer.

At this point let me introduce you to Christof because he is probably an important factor as to why you are not attending my funeral today. Christof was a well healed Polish eccentric in his fifties. He was a Borat who claimed he was an advisor to President Vladimir Putin. He described himself as a businessman but his business was very vague, vague to point of being damn right dodgy. He has been robbed on numerous occasions and had recently had his glasses stolen so could not see very well. He spoke around six different languages but his English was pretty poor, resulting in him rubbing his temples frantically when he could not remember or was too drunk to remember an English word.

He was generally pretty chilled out but when he lost his cool he would screw his face up, clench his fists until his knuckles went white, start shaking and endlessly mutter ‘the bastards, the bastards’

The mere mention of George W Bush would send him off into a trembling and silent fit of pure rage complete with clenched fists and white knuckles and it would not have been wise to remind him that he was operating on American dollars only.

Christof wore a dead animal type hat which he would never remove or let anyone touch. He even slept in it. He had a pouch with his remaining personal effects that had not been stolen, including some beads that he seemed particularly proud of and a tatty Chinese newspaper cutting which contained a photo of him and an accompanying story about him getting his bag Stolen at a Chinese railway station ten years ago.

Christof was partial to Vodka in no uncertain quantities and had a piece of material wrapped around his wrist which he used to wipe vodka off his clothing and chin when he missed his mouth.

Back to the bar, I was on the last twenty pages on my book which I was on a mission to finish. Within minutes of settling with my book and my beer, two Russians appeared and promptly forced me into a Vodka session. One of them, Vlad, was another Alan, well built, rough looking but far more intense if that sounds possible and he insisted on the hugging, the head locks and the rough and tumble. Why can’t these people just have a beer and chill. Vodka after Vodka was being poured and things were getting pretty scary. I was trapped by the window by these three hulks and there was no getting out.

When one went to the toilet I saw my opportunity and escaped, shouting behind me that i will be back.

not much more than ten minutes later I bumped into Vlad and his mate who were having a ciggie between carriages. After another attempt by Vlad at a head lock my glasses fell to the ground and I kicked off big time shouting at the bastard.

When he saw the shit I was getting, Christof appeared like a fairy godfather. Christof (affectionately known as ‘Our Man’) spoke some Russian. It transpired that Vlad was Russian Mafia and was taking a six day train journey to collect a debt in Harbin, China. Apparently he was convinced that because I am British, I worked for British Petroleum and he wanted to do business with me. My subsequent refusal had offended him and he had decided he was going to kill me. Our man Christof informed Vlad that he had friends in pretty high places in the FSB (former KGB) and the Russian mafia and told him in no uncertain terms that if he killed me dark things would happen to him. After Our Man had made some throat slitting gestures and accompanying sound effects, Vlad changed his mind about killing me, to my relief.

Afterwards Vlad got himself so drunk on Vodka that his friend had to carry him off to his carriage. Things chilled out in the bar so myself, two Welsh lads and a Scottish couple drank with a lovely young Russian couple who apologised profusely for the truly appalling behaviour of Vlad the Impaler.

The morning of day two we went to the bar carriage for some food and our man, Christof, was in there. Christof sat us down and informed us in all seriousness that he liked women with small breasts and he didn’t have much time for homosexuals.

In the afternoon Vlad cornered me between carriages, apologised for the previous night’s behaviour and tried to have a conversation about Chelsea, The IRA and Queen, his favourite band. He also made it blatantly clear that if Chelsea did not win the Premiership, he would carry out his previous night’s threat to kill me. Super.

Late afternoon we got to the Russia/China border, by this time I was pretty keen to get out of Russia. It was dodgier than Colombia but I am glad I went. The train pulled into the Russian side of the border and surly looking border guards got on and came down the carriage collecting passport and searching for drugs and contraband. They largely left me alone whilst giving the Chinese in the carriage a good going over and no end of grief.

Myself and my new western train friends, accompanied by Our Man, left the train and went to drink beer and eat pizza for three hours whilst the train was taken into the siding for a Chinese restaurant car to be attached, the carriages to be hoisted into the air and bogies (wheels) changed as the track gauge is different in China to that of Russia.

