The Journey: The Fine Art of Traveling by Train

 The Journey: The Fine Art of Traveling by Train by Gestalin Verlag

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Train trips are classic yet very of the moment. Whether a quick escape through the Alps or a getaway from coast to coast lasting several days, this book takes its readers for a ride through beautiful routes on the most exceptional trains with the best interiors. Trains have always been the only truly cultivated way to travel. Today, in the age of budding airlines, never-ending security controls, and sustainability issues, this is truer than ever before. The slower rhythm from departure to arrival, the relaxed glide through the landscape, and the shift between city and country fill rail enthusiasts with great joy and are pleasures waiting to be discovered by the uninitiated. The Journey presents a varied selection of extraordinary travel opportunities by train from around the world. The reader is invited aboard modern high-speed trains, spectacular panoramic railways, dining carriages, rolling casinos, and elegant compartments of historic luxury trains.

The book presents the exteriors and interiors of these different trains, their routes, and their defining character. It takes the reader on a journey to breathtaking canyons and romantic landscapes, recounts adventurous travel reports, and describes the history and current developments of well-known trains, including the Napa Valley Wine Train, the Venice Simplon Orient Express, the Japanese Bullet Train Shinkansen, the Glacier Express, the Trans-Siberian Railway, and the El Transcantabrico. Striking images, informative geographical materials, and personal experiences characterize these train adventures, ranging from the quick three-hour trip to the transcontinental journey lasting several days. The Journey also depicts the many other aspects that contribute to the whole experience of a successful train journey; the architecture of old and new train stations as sites for grand emotions, pictures of passing landscapes and travelling salesmen, advice from experienced train travelers on the right reading material, suitable snacks, recommended stopovers, and how to optimize luggage. Train travel is without a doubt one of the best ways to decelerate from our fast-paced daily lives. After all, the journey is also a destination.

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The World on a Plate: 40 Cuisines, 100 Recipes, and the Stories Behind Them

The World on a Plate: 40 Cuisines, 100 Recipes, and the Stories Behind Them by Mina Holland

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Eat your way around the world without leaving your home in this mouthwatering cultural history of 100 classic dishes.
Best Culinary Travel Book (U.K.), Gourmand World Cookbook Awards
Finalist for the Fortnum & Mason Food Book Award
When we eat, we travel. So begins this irresistible tour of the cuisines of the world, revealing what people eat and why in forty cultures. What s the origin of kimchi in Korea? Why do we associate Argentina with steak? Why do people in Marseille eat bouillabaisse? What spices make a dish taste North African versus North Indian? What is the story behind the curries of India? And how do you know whether to drink a wine from Bourdeaux or one from Burgundy?
Bubbling over with anecdotes, trivia, and lore from the role of a priest in the genesis of Camembert to the Mayan origins of the word “chocolate” “The World on a Plate “serves up a delicious melange of recipes, history, and culinary wisdom to be savored by food lovers and armchair travelers alike.”

“There are cookbooks that teach you to cook, others that help you to understand gastronomy. “The World on a Plate” feeds your soul.” –Ferran Adria

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Lingo: Around Europe in Sixty Languages

Lingo: Around Europe in Sixty Languages by Gaston Dorren

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Whether you’re a frequent visitor to Europe or just an armchair traveler, the surprising and extraordinary stories in Lingo will forever change the way you think about the continent, and may even make you want to learn a new language.

Lingo spins the reader on a whirlwind tour of sixty European languages and dialects, sharing quirky moments from their histories and exploring their commonalities and differences. Most European languages are descended from a single ancestor, a language not unlike Sanskrit known as Proto-Indo-European (or PIE for short), but the continent’s ever-changing borders and cultures have given rise to a linguistic and cultural diversity that is too often forgotten in discussions of Europe as a political entity. Lingo takes us into today’s remote mountain villages of Switzerland, where Romansh is still the lingua franca, to formerly Soviet Belarus, a country whose language was Russified by the Bolsheviks, to Sweden, where up until the 1960s polite speaking conventions required that one never use the word “you” in conversation, leading to tiptoeing questions of the form: “Would herr generaldirektör Rexed like a biscuit?”

Spanning six millenia and sixty languages in bite-size chapters, Lingo is a hilarious and highly edifying exploration of how Europe speaks.

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How to get from Rome’s Airport to city center by train

Getting around Morocco by Taxi

Not My Job: Travel Guru Rick Steves Gets Quizzed

In 1976, he started his business, Rick Steves’ Europe, which has grown from a one-man operation to a company with a staff of 80 full-time, well-travelled employees at his headquarters in Washington state. There he produces more than 50 guidebooks on European travel, America’s most popular travel series on public television, a weekly hour-long national public radio show, a weekly syndicated column, and free travel information available through his travel center and website. Rick Steves’ Europe also runs a successful European tour program. Rick Steves lives and works in his hometown of Edmonds, Washington.

Listen to NPR’s Peter Segal of, ” wait, wait …don’t tell me!”,  as he host Rick Steves

 

Adventures In Vietnam — Street Food, Love And Taking Chances with Graham Holliday

Graham Holliday grew up in Rugby, England, and moved to Iksan, South Korea, in 1996 to teach English. He relocated to Việt Nam the following year. He started work as a journalist in Sài Gòn in 2001. He is the author of the blog noodlepie, about street food in Sài Gòn. He has written for the Guardian (UK), the New York Times Magazine, the South China Morning Post, Time, BBC, CNN, and many other media outlets. He went on to become a foreign correspondent for Reuters news agency in Rwanda, and now works as a journalism trainer for the BBC and other organizations. He is currently based in Dakar, Senegal, and is writing a novel.

Listen to NPR’s the Salt as Rachal Martin interviews Graham Holliday.