The top 5 places to visit in 2020
Credit to Author: Dave Pottinger| Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2020 07:13:12 +0000
A perennial favorite European destination – and one of only four capital cities on the banks of the Danube (making a Danube River cruise an increasingly popular way to visit), elegant Vienna has steadily been shedding much of its Imperial stodginess with a burgeoning museum and gallery scene and an all-around younger and more contemporary vibe. But its rich musical heritage holds steadfast, shaped by luminary residents such as Mozart, Strauss (father and son) and Beethoven – the latter born in Germany but arriving in his early 20s and soon to be considered “as Viennese as apple streudel.”
Vienna will enthusiastically celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Beethoven during a year-long look at the artist’s genius for the duration of 2020. There is no shortage of historic and imposing musical venues around town to host an impressive roster of events that begins on New Year’s Day. The closing event takes place on the composer’s birthday, Dec 16th– which coincides seamlessly with Vienna’s annual Christmas Market that begins mid-November. The one most frequented in front of the neo-Gothic Rathaus (Town Hall) is one of Europe’s oldest, largest and finest but is not the only one – you can spent a week visiting a different one each night.
Trains running between Vienna and Salzburg are easy and frequent, and you can be strolling the beautifully preserved store-lined streets of Salzburg’s historic center (Altstadt) in less than 3 hours. The hometown of Mozart is world renowned for the Salzburg Festival – self-billed as the “world’s most important celebration of opera, music and theater” – and celebrating its 100thanniverary with a themed selection from its rich concert program highlighting Beethoven’s work. Beethoven was just 17 when it is believed that he traveled from Germany to Vienna to meet the older and already established Mozart: although Mozart died not that long afterwards at 35, his work continued to be a source of inspiration for Beethoven.
For guided tours of Austria, www.Trafalgar.com
For Vienna’s Beethoven Festival schedule: www.visitingvienna.com
Tokyo was the first-ever Asian city to host the prestigious Olympic Games in 1964 – something that helped bring it into the modern era – and will be the first Asian city in 2020 to again host the Summer Games July 24-August 09. But unless you relish the inescapable heat and large (albeit well-behaved – this is Japan) crowds it will behoove most visitors to consider a visit during the months prior to Tokyo 2020.
The Golden Pavilion temple (Kinkaku-ji) in Kyoto, Japan.
That’s when they will benefit from the deep-pocket investments made to improve infrastructure and transportation, upgraded and newly built accommodations, increased availability in everything from international air to domestic Uber, and be inspired by the usual pre-game buzz when Japan and its many attractions will be the focus of ambitious media attention.
The crescendo of promotional coverage will enlighten western viewers about Tokyo, one of the world’s largest capital cities, a fascinating fusion of the exceedingly modern and the staunchly traditional – as seen in its people, architecture, food, history – and yes, shopping! Yet Tokyo – whose dense metro area of diverse neighborhoods and a population of 34 million making it the largest in the world – is also a place inherently safe, respectful, organized, friendly and genuinely welcoming.
Rather than any one specific attraction – tho the newly relocated Tsukiji Fish Market or the Shinto religion’s great Meiji Shrine deserve a visit – it is the city itself that fascinates, its narrow alleyways and pulsating neon-lit boulevards offering the chance to experience the entire breadth of Japanese history and culture in one go.
You can easily escape Tokyo by jumping on the Shinkansen Bullet Train for Kyoto in just over 2 high-speed hours. At times you’ll sense a small-town atmosphere – after all the population here is under 1.5 million – as you wander through the atmospheric neighborhoods and a profusion of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples (and the enchanting manicured gardens that surround them) for which this ancient capital of Japan is known.
For travel to Japan at any time of year: ATJ: https://www.atj.com/
The Camino de Santiago (known in English as the Way of St. James) is a thousand-year-old network of pilgrim routes that converge in Galicia in the scenic northwest corner of Spain – a long-distance walk that is enjoying renewed popularity in recent years as a personal and spiritual journey of discovery, if not one motivated by religion. This unexpected rebirth is due in part to a small budget film called The Way (2011) by the father-son team of Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez, and the Camino’s 2015 designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Peregrino at Camino de Santiago
The Christian faithful first made this pilgrimage in the 9thcentury when the bones of St. James the Apostle (or, in Spanish, Santiago) were unearthed not far from where the magnificent Catedral de Santiago de Compostela now stands. Begun in 1078 and later greatly expanded, it remains the end point for those walking several days or even months (the latter for those who originate in France and oft times far beyond). “The door is open to all” goes a poem about the Camino written in the 13thcentury, and today more than 300,000 complete some section of the Camino each year for reasons that are as varied as they are heart warming.
