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Three Must-see, Car-free Destinations
by Amanda Arnold | September 29, 2011
Motorized vehicles aren’t really permitted at these travel destinations, which is a good thing — because you’ll want to drink in these gorgeous sights very slowly (aka by foot):
Mont St. Michel, France: This one was settled by hermit monks in the 6th century, who likely were flooded with peace each time the tide rolled 8 miles in over the mud flat and put a sea between them and the mainland.
This 70-foot-tall tree is found on the grounds of Stowlangtoft Hall in Bury St. Edmund, UK, a hall built 1859 for the Wilson family. Evidently the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VII, hung around the house in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The stately property was turned into a nursing home in 1969, and in the nearby Stowlangtoft Estate, you’ll find holiday cottages, from which you may visit the scary beech tree.
Did you know that there was once such a thing as giant deer?! I learned this recently reading an excellent post on the excellent archaeology site Past Horizons. There was such a thing as giant deer and they lived not too long ago during the Pleistocene era, the geological period that encompassed the last ice age. Giant deer were among the Pleistocene megafauna of Western Europe and they dwelt in a place called Doggerland.
Devout environmentalism is now tantamount to religious conviction — in British law at least. No, the UK hasn’t made a mass return to its Druidical past, enshrining the cycles of the moon in law or worshipping sun gods with parabolic solar collectors. But the employment laws that protect religious freedom have been extended to include the belief in man-made climate change.
Today I brought in my “Michael Jackson Number Ones” to pay tribute to the King of Pop. While most of the catchy songs are also helping me get into vacation mindset, there’s one track on the disc that’s more likely to induce a severe case of eco-anxiety than the insatiable urge to dance.
That would be “Earth Song,” Jackson’s 1995 environmental anthem, released years before there really was such a thing. Sure, there are earlier environmental songs like “Big Yellow Taxi” and “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology),” but “Earth Song” holds nothing back. It has soaring choirs, crucifixion themes and a video with post-apocalyptic rainforests and dead elephants.
I was surprised to learn in the Guardian’s environment blog that “Earth Song” was also Jackson’s biggest-selling single in the United Kingdom. Yes, it beat out other hits like “Thriller” and “Billie Jean” by selling more than a million copies and topping the ’95 Christmas charts.
The United Kingdom Internet service provider (ISP) Virgin Media is partnering with Universal Music and launching a new music service. Most music services online follow one of three models. With the first model, you can listen to streaming music but you can’t download any of the songs (Pandora and last.fm). The second is that you can purchase music on a per-song (or per-album) basis, download the music and transfer it to whatever device you want (iTunes). The third is that you pay a subscription fee to download as much music as you like but you lose that music if you cancel or fail to renew your subscription (Rhapsody and Napster).
Virgin Media’s new service will allow customers in the UK to access both streaming and downloadable music for a subscription fee. Even if the customer closes his or her account, the music stays put. According to a report by Jake Widman of iTWire, the music will be DRM-free.
The BBC reports that the office of the UK Information Commissioner has decided that Google Street View doesn’t violate the Data Protection Act, much to the chagrin of organizations like Privacy International and the residents of Broughton.
Google Street View plots pictures onto a map, allowing you to navigate through a city using digital photos. It’s very useful for people who rely more on landmarks than street names or intersections. When someone tells you you need to turn left at the In-n-Out burger, you can use Street View to locate the burger joint and see exactly where you need to turn.
On a side note: some people have found fun ways to incorporate art projects using Street View. Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley created a cool project called Street With a View. They pre-set several tableaux up and down Sampsonia Way in Pittsburgh as the Google Street View car drove down the road.
I have a thing for novels set in a dystopian future. Whether it’s Orwell’s “1984,” Huxley’s “Brave New World” or “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess, I just can’t get enough stories about a world in which the government has overstepped its bounds.
I would prefer those worlds to stay within the realm of fiction.
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