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GREECE

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SPAI N

AUSTRALI A

JAPAN

World Traveler

10 Reasons Why Australia Is Travel Heaven It turns out that travel heaven just might be down under! With its vast and varied landscapes, unique wildlife, and white-sand beaches, Australia is one of the most interesting continents around. We’ve gone through the tips and photos from millions of travelers on minube to find out exactly what makes Australia such an one-of-a-kind destination. From tropical islands to crocs, sharks, and kangaroos, here are 18 reasons why Australia is travel heaven!

1. The beaches range from epic... - The Twelve Apostles in Victoria, Australia is undeniably one of the most spectacular stretches of coast anywhere on Earth, and the best part is you can actually slip off your shoes and go exploring! The fact that it’s located on one of the world’s top roadtrip routes, the legendary Great Ocean Drive, only makes it that much sweeter.

2.) ...to downright heavenly. - The sheer variety and quality of Australia’s beaches is hard to beat. You can try white sand and palm-studded islands of Queensland or explore hidden coves and crystal-clear waters in Western Australia. Even the big city beaches are great! How many places can say that?

3.) Two words: Kangaroo Island - Kangaroo Island is a veritable Garden of Eden only a short plane or ferry ride from Adelaide, South Australia. The island’s lack of natural predators means that it’s a sanctuary for Australian wildlife and visitors can see everything from kangaroos and koalas to whales and dolphins, all in their natural habitat.

4.) There are deserts... - The Australian Outback is one of the most unique and surreal places on Earth. Imagine a land of bright red earth littered with white sand dunes and the occasional canyon full of trickling waterfalls and aboriginal cave drawings. If you’re looking for the perfect destination to make that life-changing desert road-trip, the Outback’s the place.

5.) ...tropical forests... - The image of the dusty Outback is firmly set in our collective imagination, but the coast of Queensland, Australia couldn’t be more different. Queensland is home to ancient forests, green islands, and stunning parks like Daintree National Park, a vast stretch of ferny jungles, steamy hot springs, and tropical waterfalls.

6.) ...and you can even go skiing! - Yes, that’s right...you can ski in Australia!

Don’t believe us? Head to Mt. Buller about three hours north of Melbourne, Victoria and you’ll find a scene more reminiscent of Switzerland than the South Pacific. The slopes aren’t the biggest in the world, but if you’re looking to ski, snowboard, or mountain bike down under, Mt. Buller is definitely the place.

7.) King’s Canyon - Australia has its own version of the Grand Canyon in the red deserts of Watarrka National Park in the rugged Northern Territory. Take a walk along the rim of King’s Canyon and enjoy the epic views (and complete absence of tourists) before arriving at the gold at the end of the rainbow: a refreshing, shady waterfall where you can beat the 100 degree heat!

8.) Surf’s up! - What else would you expect from a country that has a beach named “Surfers Paradise”? Simply put, Australia has some of the finest surfing in the world. If you’re looking for massive waves, the coast of New South Wales is the place to be, but opt for less-popular stops like Lucky Bay in South Australia is you want sea lions and crystal-clear water along with with your waves.

9.) A “Jumping Crocodile Cruise” is an actual thing - If you pay a visit to the Northern Territory’s Kakadu National Park (a spectacular UNESCO World Heritage Site), don’t miss a Jumping Crocodile Cruise on the Adelaide River.

Guides use fresh meat as bait to lure out the massive saltwater crocodiles (or “salties”) so you can see them at their prehistoric best.

10.) Where else are you going to go Shark Cage Diving? - The South Australia waters are one of the best places on earth to get (safely) up close and personal with the biggest beasts of the deep: Great White Sharks. There are local outfitters who’ll let you experience the adrenaline rush of these massive creatures thrashing around just outside your protective cage. Not for the faint of heart!

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/minube/18-reasons-whyaustralia_b_5396680.html

Italy The Grand Tour was a European cultural jaunt focused on Italy that became part of the education of 18th-century high society. We offer a new take on the trip, proving that the country’s treasures remain as rewarding as ever.

This 530-mile rail trip sets out from the waterworld of Venice, journeys across northern Italy to the rugged Cinque Terre region, continues to Tuscany for the treasures of Florence and Cortona, then heads south to the Eternal City, Rome.

Related slideshow: Idyllic island life off the coast of Italy Venice: Best for music

Dusk is gathering, and down a dimly lit alley near the Grand Canal, a 60-strong audience is assembled in the Barbarigo-Minotto Palace, ready for a unique performance. They sit expectantly under chandeliers, beneath a 1745 ceiling painted by Tiepolo. From within gilt frames, 18th century grandees gaze down sceptically.

