Stanfords Blog

It’s become one of the continent’s most high-profile cultural events: the awarding of European Capital of Culture status. Dating back to 1985, more than 40 cities have so far been recognised, and this year the mantle is being shared by Marseille and Košice. With both only a few hours away, we take a closer look at their cultural offerings…

Marseille

France’s second-largest city isn’t renowned for being picturesque. A Mediterranean location is belied by Marseille’s lack of gentrification, its grittiness and a stark contrast to the serenity of neighbouring Provence. But a reputation defined on aesthetics alone is unfair, for Marseille is one of Europe’s oldest cities – founded by the Phoceans way back in 600 BC. And as its nickname Port d’Afrique suggests, it happens to be a melting pot of different cultures, from north Africa and Comoros to Italy and Spain – a city that, despite a sub-culture of crime, has earned a reputation for racial and religious tolerance, of colourful street markets and souks, and sun-drenched beaches and coves. Continue reading The European Capitals of Culture: A Closer Look at Marseille and Košice

Shanghai-based writer and teacher Tim Neesham takes an in-depth look at the Chinese New Year celebrations as the country welcomes in the year of the snake.

The furore that surrounds China’s annual Spring Festival celebrations certainly eclipses anything I’ve ever seen anywhere at Christmas in the western world. It is a highly anticipated season of celebrations, traditions, festivities, food and fireworks for countries across the Far East but for the Chinese in particular, New Year is a big deal.

Visiting China around New Year offers a completely different angle to normal life in this country. For a start, everything stops. It’s not easy to get a day off work here but for the place dubbed the world’s factory, manufacturing all but shuts down, the skies clear and roads – on a daily basis so perilous with every crossing – are deserted a la a Hollywood zombie movie.

A place like Shanghai ticks due to its large migrant workforce, but with the arrival of Spring Festival everyone packs up and heads home. This leads to what is, by some margin, the largest annual migration of human beings on Earth. Airfares skyrocket and trains are booked up long in advance as in a country this size, going by plane or train is almost always more preferable than automobile.

This leads to its own set of complications. Train companies deliberately sell far more tickets than there are seats, which leads to overcrowding usually only seen at one of Colonel Sanders’ battery farms. Getting a seat is arbitrary – as trains are so tightly packed, it’s physically impossible to stand up and stretch your legs, go to the restaurant car or even the bathroom. To combat this problem, it is not uncommon for fully grown adults to enter a long-distance train journey during the lead up to Spring Festival wearing a nappy!

That said, there is more than one kind of Chinese New Year to enjoy and this is no better highlighted than in the use of fireworks – something that’s rooted in mythology and superstition, as the ancient Chinese (who, let us not forget, were the early pioneers of gunpowder) believed the noise of the fireworks scared away monsters that would otherwise come and eat your kids.

The local governments of urban centres such as Shanghai and Beijing have tried to put a blanket ban on the general public’s use of fireworks and while this law is impossible to fully enforce, the best fireworks displays are generally found in the outlying provincial cities which enjoy much looser restrictions.

February 10th 2013 waves goodbye to the year of the dragon and ushers in the year of the snake. For many Chinese, the last 12 months (well, technically the nine months before, too) will have been a race against time to conceive in order to give birth in what they consider to be the luckiest of all the zodiac animals. This again is due to mythology and superstition, as the dragon was one of the first nature gods to be worshipped by the ancient Chinese and, in what is still a very patriarchal nation, is a symbol of masculinity and power. Incidentally¸ the dragon god allegedly evolved from a snake god and is the only mythical creature to grace the zodiac.

Indeed, such is the superstitious importance of astrology to the Chinese, people often plan their pregnancies around which animal their child will be attached to. I once heard a story from a former colleague of mine who has worked as a teacher in a junior high school in Hebei province for over 20 years. She told me that during the year of the sheep (2003) she had 88 students enter the junior high school exams but the year before, during the year of the horse, she had 136; a difference of over 50 per cent and simply because the horse is considered more desirable than the sheep.