After re-boarding the train the Russians handed me my passport back and we made the lengthy 1km journey to the Chinese side of the border where the same process was repeated (with friendly and smiley Chinese border guards) By then it was 8pm and we were not due to move again until 1am.

We left the train on the Chinese side to change our Russian Roubles, all the money changers were operating from the confines of the men’s toilet and at that point were realised for definite, we were back in Asia again!

The first thing I managed to do upon entering the continent was to accidentally set fire to one of the bins on the Chinese side of the border. I snuck away and don’t think anyone noticed it was me.

Once back on the train, there was nothing more to do than drink Vodka in my compartment with the door locked to keep out Vlad (who had been trying to track down which compartment I was in but was flatly refused the information by the carriage attendant). I passed out before the train got moving again. I was in China and sleeping.

The next morning I headed to the new Chinese bar carriage to find Our man sitting there, drunk as a skunk, lolling and grinning with a three quarter empty bottle of vodka on the table. He reasserted his slight dislike for homosexuals, briefly got angry about George W Bush and informed me that he had stayed up drinking all night as he was paranoid about the Chinese putting narcotics into his bag. It sounded like a perfectly unreasonable excuse to me.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, Vlad left the train at Harbin to collect his mafia debt and an air of peace and tranquility overcame the train, our man left the bar, staggering off in the wrong direction, not to be seen again until the morning, and most the Chinese passengers left the train.

Due to a 5.30am arrival in Beijing, myself and my two Welsh friends crashed out at 8pm for a well earned sleep.

5.32am, two minutes late on a journey from Moscow to Beijing (some 6000 miles), we pulled into the main station. I walked down the platform to find the Welsh lads as we had decided to go to the same hostel in a taxi. Just after they appeared from the train, Our Man staggered out looking somewhat ropey. He had four brief cases sealed in cellophane and a duffle bag. He was rather annoyed that his assistant had not turned up so he commandeered us to help him shift his baggage. The briefcase I took was very heavy and rather suspect and I was hoping the police were not going to swoop on us.

He eventually managed to procure the services of a porter and went into a forehead clenching meltdown after he could not agree a price with him. All was eventually settled; we walked alongside the porter and managed to lose Our Man so we were stuck with all his dodgy baggage. After about twenty minutes we located him and his assistant (who unsurprisingly was a young and pretty Chinese girl).

After bidding farewell to Our Man and his assistant, we got a taxi to Leo Hostel near to Tiananmen square and got a few hours sleep safe in the knowledge that The Impaler was 1000km away, debt collecting.

Photo “USSR RUSSIAN S.F.S.R. IRKUTSK OBLAST, SIBERIA, 1980 series Trailer plate” by woody1778a on Flickr

Today, shaken out of sweet morning sleep by the sound of heavy construction in the apartment upstairs, I started pondering New York, this city of constant change, a place of overwhelming noise, an urban giant ever in flux. And what better portrays it than the sight of industrial wasteland that surrounds us everywhere we go in this metro-monster.

On some days, I almost love the derelict buildings, factories falling apart, the nooks and crannies of this concrete jungle. One of my favorite areas to wander is Red Hook, the underbelly of south Brooklyn recently revitalized with an influx of artists who moved into the dock buildings and warehouses along the waterfront. Controversially, IKEA opened in the area in 2008, replacing historic townhouses and a dry dock that was still in use. Despite these changes, Red Hook still possesses the gritty industrial vibe I have a penchant for. It’s also home to one of the first bars I went to in New York, the legendary Sunny’s (253 Conover St), which back then only opened its doors on Friday nights and drinks were served on the honor basis.

I love to stroll around the Gowanus Canal near my place in Brooklyn, a heavily polluted stretch of water that was once busy with cargo ships and these days aches for a serious clean-up. The environmental initiative started a few years back and change is already felt – the canal certainly doesn’t have as toxic of a smell as it had when I moved to Brooklyn in 1999. Like in Red Hook, many of the area’s warehouses have been turned into artist studios which you can visit on the last weekend of every October, as part of Gowanus Artists Studio Tour. Also check out Issue Project Room, a fantastic performance space at the Old American Can Factory.