As the light fades, the candles are lit and Giovanni Dal Missier, dapper in white tie and tails, launches Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. As befits an opera about a barber, it’s neatly trimmed, with just four singers and four instrumentalists: a true pocket opera, staged in three different rooms of the now-uninhabited 15th-century palace in turn, an act at a time, with the audience following and reseating. The soprano flirts with members of the audience, and the bass deposits his wig on the head of a beaming man in the front row. The applause at the end is as warm as the room has become.

‘In the past, musicians used to play in small rooms for aristocrats,’ says Giovanni, musical director of the Musica a Palazzo company, which stages operas here most evenings. ‘We are trying to do the same. But not just for aristocrats.’

Venice, a traditional gateway for early Grand Tours of Italy, is steeped in music.

It’s the city where Vivaldi was born, Monteverdi and Gabrieli lived, Wagner died, and Stravinsky is buried. But it’s not just classical music that thrives here.

In an alleyway leading from St Mark’s Square, a busker plays Che Sarà, the notes of her accordion drifting through the misty stillness. A gondola glides by beneath, silent save for the tenor at the prow. He clears his throat theatrically, pauses for effect, then launches into a serenade – his outstretched arms rising and falling with the notes. The couple on board look on, entwined, blankets drawn up to their chests against the evening chill. Few gondoliers, in all honesty, would pass muster at Venice’s most famous musical monument. La Fenice, which has premiered major operas by Rossini and Verdi, translates as ‘phoenix’. The theatre's name is apt for a building dating from 1792 that has twice risen from the ashes after devastating fires – the more recent in 1996. ‘It was a total shock to the city,’ says its artistic director Fortunato Ortombina, his words competing with an orchestra rehearsing in the auditorium. La Fenice reopened in 2003, its tiers of boxes and balconies now resplendent with gleaming gold and red velvet. ‘In Venice, you are going back to the birth of opera, 500 years ago,’ says Fortunato. ‘In every century, it is possible to find something important that was premiered here. The city is like a stage itself – it’s a show, an exhibition. When I look into the eyes of people who are looking at

Venice, they are like this...’ His face mimics amazement. ‘They feel this sense of... marvelloso!’

Cinque Terre: Best for food and wine It’s the after-lunch lull in Manarola – siesta time on the shores of the Italian Riviera. Curtains are drawn against the sun, cicadas hiss in the pine trees and the steep little streets are deserted, except for a trio of men playing cards in a treeshaded corner of the central square. Shirt sleeves rolled up and espressos to hand, they’re absorbed in their game.

Behind them, pastel-painted houses – pink, lemon, orange – are stacked up the hillside, gleaming in the bright afternoon sunshine and framed by steeply terraced vineyards clinging like ladders to the near-vertical slopes. The dry-stone walls that dissect these precipitous slopes date back to the 11th century; laid end to end, locals claim, the walls would exceed the Great Wall of China in length.

Farmers and winemakers here are the mountaineers of the food world, toiling up and down the contours and sometimes taking away their harvest by boat – the easiest way. Since the Cinque Terre became a national park and Unesco World Heritage Site, the local economy has been boosted by the proceeds of the walking trails that weave through the hillsides. It’s a pleasingly symbiotic arrangement, hikers sustained by the plentiful seafood, dishes derived from locally grown ingredients such as lemons, olives and basil – and of course the Sciacchetrà wine that the region is famous for. Lengthening shadows and an easing in temperature signal the time to set off up the hillside, along La Strada di Olive, ‘The Street of Olives’. Dense groves of fig trees extend from the dusty path, as bees browse the white, trumpet-like flowers of bindweed in their midst. Around a mile up the path lies the stone-built rural hamlet of Volastra, its tight, winding alleys ghostly quiet.

Beyond the small Romanesque chapel – one of several preserved cliff-side ‘sanctuaries’ high above the Cinque Terre towns – is the home of Luciano Capellini. Stocky, bearded and serious, he is one of the region’s leading winemakers, producing 10,000 bottles a year and exporting as far afield as Japan and the USA. ‘Seven generations of my family have grown up here,’ he says, snipping at his vines. ‘We go back to the early 19th century.’ This represents recent history in a hamlet where wine-making has been traced back to the 13th century. Luciano leads a small group of friends and neighbours back to the stone terrace of his home, uncorks a bottle and pours out generous measures. Goat’s cheese is handed round and, with the sun slipping behind the hillside, there’s a tasting of the honey-scented Sciacchetrà.

‘Capellini wine is like a Picasso,’ exclaims one of Luciano’s neighbours, suddenly expressive. His host glances up from his pouring for a moment. ‘I would say a Leonardo,’ he says with a wry smile. Far below, the lights of Manarola are flickering on. Here, the restaurants and trattoria are filling up with diners ordering the likes of stuffed mussels and trofie al pesto – locally made pasta flavoured by basilico Genovese grown on these very slopes. There really is treasure in the hills.

