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For visitors to South Africa, the app “Official Guide to Cape Town,” released by Cape Town Tourism, helps users to find transportation, landmarks, hotels, restaurants and shops. Including a calendar of events and an easy-to-use map, it also suggests itineraries and shares advice from other users.
The app is free for iPhone, iPad and Android and does not need to be connected to the Internet to work.
This interactive crossword puzzle is no longer available online.
Five hundred years after it was built in the 16th century, visitors to the Vittala Temple complex in Hampi, Karnataka, in southern India, can still see the Stone Chariot, the subject of the September issue’s mystery photo.
View wildlife of Arctic Manitoba at the “Journey to Churchill,” a 10-acre permanent exhibit in the Assiniboine Park Zoo (2595 Roblin Blvd., Winnipeg, MB, Canada, R3P 2N7; 204/927-6000, www.assiniboineparkzoo.ca).
See Arctic foxes, caribou and musk oxen in the “Wapusk Lowlands,” watch seals and polar bears through underwater viewing windows in the “Gateway to the Arctic” and see northern lights projected onto a domed ceiling in the theater.
For visits to Australia, the GPS-based “Welcome to Country” iPhone app alerts the user whenever he crosses the boundary of a traditional tribal group. He is directed to a video in which an elder or “knowledge carrier” provides information about the culture and customs in the area, using speech or song or showing a dance or ceremony.
Version 1.0 of the app has a map and covers more than 30 indigenous tribes and language groups (from a total of over 500). Visit the iOS AppStore.
As ITN went to press, the State Department had travel warnings on 39 destinations: Afghanistan, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, El Salvador, Eritrea, Haiti, Honduras, Iran, Iraq, Israel/West Bank/Gaza, Kenya, North Korea, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Republic of South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen.
Palestinian protesters entered Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and the al-Aqsa Mosque on Sept. 13 due to concerns among Palestinians that Israeli police might force open the al-Aqsa Mosque to Jewish worshipers during Rosh Hashanah (one of the holiest days of the Jewish calendar).
Palestinians armed with rocks and fire-bombs barricaded themselves in the mosque and used them against Israeli police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Both Palestinian aid organizations and Israeli police reported only minor injuries during the initial skirmishes.
Members of the Presidential Guard loyal to ousted president Blaise Compaoré briefly held the acting president and prime minister of Burkina Faso hostage on Sept. 17 after the interim government suggested that the Guard be disbanded and that allies of the former president be restricted from running for office in the October elections. The Guard killed at least 10 civilians in the capital, Ouagadougou, who were protesting the Presidential Guards’ attempted coup.
In Tajikistan, gunmen loyal to ousted Deputy Defense Minister General Abduhalim Nazarzoda attacked police forces in the city of Vahdat, near the capital, Dushanbe, on Sept. 4, killing nine police officers. During the attack, 13 of the gunmen were killed. On Sept. 16, government forces killed General Nazarzoda along with 11 of his men.
(First of two parts)
Prior to our June 2015 Canal du Midi cruise in southwestern France (see my August and September 2015 columns), my wife, Gail, and I allowed time to experience Montpellier.