Travel news you may have missed (aka water pistols at the Gritti Palace?): Travel Weekly

Richard Turen

Stories about the pandemic and all those about the impression of Russia’s attack on Ukraine are, we can all agree, fully newsworthy. And each individual is influencing our professional life in some extraordinary methods.

But as a “critical” travel columnist, I really feel an obligation to communicate with you right now about some vacation information tales that seem to be to have been missed by my opponents:

Let’s start with your leisure enterprise to Afghanistan. Taliban fighters who have been embroiled in a 20-calendar year insurgency now manage the place. So now that they are in command, what do these fighters want to do most? Perfectly, it turns out, they have been flocking to the country’s amusement parks. A lot of of the fighters are rural folks, and they enjoy viewing the parks, especially the sandy shores of the capital’s Qargha Reservoir. One particular of the parks is called “FunFair.”

The issue is that the fighters have been carrying machine guns and other high-powered weapons as they trip the bumper vehicles and the Ferris wheel. It has been unsettling, I am guaranteed, for your shoppers. But now some excellent news: Fighters will now have to check out their guns at the gates of all amusement parks in the place. 

Sometimes everyday living does imitate artwork. Do you bear in mind the Tom Hanks film “The Terminal”? Well then, I want you to meet Wei Jianguo, a resident of Beijing. It turns out that Wei loves to smoke and consume. His relatives informed him he should stop or transfer out. This offered selected troubles as Wei was unemployed. But after some wondering about his problem, he came up with a resolution: He moved into Terminal 2 at the Beijing Cash International Airport.

Wei pays no lease and keeps his blankets and garments in two suitcases. He uses an electric cooker to get ready straightforward foods. This does not seem to be to seriously concern Chinese airport officers as Wei has been dwelling in Terminal 2 for the earlier 14 several years.

Our remaining news update considerations a famous assets in Venice and a new amenity your clients will be acquiring at verify-in.

The Gritti Palace is a 15th-century masterpiece in a setting up on the Grand Canal just across the drinking water from the Salute church. The lodge is stuffed with priceless paintings and antiques and experienced been a most loved of stars like Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and, more not long ago, Brad Pitt.

But now the hotel and other queens of elegance together the main canals have a issue — a key tourist dilemma.

The fairly effectively-behaved pigeons in all all those Venice pics have been replaced by a chicken the Italians contact a magoghe: a huge hen, a type of criminalized seagull, that will snatch food items off of plates no issue what it can take.

So now, when your customers verify in to the Gritti Palace, they will be issued orange drinking water pistols. The birds look, for the time becoming, to run absent from drinking water pistols fired at them, and the fowl professionals in Venice have concluded that orange is a colour that intimidates the birds.

Just keep in mind to recommend that your customers “aim significant” when shooting at the birds though dining on the beautiful outside terrace to prevent the h2o from diluting the sauce on their spaghetti alla busara.