As with any trip to China an open mind and a set of ear plugs are two of the most valuable travelling tools and this is no more fitting than during Spring Festival. But on the flip side, visitors will see an altogether more relaxed, peaceful China as most of the people who contribute to the everyday urban rat race jump at the chance to stay at home with the family, eat extensively and take a break from the world outside.

Bearing these, and many other things in mind, any travellers planning a trip to China around New Year are therefore advised to plan carefully, get ready to roll with the punches and be prepared for literally anything in what is one of the most unique celebrations in the world.

新年快乐!

> Want to find out more about China? Take a look at our unrivalled collection of maps and travel guides.

We spoke exclusively to Simon Calder, The Independent’s Travel Editor at Large, about where he’ll be travelling this year, the location of the world’s most beautiful place, and why he has a “slight issue” with Sri Lanka.

He’s the UK’s most-recognised travel journalist, a one-time record holder of the fastest hitchhike between Land’s End and John o’ Groats, and has a degree in mathematics from Warwick University. He also happens to be a fan of Stanfords, popping into our Long Acre store last week ahead of his next trip. So where’s next on Simon Calder’s to-visit list?

“There are two destinations I’m really excited about this year, the first of which is Alaska,” he explains. “It’s been off the map pretty much for the last 20 years, but hooray for Icelandair – they’ve decided to launch two flights to Anchorage from Reykjavik per week in May. That means from leaving London, Manchester or Glasgow, you can arrive in the US’s northernmost city later that afternoon. It’s unbelievable – and it’s also very, very cheap.

“I’ll be heading down the coast towards Juneau, a really exciting place to be. I’ve only been to Alaska before very briefly in the olden days when British Airways flew non-stop from Heathrow – but that wasn’t in the middle of summer, which is when I’ll be travelling this time, and I’m looking forward to it very much indeed.”

From Alaska it’s almost 5,000 miles south-east to a Portuguese Atlantic archipelago that’s home to some of the world’s highest mountains (if measured from their base on the bottom of the ocean) – the second overseas destination on Simon’s must-visit list. “I’m buying the Bradt guidebook to the Azores,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to go but haven’t quite made it yet, but I’m going to get there soon.”

It’s almost surprising that any countries have been left untrodden by the former Holiday presenter, so just how many nations has Simon visited? “I’ve got absolutely no idea,” he says, “and I suppose I’ve got better things to do than work it out. The great thing about coming here is stumbling across something and working out where I’d like to go next – I found myself looking at the Central Asia section and thought, ‘Ooh, I want to go there, there’s the Caucasus, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan – why haven’t I been there yet? Get on with it!’ – and hopefully I will do.”

If Alaska and the Azores are a little ‘out there’, what does Simon make of Sri Lanka and Burma, two destinations tipped to return to travellers’ radars in 2013? “I have a bit of an issue with Sri Lanka,” he explains. “Many people are saying it’s the place to go this year, but I can’t see that there’s anything much transformed.

“Of course the civil war is over, unfortunately in very bloody fashion, but the best news I’ve seen recently is that the Sri Lankan rupee is down 10 per cent against sterling, though this isn’t enough to make me want to go there just yet I’m afraid. With Burma, the potential problem is that everybody is travelling there, so I think I’ll give it a couple of years.”

Despite the emergence of new far-flung destinations, it’s unlikely the travel journalist will lose sight of his favourite three countries: France, Cuba and Scotland, the latter of which Simon shall be returning thanks to wife, Charlotte, being inspired by crime writer Ann Cleeves, whose books are set on Shetland.

“We’ll be travelling to the islands later this year,” he says, “which is very good news because the Scottish islands are quite possibly the most beautiful parts of the entire planet – so I’ll be checking out the Ordnance Survey maps and guidebooks here at Stanfords to see what I need to be consulting!”