Florence: Best for art The morning sunlight filtering into the Gothic courtyard of the Museo del Bargello falls on a broad stone staircase. A middle-aged woman in a straw hat climbs it slowly, guidebook in hand. At the top, she will find one of Florence’s more curious treasures: the ‘other’ statue of David.

Built in the 13th century, the Bargello was a palace-turned-prison that witnessed generations of trials and executions. Since the 19th century, it has housed one of Italy’s finest collections of Renaissance sculpture. Crowds flock to the Galleria dell’Accademia to gaze at Michelangelo’s David: to sculpture, perhaps, what the Mona Lisa is to painting. At the Bargello, in a sepulchrally quiet room, just a handful of visitors admire Donatello’s version. Set in bronze, he poses hand-onhip, androgenous, a touch effete. Visitors glance from sculpture to guidebook, before moving on to a Michelangelo: a Bacchus looking pie-eyed after a glass of Chianti too many. There is time and space to take it all in – a throwback to the early days of the Tour.

Michael Lee first visited Florence on a European Grand Tour of his own from his home in Canada. He particularly loved Italy – above all Florence. ‘The whole history of Italian painting is here,’ says Michael, who works as a guide specialising in art. ‘Michelangelo was first discovered painting in that church over there, and Leonardo lived just round that corner.’

Across town in the Museo Bardini, a former monastery, students sit on the floor sketching items from the collection built up by Stefano Bardini, a Victorian art dealer. ‘He was friends with all the people who counted in Florence,’ says Dr Antonella Nesi, the gallery’s curator. She points out a gigantic 14th-century crucifix which Bardini ‘restored’ by grafting on bits and pieces from other works, and a 17th-century Persian carpet unrolled for Hitler when he stepped off the train in Florence in 1938.

Art in this city cannot be contained. In Piazza San Lorenzo, in the shadow of the Duomo, street painters add a personal flourish to a scene unchanged in five

centuries. They bring art to the streets, just as the Loggia dei Lanzi does. The openair arcade of sculpture is arranged beneath a trio of gigantic arches, its façade embellished with figurines. A group gathers around Cellini’s Perseus with the Head of Medusa, conspicuous for its grisly subject matter. Among them is Michael Lee, his awe for his adopted city undimmed. ‘How do you get so much art in such a small place?’ he asks.

Cortona: Best for Tuscan life Beyond olive groves and vineyards, tall pines stretch graciously across the plains.

Swallows swirl over red-tiled rooftops, church towers vie with cypresses as focal points, and broad fields, bright with sunflowers, merge into a misty blue horizon of hills.

A Grand Tourist would have been enchanted by the sweeping panoramas on offer from almost every corner of Cortona. They might have come here as a relaxing break from the cosmopolitan culture of Florence, if they’d done their homework – in 1502, Leonardo da Vinci sketched this little Tuscan town as a sepia cluster of hilltop houses and towers, combining urban and rural charm in a way that survives to this day.

‘The town has such dignity in its architecture that it makes you want to stand up straight when you walk through it,’ says Frances Mayes, the American author who helped put Cortona on the map with her bestselling memoir Under the Tuscan Sun. The book – translated into 46 languages and made into a major film in 2003 – describes the restoration of her pink-and-apricot 18th-century villa, called Bramasole (‘Yearning for the sun’).

Japan Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo is a mega-metropolis of dizzying contradictions, both familiar and foreign.

It has neon, skyscrapers, salaryman crowds, packed trains, cutting-edge architecture and futuristic technology. But it also has ancient shrines, plant-covered wooden houses, cycling grannies, old-school sweet shops and village-like lanes. It is one of the planet’s most densely populated cities (as any rush-hour train journey will demonstrate), with a hyperactive skyline that changes as regularly as the sun rises and sets. Yet it is also a city rooted in its traditions and in possession of a calm and efficient rhythm that belies its sprawling dimensions. And even though it’s home to a 13 million-plus population, trains run on time, there is no public litter and street crime is near non-existent. In short, it works.

Another key enticement is the food – from sushi to soba, and everything in between. Tokyo is a nirvana for foodies, and has the world’s highest volume of Michelin stars in a city. Shopping is another highlight – it’s worth bringing an empty suitcase to fill with hard-to-resist gadgets, trendsetting garments and treasures from craft and design stores.

-The Telegraph

Spain Splendid beaches, delicious cuisine, vibrant nightlife and lively fiestas all make Spain one of Europe’s best getaways. Because Spain encompasses several autonomous regions and islands, the country boasts one of the most widely diverse cultures and landscapes on the continent. An overview of the top places to visit in Spain: The capital city of the Galicia region in northwestern Spain, Santiago de Compostela is famous as the final destination of the traditional pilgrimage known as Camino de Santiago. This pilgrimage is important to many Christians because it is believed that Santiago de Compostela is where St. James, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, is buried. Today, the city attracts thousands of visitors every year for both its religious tradition and history. The arriving point for most pilgrims is the main square, Praza do Obradoiro. Situated in the heart of the city, this bustling plaza is the scene of many important landmarks, particularly the Santiago Cathedral where the tomb of St. James is located.

