When standing on the deck of Cunard's Queen Mary 2 in October 2008, Mr. and Mrs. Gregory from South Africa were enjoying the spectacle of sailing alongside QE2 and capturing the view on camera when disaster struck as the camera was accidentally dropped into the Atlantic. At the time, both ships were off the south coast of Ireland over the Continental Shelf and the Gregorys understandably thought their holiday photos were lost forever.
That was until Benito Estevez, a Spanish fisherman who was trawling the ocean last month, discovered the lost camera in his net. While the camera itself was damaged beyond repair, the photo memory card was amazingly intact.
The fisherman contacted both Cunard and the BBC, and the BBC managed to locate the couple in South Africa. The Gregorys have since been reunited with the camera and their photographs.
“In all my years in the travel industry I have never heard of such a heart-warming stroke of luck, and we at Cunard are delighted that Mr. and Mrs. Gregory have been reunited with their photos,” said Peter Shanks, president of Cunard Line. “The images are even more poignant as they depict the last transatlantic crossing of the great QE2 and can never be taken again.”
Swiss Tulip Festival: Every spring, Morges, Switzerland hosts a tulip festival on the shores of Lake Geneva. The festival lasts six weeks and presents 100,000 tulips of 300 varieties in Parc de l'Indépendance. The first varieties bloom in mid-April. Parc de l’Indépendance features several monuments at the mouth of the Morges River, which recall 1898, date of the independence of the Lake Geneva region.
Welcome to European Traveler!
Dear Fellow Traveler:
What can you expect when you travel to Europe?
Europe holds so much promise for a fun vacation, an exciting getaway, or an in-depth look at different cultures. If you've not traveled to Europe before, you'll want to check out the possibilities. And there are many.
You can see so many historical attractions that hundreds of books have been written just on the monuments, castles, fortresses, towns and cities, and ruling families through the years. If you just want to take a vacation, you can relax at one of the large metropolitan hotels and see the sights of a city like Vienna, Berlin, London or Madrid. If you like excitement, you can motorcycle through the Alps, have fun whitewater rafting down a river, or hike to the top of many of Europe's highest peaks.
With so many countries in Europe so close to one another, you can travel from country to country in a few hours, and think of the different cultures that exist in Europe that you can experience.
You can expect a lot from traveling to Europe. Tasting the foods and wines, and meeting the people are other reasons to go.
At European Traveler, we're trying to bring you a little taste of Europe so you can plan better before you go. We cover foods, lodging, travel and attractions and more. I hope you enjoy the detailed stories and spectacular photos of Europe we present.
Maybe I'll see you down the road in Europe soon. You never know!
Don Heimburger
Publisher
Holy Moly! A Cheese Train
How do you get cheese to market when it's made high in the Alps, and transportation is limited?
Every autumn for more than 30 years, the Swiss narrow gauge rack railway Schynige-Platte-Bahn has operated the Cheese Train.
The train is special because it delivers cheese produced by the Bergschaft Breitlauenen (a cooperative) down the mountain to Wilderswil, near Interlaken. The 2009 operation took place with locomotive He 2/2 62 and three wagons loaded with 5 1/2 tons of cheese. Photos by Hans Haesler/ courtesy Railway Update/Mathias Rellstab/