Walk the Camino in 2020 to avoid the expected surge in numbers when the Holy (or Jubilee) Year takes place in 2021 when July 25th, the feast day of St. James, falls on a Sunday (the last time this happened was 2010).
There are a great many lodgings along the Camino –– ranging from the rudimentary hostel-like “refugios” that have welcomed pilgrims for centuries, to some extremely comfortable properties and excellent restaurants for those who prefer more creature comforts. Specialized travel companies facilitate the logistics by booking hotels and transporting luggage – some with guides who accompany small groups – leaving you to enjoy what for countless pilgrims has been a deeply gratifying once-in-a-lifetime experience.
For organized luxury walking tours of the Camino de Santiago:
https://www.authentic-journeys.com/
Visitors are returning to Egypt in growing numbers, most beginning their stay in the gritty and chaotic megacity of Cairo, welcomed by tourism officials and the warm legendary hospitality of the Egyptian people.
The Pyramids of Giza, Giza, UNESCO World Heritage Site, near Cairo.
Cairo feels like one big vibrant open-air museum that can be both exhilarating and exhausting – so the return of both new and newly refurbished luxury Nile cruise boats is a soothing chance to regroup – originating in Luxor and drifting past the magnificent sites of Upper Egypt in great style and comfort viewing the equally astonishing antiquities and temples it promises.
This year the government is focusing its spotlight on the much-awaited opening of Cairo’s aptly named GEM (Grand Egyptian Museum) symbolic of a renewed and deserved interest in the country’s unparalleled legacy. “Pharaonic” best captures the vast and astounding 5.2-million-square-foot structure billed as the world’s largest archeological museum that has been decades in the works (it was first announced in 1992) and not just a little over budget. Located just west of Cairo and in the shadow of the Giza Pyramids, it is slated to open to great international fanfare in late 2020 to the cost of $1.1 billion.
Until then, special (and not inexpensive) behind-the-scenes tours have begun, allowing access to the state-of-the-art conservation laboratories where some 100,000 items collected from along the banks of the Nile are skillfully being prepared for display – among them shimmering never-seen-before artifacts removed from the tomb of the boy king, Tutankhamun, amazing for being well over 3,000 years old.
Many of those treasures are being transferred from Cairo’s current Egyptian Museum built in 1901 on the edge of Tahrir Square. Loved by many for its dated, poorly labeled and overcrowded halls, it will continue to function as an active museum once the transition is official, finally able to display acquisitions that until now have languished packed away, and slated for a long-overdue and much needed revamp of its own, somewhere down the road.
For organized tours and private, pre-opening tours of the GEM:
https://www.abercrombiekent.co.uk/
For luxury Nile Cruises with Uniworld, Boutique River Cruise Collection:
We’ve all seen this timeless landscape before – the fantastic towering sandstone buttes, spires and arches that have been sculpted by the elements over time – spread across this vast desert corner of northern Arizona and southern Utah. This is Monument Valley, the recognizable backdrop for every Wild West movie ever made by John Ford who first discovered this region when filming Stagecoach here in 1939 with a rookie actor named John Wayne. Ford made 7 more films here over the next 25 years and for decades Monument Valley would define what moviegoers thought of when imagining the American West.
Early morning at Monument Valley, Arizona.
This breathtaking 91,000-acre stretch of flat-bottomed land is a Navajo Nation Tribal Park – just a sliver of the far greater 17 million-acre Navajo territory where tribal members still live, raise livestock and farm – and anyone wanting to venture off the 17-mile scenic loop road must do so in the company of a Navajo guide – promising a fun-filled tour that is more interesting and insightful than a year back at school. Monument Valley is commonly mistaken as a national park – after all there are a good many clustered in this particularly well-endowed area of the U.S. Southwest. Monument Valley is part of the Grand Circle self-drive itinerary, which includes the Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches National Parks. As epic American road trips go, this one is hard to beat.
For guided tours of Monument Valley: