Context Travel Blog
This Saturday, Europe will welcome the annual Nuit des Musées with art museums open throughout the night in Paris and several other European cities. For the 8th consecutive year, Paris will celebrate art throughout the night of May 19th as hundreds of museums open, free of charge, for the Nuit des Musées (Night of Museums). The UNESCO sponsored event, held in over 40 European cities, continues to be a great suucess in the City of Light. This year its varied program, includes traditional art exhibits, concerts, family activities, and much more. Read on for our top suggestions:
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Posted by Louisa | This post has no comments
May 15th, 2012 under Art, Culture, Museums and Monuments, Paris, Special Events.
Last week I went to Venice and I saw a lot of things. Here are my favorites:
1. In Venice the streets are not streets. They are little passages, all stone. But the buildings are so tall that you need a helicopter to drive up in the sky to see were you are.
2. When I was in Venice I went on a sailboat/motorboat (it was a sailboat with a motor), which was cool. I liked the feeling of the boat rocking back and forth and my hair blowing in the wind. I also went on a bus boat (called a vaporetto in Italian) two times but I never got to go on a gondola because it was too expensive.
3. You can get sandwiches made in front of your eyes at this little corner shop and then eat on the side of the canal.
4. I also went to the Frari, and I saw a panting with this little boy in it. And when you walk from side to side of the staircase it looks like he is looking at you the whole time. Also, there were a lot of tombs. The creepiest tomb was the one for Canova that only had his heart inside! Why only his heart? Because so many churches wanted to bury him that they split him up, and the Frari got the heart.
Editor’s note: Cleo accompanied me (Paul) on a recent business trip to Venice and took a number of our walks, providing hands-on feedback about our Family Program there. The sandwich shop she mentions resides in Campo S. Barnaba, on the west side. In the Frari, the painting she mentions is the Madonna with Saints and Members of the Pesaro Family by Titian.
Posted by Cleo Bennett | This post has 3 comments
May 14th, 2012 under Family Travel, Venice.
Given that we operate in 19 cities worldwide and I spend a good chunk of the year traveling between them, you’d think that I’d be pretty expert in all the ins and outs of visa requirements and travel planning. And yet, on a recent trip to Beijing and Shanghai from the U.S. I was caught out at the last minute without a visa for China. Read more »
Posted by Paul Bennett | This post has no comments
May 11th, 2012 under Beijing, Budget Conscious Travel, City Life, Context Travel, Shanghai, Transportation, Travel News.
Olympic flame was lit in ancient Olympia today and started its journey to London for the 2012 Olympic Games.
Tradition has it, that since the theft of the holy fire of the Zeus by Prometheus, a sacred flame is lit by the sun’s rays in Olympia and kept burning throughout the Olympic Games. The tradition continues today. Read more »
Posted by Ceylan Zere | This post has no comments
May 10th, 2012 under Athens, Culture, Travel News.
Spring is not over yet, and we’ve seen a blossoming of wonderful articles written about Context. Here is a quick recap of the latest articles and blogs singing our praises:
Kirsten Alana from Aviator and Camera, and Andrea from Destination Europe joined us on a couple of food walks in Rome. Check out their reports in the posts Eating my way through Rome and Living Like a Roman. These are some pretty mouth watering pictures, so prepare a snack!
We were delighted to see our name included in the list of Best Graduation Presents for friends in Corporette’s recent post. We like how they describe us as experience-centric..spot on!
The folks from The World is Calling discovered the beauty of Ostia Antica and shared their impressions on this fantastic archaeological site. It’s always refreshing when bloggers and travelers discover us.
Travel authorities Peter Greenberg and Pauline Frommer spoke highly of our innovative travel program on their websites. Honored, is the word that comes to mind!
And while keeping in line with our unique, and innovative tours, Tre from Atlas Obscura included our Hidden London walk as part of the must do things while visiting the city.
Have you read about Context somewhere that is not included in this list? Let us know, we’d love to add it to this list!
Posted by Petulia | This post has no comments
May 9th, 2012 under Uncategorized.
The Greek debt crisis has drawn a lot of attention in the media in the past two years, and this has created some false impressionsabout the current situation on the ground. No doubt, many Greeks have turned to the streets to protest against largely unpopular austerity measures, and occasional violence has erupted. Does this make Greece a dangerous place? Not at all. Read more »
Posted by Georgia Sermamoglou-Soulmaid | This post has no comments
May 8th, 2012 under Athens, City Life, Family Travel, Travel News.
The new train station in Rome
We’ve asked architect and Rome docent Liz Brewster to tell us more about the new, sleek looking station of Tiburtina that recently reopened to travelers in the East of the Italian Capital. After much controversy, and a large fire that delayed the opening, the new Stazione Tiburtina is finally here.
A sleek new glass-skinned steel bridge has recently emerged above the tangle of raised concrete viaducts that make up Rome’s busy east tangential highway. The Tiburtina station now arches over the 20+ train tracks that line up below, visually announcing its presence from afar. Gone is the low, placid
block of the old Tiburtina train station which sat politely alongside the tracks for decades. As the Italian rail system upgrades to high velocity trains, a series of major city train stations throughout Italy are undergoing major renovation.
The Tiburtina station has grown to become one of Rome’s principle public transportation interchange points, housing a B line metro stop beneath it and a major national and international bus terminal adjacent to it. If the controversial and expensive high velocity rail lines that are planned to connect the European countries are completed, the Tiburtina station could be the entry gate into Rome for passengers coming from outside of Italy like France and Spain.
I couldn’t wait to see the metamorphosis take place. Along with all the other residents of north and east Rome, it’s been several years of agonizing detour road traffic around the construction site and slaloming barriers in the station itself when I took the train. I’d crane my neck to watch the progress every time I dared to take the Tangenziale, which has become an enormous hemostat, squeezing cars down to a traffic standstill for kilometers.
Tiburtina station interior
I decided it was most appropriate to arrive by train for my first visit. Getting off the train, I rode up one of the new escalators that starts right on the arrival platform and penetrates directly into the underbelly of the the bridge station that looms above and across the tracks. It felt a little like being beamed up into a large, hovering spacecraft.
Once inside, the 10,000 square meter concourse was truly spectacular. Floor to ceiling glass walls allow visitors to see the horizon of the city line and watch the flow of the train activity below. By night the concourse is illuminated by rows of sparkling ceiling lights, creating a fishbowl display of people
moving through the bridge’s innards. In the several-story tall space, 8 suspended halls float about mid- height on either side of the concourse, piercing through the glass walls and forming protrusions or “interferences” on the building exterior.. Each suspended hall’s perimeters are soft and curved, defined by a solid plane bent over itself like a ribbon to form the ceiling, wall and floor. Matte green colored, it vaguely looks like a colossal stick of peppermint chewing gum has been folded over to form a space in its concavity. Floor to ceiling glass walls fill in the open end walls. The overall effect of walking through this space amplified the sense of fluid movement and transition.
The new station, commissioned by the Italian National Rail and designed by architect Paolo Desideri and partners of the roman studio ABDR, is being completed more or less on schedule; the station was inaugurated precociously in November 2011. The commercial spaces in the concourse were still empty when I visited and both interior and exterior finish work on the building was still being completed. The station’s new bridgehead entrances on either side of the tracks are dramatic multistory spaces, but the surrounding external public spaces are far from completion. On the east side, the concrete viaducts of the Tangential road, (which are planned to be removed) come within meters of the 4 story glass facade.
On the west side, a service road skirts a barren hillside as the parking lot and park areas have not yet been activated. Worried residents of the surrounding neighborhoods have organized regular protests to bring attention to lack of momentum the city of Rome seems to be taking to move ahead with the part of the plans that they are to complete. Locals are afraid the city of Rome will cut the budget and not follow through with the ambitious urban renewal for the external public spaces around the station, which include interconnected green parks, public piazzas, bike and pedestrian paths and parking as well as the removal of entire sections of the tangenziale viaducts and an eventual deviation of automobile transit. The Tiburtina station’s bridge form makes the building a natural connector between the two neighborhoods that flank the railroad, bringing new centrality to areas that have been separated since the railroad lines were originally put in.
If the entire Tiburtina project is completed as it was originally planned, the whole area, station and
surrounds, will be worthy of it’s role as an international gateway into Rome. Stay tuned!
Posted by Liz Brewster | This post has one comment
May 7th, 2012 under City Life, Docent Essays, Rome, Special Events, Transportation.
A literary cafe by the British Museum, in London may not be the natural setting to discuss Spanish culinary traditions and trend. Nevertheless I cannot miss this opportunity to share a piece of cake and a good coffee with food writer Vicky Hayward, as she is on a quick layover in the city.
Since a recent visit to Madrid I have been fascinated by the development of Spanish food, and in particular the tapas phenomenon. Coming from a traditional Italian background, I find the idea of drinking and eating standing up a bit foreign, but I am about to learn more. Read more »
Posted by Petulia | This post has 2 comments
April 23rd, 2012 under Context Travel, Docent Essays, Docent Profiles, Food and Wine, Madrid, Uncategorized.
All five senses are brought to life on only a few days every year in Catalonia.
April 23 is a celebration of sight, sound, touch, smell and taste, and though a work day, it is a holiday in the hearts of many. It is a commemoration of love, culture and gastronomy. It is the day of Sant Jordi (Saint George), the patron saint of Catalonia. 
Posted by Esther Dotras | This post has one comment
April 20th, 2012 under Barcelona, Culture, Docent Essays, Special Events.
Almost since Venice’s beginnings, Rialto has been the center of Venetian life, and it remains so today. Monday through Saturday one finds the area filled with locals purchasing fruit, vegetables, fish, meat and flowers. The market rings with the shouts of the vendors, and the crush of Venetians inspecting and buying their goods. Rialto is also a popular space for informal social exchange, especially on Saturday mornings, as Venetians regularly run into friends here, often ducking into a bar together for a quick coffee or ombra (small glass of wine) before continuing on to the next stall. Read more »
Posted by Monica C | This post has no comments
April 18th, 2012 under City Life, Docent Essays, Food and Wine, Shopping, Venice.
