Nutrition and Vitamins

Vitamins are vegetable or animal substances. They have no nutritional value, such as carbohydrates. But their task is no less important: For all metabolic processes Vitamins play a key role. Depending on the type they fulfill different functions: the fighter against serious diseases to which the substance of beauty. Vitamins are important nutrients that must be supplied in the diet because the body can not produce itself. The only exception: Vitamin D, sunlight is made in the skin. It must however...

read more

Monkey Business or Go Ape!

Despite being primates, there are several differences between the main species of apes: gorillas, chimpanzees, orang-utans and gibbons; and monkeys, of which there are hundreds of varieties. The best way to find these differences for yourself is to see them in the wild, either on a luxury safari or a guided trek. This blog takes a look at several of the main species and gives some suggestions on where to go to experience them in the wild. Gorillas The best way to see the differences between...

read more

Keeping Medieval Time in Lund (Sweden)

The southern Swedish town of Lund buzzes with a bohemian university atmosphere that permeates its medieval streets. Packed into a few streets are an array of museums, a grand cathedral and a fine collection of preserved Swedish buildings from the past. The spires of the grey monochromatic cathedral (built during Danish rule) tower above the town. The exterior of the cathedral is decorated with an array of dramatic carvings of grotesque animals and birds to help keep the evil spirits at bay. Standing...

read more

Bridge Over the River Kwai (Kanchanaburi, Thailand)

Around 100 humid kilometers north of Bangkok is the bridge made famous by the film The Bridge Over the River Kwai. Kanchanaburi is the site of the Burma-Siam Railway Bridge built by prisoners of the Japanese in World War 2 under forced labour conditions. Today’s idyllic tropical setting (and even the movie) belies the appalling privations, random punishments, disease, meagre food and atrocities along with the withering humidity and searing heat suffered by the bridge builders. The toll was so large...

read more

Edible Mushrooms

PUFFBALLS (LYCOPERDON spp. and CALVATIA spp.) Description: Depending on their size, puffballshave been mistaken at a distance for everythingfrom golf balls to sheep. These round or pear-shaped mushrooms are almost always whitish, tan or gray and may or may not havea stalk-like base. The interior of a puffball is solid white at first, gradually turning yellow,then brown as the mushroom ages. Finally, theinterior changes to a mass of dark, powdery spores, Size: 1" to 12" in diameter, sometimes...

read more

Drinks Around the World: Pomegranate Juice (Morocco, Turkey)

The translucent seeds of the pomegranate glitter like rubies in the afternoon Moroccan sun. And nothing could refresh the body like pomegranate juice escaping after a few hours battling the hawkers, traders and crowds (and offers of mint tea) in the packed, humid, tangled labyrinthine souk in Marrakesh. Rarely sighted in Australia, pomegranates and pomegranate juice seem exotic luxuries that I was keen to taste. Pushing the pomegranate into this primitive looking but cool machine, only hundreds...

read more

A Magic Carpet Ride Through Agadez (Niger)

Only with travel for days through the Sahara Desert are the dusty streets of Agadez a welcome sight. Belying its history as a grand city on the Saharan trade route, the dust and unrelenting heat grants no relief from the Sahara but the adobe architecture gives Agadez an almost fanciful Arabian feel as if Aladdin and his magic lamp could be wandering the streets. The stifling conditions (well over 110 degrees) and flurries of dust slow Agadez into a dawdling city. People walk patiently along the...

read more

Lego Whale (Sydney, Australia)

Using 100,000s of iconic coloured plastic blocks, artists have temporarily expanded the marine wonders of the Sydney Aquarium with life size Lego models of various familiar creatures. My favourite is a full-size breaching whale with a superb backdrop of a tiny rowboat (and its mother sailing ship) being troubled by the wild seas. The picture stands seven to eight metres in height with remarkable detail of the brewing maelstrom and the dark unyielding ocean. And to think it is all done one tiny brick...

read more

Top 10 Castles of the World

PALACE OF VERSAILLESThe Palace of Versailles was the official residence of the Kings of France from 1682 until 1790. It was originally a hunting lodge, built in 1624, by Louis XIII. It  was expanded by Louis XIV beginning in 1669. He used it as a little lodge as a secret refuge for his amorous trysts with the lovely Louise de la Valliere and built a fairy tale park around it.  Jules Hardouin Mansart, the king’s principal architect, drew the plans to enlarge what was turning more and more...

read more

Little Piece of Paradise (Bay)? - Antarctica

The brooding mist hides all but the very peak of this small mountain in Paradise Bay on the Antarctic Peninsula. Antarctica is an unparalleled continent, a dramatic mixture of grandeur, size, wonder, hostility and utter emptiness. Not something that any other place could be described as. The fair breeze blew, The white foam flew, And the forrow followed free. We were the first to ever burst into the silent sea. - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleri...

read more