Perched on a mountaintop in central Spain, Toledo served as the Spanish capital until the 16th century. Because it was inhabited by Jews, Christians and Muslims for many centuries, the city is sometimes called the “City of Three Cultures.� Today, Toledo is a popular destination for its wealth of historic art and architecture that dates back to the Roman Empire. The best thing to do in Toledo is to get lost amid the medieval streets and admire the old architecture that includes a stunning cathedral, synagogue and mosque.

Cordoba is the capital of the Cordoba province in the Andalusian region of southern Spain. The historic quarter of Cordoba is a maze of tiny medieval streets, plazas and whitewashed courtyards all situated around the star attraction, the Mezquita. Initially built as a mosque, the Mezquita is now a glorious cathedral retaining most of its original architecture. Its forest of columns topped with Islamic-style red and white striped arches serves as a reminder of the glory and importance CĂłrdoba held in medieval times. Other places of interest include the Fortress of the Christian Monarchs, the Street of Flowers, and the Old Jewish Quarter with its charming patios and souvenir shops.

San Sebastian is the capital of the Gipuzko province, located in the Basque country of North Spain off the coast of the Bay of Biscay. This beautiful seaside city is well-loved for its excellent beaches and outstanding culinary tradition. The Old Town features many historic buildings reconstructed in the 19th century after the city was nearly destroyed during the Napoleonic Wars. San Sebastian boasts also some of the best beaches in Europe with the most popular of these being Playa de la Concha, which offers sunbathing and water activities like swimming, kayaking and water skiing.

GREECE MYKONOS In a small series of islands in the Aegean Sea lies the tiny gem of Mykonos Island – a dreamy destination for aspiring Greek gods and goddesses. Mykonos is a wonderful kaleidoscope of cosmopolitan shops, rocking bars, quaint windmills, homey taverns and hidden churches all set against a brilliant blue backdrop. And it's not just the water that sparkles in the sun on Mykonos, but also the white marble streets and buildings that characterize the island's architecture.

The beaches on the south shore of the island are the most popular with fine sand and water that is perfect for swimming. Ornos and Psarou beaches are the favorite among families, but Psarou is also ideal for water sports of all kinds, including

windsurfing, water-skiing and diving. The quiet cove at Agrari beach is the place to relax. But it's the beaches at Paradise and Super Paradise that really get people talking. These two beaches are notorious for taking partying to another level, with parties and music that keep the crowds rocking from morning through night.

This is not the place to take the kids or unwind with a book - the partying is serious, and the dress code is as casual as it gets as nudity is permitted. Day and night, it's clear why Mykonos is touted as one of the most hedonistic islands around, with a wild atmosphere fit for Dionysus. Not quite your speed? Take a break from the beach and explore the capital town of Hora, wander the streets of Little Venice or check out one of the island's monasteries to take in some history.

At night, start with a toast to the sunset in Little Venice and continue through the night at the dance clubs and bars tucked away in town or along Paradise Beach.

Cuisine Grapes and olives are staples in the Greek diet and can be found in many forms on Mykonos Island, including exquisite olive oil, tasty kalamata olives and refreshing Santorini wines. Diners on Mykonos can take advantage of fresh produce, farmer's cheese, lamb dishes and a wide assortment of seafood, including the popular calamari.

Edem (22890-23-355), found in Hora, serves Greek classics using lamb and fresh fish.

An extra bonus is the restaurant's intimate poolside setting. Upscale La Maison de Catherine (22890-22169) offers a blend of French and Greek delights in Mykonos town, while La Taverne at the Hotel Cavo Tagoo (0289-23-692) serves Greek specialties and features a view of Mykonos Bay. Remember that many restaurants on the island close for siesta during the afternoon - call ahead or check the hours of operation.

One of the most scenic corners of the island is Alefkántra or “Little Venice”, an 18th century district, dominated by grand captains’ mansions with colourful balconies and stylish windows. With balconies perched over the sea, pictures of the famous Italian city spring to mind. Relax at a waterfront café and admire the view of the quaint windmills standing imposingly on the hillside above, set against a luminous blue backdrop.

The second traditional settlement of Mykonos is ร no Merรก, situated around the historic monastery of Panayia Tourliani (a 16th century church with a brilliant carved wooden iconostasis). To the north, in Fteliรก, lies an important Neolithic settlement, and a 14th-13th century BC Mycenaean tomb.