These areas are all casualties of New York’s industrial evolution. I can hate them on those eco-conscious, back-to-basics days but there’s no denying – they will always be a part of New York’s scenery. Instead of hating, I’ve developed a love relationship with the “dark side of New York”. As I write this, the sound of drilling and floor lifting from the apartment upstairs is almost unbearable. Through my windows, I can see a new condo building that was being constructed to my chagrin for about four years right outside my living room, where there was once a beautiful patch of sky. But it’s New York City we’re talking. Nothing stays the same here, everything falls apart, no attachments advised. Take it or leave it. I guess I’m still taking it, ten years later, tuning out the noise and dust, and learning to love this urban wasteland. Or at least learning to live with it.

Visit everthenomad.com for more by Anja Mutic

I arrived at the Moscow train station at about 8.30pm to meet my two Aussie friends, the ones I met in Tallinn. After an endless queue to get my train tickets (I booked over the internet) we went to the platform and watched our train being shunted in backwards.

We soon made ourselves comfortable and as the train moved off, we cracked open the Vodka in our compartment. I was at the Russian end of the train and Nick and Chez were in the Chinese end, sharing their compartment with Kiwi Henny and Polish Mihail who I had met in the wonderful Hostel Comrade.

I was sharing my compartment with three Russians who got off the next morning. It was not long before a rough looking Russian called Alan from the next compartment made himself known to us. Alan had just finished a fourteen year prison sentence for knifing someone to death and was returning to his home town, Magadan in Eastern Russia.

Myself and Nick got dragged into his compartment for some more Vodka and to share his food which consisted of some bread, some cheese and some sort of feathered beast’s leg which had no doubt been dispatched to the great hen house in the sky by his own fair hands.

It wasn’t long before Alan was Vodka’d up and started to get pretty scary. Whilst ( was passing through the bar car, he demanded I drink Vodka with him. He had grabbed my coat in a vice like grip and would not let go for love nor money.

The scary and starey eyed bar man had no interest in helping me out and found the scenario to his great amusement.

Not wanting to offend the crazy bastard due to safety concerns, I ended up having three shots with him before managing to escape to the safety of my friend’s compartment.

Alan was persistent though. No matter how many ways we tried to lock the door, he managed to get in. He made several attempt to kiss my neck which is Russian tradition after Vodka apparently. He gave up in the end and went on the rampage elsewhere. Crazy Alan was not fucking about, he went on a forty eight hour Vodka binge and finally crashed out for twenty four hours and looked rather sheepish for the remainder of the journey.

We spent the first night in the bar with some more Westerners – six Swedes, an Englishman with a very posh upper class accent, an Irish guy called John and a Russian who claimed to have murdered two Chechnans – he was not very fond of Chechnans apparently. He was another that I though best not to offend in anyway, despite my lack of Chechnan characteristics.

The night was finished off with a snowball fight at a station we stopped at and then to Linnea, the Swedish girl’s first class cabin for a lot of drunken nonsense ranting.

There was snow lying deep in the countryside after leaving Moscow and for the rest of the journey. The days were spent looking out of the window at the frozen rivers and the snow covered pine trees. Transversing several time zones over land leaves you somewhat dazed and confused.

The whole journey is scheduled on Moscow time so you never really have any idea what time it is locally, how much daylight is left or what time you have got up or gone to bed or woken up. The days seem to meld together and stops are welcome so we could buy beer and food from the platform traders and get our feet on some solid ground. By day three we were starting to go pretty crazy.

The last full day I was on a bit of a downer because I had realised I would arrive in Irkutsk at 4am and had nowhere booked to stay which did not sound good to me. The main reason I was a going to Irkutsk was to obtain a Mongolian visa. I was as nervous as a whore in a church, to put it mildly.

A friendly Belarusian guy called Serge had a chat with the starey eyed bar man and it turned out I could stay on the train until Ulan Ube and get off the train at 1pm the next day (local time). The only problem with this was my ticket was only to Irkutsk so it would mean moving out of my cabin, saying farewell to the Russian carriage attendant and moving into a spare bed in the Chinese end of the train with Irish John and Sergio, which was not problem for them.

