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Shopping in Europe can be fun, but not if you let it overwhelm your trip. I like to shop smart, spending my time — and money — efficiently. Based on three decades of travel, here are my top tips for shopping in Europe.
Shop in countries where your dollar goes further. Shop in Turkey, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Eastern Europe, where the dollar is relatively strong. For the price of a doily in Britain, you can get a lace tablecloth in Spain.
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“Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda & Art,” an exhibit of 100-plus maps and atlases from the British Library’s cartographic collection, runs April 30-Sept. 19, 2010. Included are 80 wall maps from AD 200 to the present, most never on view before.
In the Paccar Gallery of the British Library (96 Euston Rd.; phone +44 [0] 1937 546060). 9:30-6 daily. Free entry.
Shigaraki, 27 miles southeast of Kyoto, is one of six medieval pottery centers in Japan. The Shigaraki Art Festival, Oct. 1-Nov. 23, 2010, will display ceramic designs by avant-garde artists plus centuries-old pottery.
During the festival, the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park (2188-7 Shigarakicho-Chokushi, Koka City, Shiga Pref. 529-1804, Japan; phone +81 748 83 0909) will exhibit contemporary and ancient pottery. Open 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. ¥700 ($7.75).
A month after opening to the public, the world’s tallest building suffered an elevator breakdown on Feb. 6 that trapped 15 guests just short of the 124th floor for 45 minutes. The observation deck of the Burj Dubai, in Dubai city, was closed pending a full investigation of the elevator system.
In the rainforest of Ocho Rios, Jamaica, five minutes from Dunn’s River Falls, Mystic Mountain Park has a gravity-driven bobsled that slides down 3,200 feet on stainless-steel rails from a 700-foot peak.
Visitors can take a chair lift to the top and enjoy a tree-to-tree zip-line ride, then head back down by chair lift or bobsled. Calmer options include jungle walking trails, a restaurant, a bar and an infinity pool with water slide.
A Chinese tourist was killed by a falling rock in Taiwan’s Taroko National Park on Jan. 29 while hiking a popular trail, Chiucyudong, or Tunnel of Nine Turns. The eastern end of the cliff path has been closed indefinitely. The tunnel’s western end is still open. Park officials are removing loose rocks from cliffsides and issuing hard hats to visitors.
In the Red Sea Mountains of Egypt’s Eastern Desert, the Monastery of St. Anthony, at more than 1,650 years old, is reputed to be the world’s first Christian monastery. Egypt has completed its eight-year, $14.5-million renovation, restoring and conserving the fortress walls, several outbuildings and the two main churches and installing a modern sewage system.
Boasting the burial places of four saints plus paintings dating back to the Middle Ages, St. Anthony’s houses 120 monks and receives a million visitors a year.
Belfast Castle (Antrim Road, Belfast, BT15 5GR, Northern Ireland; phone +44 0 28 9077 6925, fax 28 9037 0228), completed in 1760 on 400-foot-high Cave Hill, offers panoramic views of the city. Admission is free to the grounds, the restaurant and the visitors’ center, with four rooms of exhibits on the castle’s history and open 9 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 9-6 Sunday.
The 18th-century Camões Garden is a public park on the northwestern waterfront in Macau. The Portuguese owner of the garden built a grotto around a bust of the Portuguese national poet, Luís de Camões. Among walkways and flowering trees, other attractions include a Chinese pavilion and a fountain sculpture symbolizing China’s relationship with Portugal. Open 6 a.m.-10 p.m.