I had spent three days in the Chinese section of the train with my friends so I assumed the Chinese guys thought I was on that carriage anyway. They were pretty chilled out and probably didn’t care much that I was jumping the train ticketless.

This afternoon the train pulled into Ulan Ube and I said a sad farewell to my new friends and hailed a beat up old Lada to take me to the hotel. The taxi driver was another crazy guy who was not going to let the snow and the ice on the road put him off flooring the accelerator. I made the ten minute drive in one piece and he gave me his number in case I wanted to hire him again. I think I will probably not.

I am in a rather nice hotel which is not cheap so I may move to a flea pit tomorrow but having a decent shower after four days of train skankiness is worth it.

This afternoon I hung out in the town square practicing my Russian by chatting to the locals. I think I am the only foreigner in this small chilled town and all think I am crazy for coming to Siberia at this time of the year.

The square has a vast, sinister bust of Lenin’s head made of black granite (biggest in the world I believe) with icicles hanging from his nose and all around people are making huge ice sculptures of bridges and palaces, presumably for Christmas. It is -20c outside so any trips out have to be kept fairly short and to the point in order to avoid hyperthermia.

It is Saturday today (I think) and I am stuck here until Monday when the Mongolian consulate opens but there are worst places to be stuck. Hopefully this visa process will be smooth but if anything goes wrong I will get the Beijing train that does not go through Mongolia as my Russian visa expires soon and I don’t fancy much spending Christmas in a gulag. As it stands it looks like I will be spending Mongolia in Christmas which could be good!

Photo “Cruzando el río Lena congelado” by ntx on Flickr

Spring cleaning is a rite around the world, and it feels good to have your life at least seem more in order. And while you’re cleaning, how about a quick passport check?

The first order of business: where is the passport? Yes, I know, most passports “live” in the same place all the time. Except when they don’t. As a travel agent I can’t count the number of frantic calls I have received when clients go to get their passport before a trip, and it’s not where it should be.

Next, what is the expiration date? This issue particularly can be a problem for children’s passports, which are good for only five years. A family assured me last year their passports were current to fly to Vancouver for a cruise; they discovered the week before that their son’s had expired. They saved the trip only after a two-hour drive to the nearest passport office, plus a lot of waiting time, and a rush fee.

Then, where is your next destination? Some countries, including England, require six months validity on a passport beyond the entry date. Otherwise they will deny entry. Seriously.

Also, make sure your passport has a few blank pages. Some countries want a clean page to stamp their authority to enter. No space, no entry. And still other countries want clean pages for a visa. You can mail your passport in and get extra pages, but you need them before requesting a visa.

Finally, if you have had any name changes, through marriage, divorce, or any other reason, does your current name match your passport? I just dealt with a divorced woman who gave me her “legal” name for a ticket, except that she forgot that her eight-year-old passport had her old married name on it. Fortunately an amused Delta agent in a good mood allowed us to change the ticket.

A passport check should take only a couple minutes now. And it could save you hours, stress and money before your next trip.

Paris has many wonderful parks to experience with kids.  One of my favorite places to explore is the Place des Vosges in the Marais (4th arrondissement). This 17th century square has gorgeous architecture surrounding a grassy garden.  When this sun is shining, this green space is filled with families enjoying the magnificent setting.

If you’re staying in Paris with young children and cannot rent an apartment (many have minimum stay requirements) and/or want hotel services and amenities, Pavillon de La Reine is a wonderful option and is part of this historic square.  The décor of the 56-room boutique hotel is upscale, but not stuffy, and there are a number of good room configurations for families including duplex rooms and suites.  While the ambiance inside the hotel is quiet, the beauty is that you are only steps away from a space for kids to run and play.  There is also an endless array of cafes and restaurants in Marais and I love the lively neighborhood vibe of this area.  The trade-off is that this location is a bit removed from some of the main tourist sights in Paris, but the Metro is only a short walk away.

Read the complete family-friendly hotel review and check availability on Ciao Bambino.