Matador Network's Blog, page 813

Trinity College Dublin wildflowers

Trinity College in Dublin is getting more nature-friendly, converting its former manicured lawn into a beautiful wildflower meadow. The lawn, at the college’s entrance, was removed earlier this week and replaced by a meadow that will bloom with wildflowers next spring.

The conversion was the result of a February vote, which polled Trinity’s staff, students, and members of the public, on whether or not the college should replace the lawn with wildflowers. The answer was a resounding yes as 90 percent of the 13,850 votes were in favor of the change.

Delighted to see our new wildflower turf rolled out on College Green today. All made possible by the 12,496 Trinity students, staff and members of the public who voted in favour of the move! #TCDWildflowers #SustainableTrinity #InspiringGenerations #Biodiversity pic.twitter.com/atKIsYfxfi

— Trinity College Dublin (@tcddublin) July 30, 2020

The flowers will include native Irish annuals and perennials, and feature bulbs and rhizomatous plants like wood anemones.

According to professor John Parnell, the chair of Trinity’s grounds and gardens committee, “The meadows will flower from spring to autumn and be left untouched over the winter months when pollinating insects, such as butterflies, hoverflies and bees, are not active. The green space outside our iconic Front Gate may look a little less tidy than it once did but will be more colourful and serve as a constant reminder of what nature looks like while underlining the increasingly important role we all have in protecting our environment.”

The goal of the project is to create space for nature in urban areas and increase the range of plant species available for pollinators.

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Beyonce Black is King review

“I’m not there yet, 100 percent,” a voice comes in over a black screen, “ya feel me? Like, I know I got the capabilities to, but sometimes I don’t know how to navigate.”

Then we see a wide shot, a river, a basket floating in it, like we know from the Old Testament.

A drone shot finds Beyoncé on a shallow beach, dressed in a white gown, bride-like, with not a man in sight. She is alone with an infant child, looking strong as hell, navigating this landscape armed only with her Blackness and her bare feet.

This is how Black is King, Beyoncé’s epic art film based on The Lion King and scored to the accompanying soundtrack, The Gift, opens. The film has been dubbed a “visual album,” a medium Beyoncé pioneered with Lemonade in 2016 and continues to expand on here to strikingly stunning results.

Black is King tells a story loosely garnered from The Lion King — we first meet Simba (as he is credited but never named aloud in the film) briefly as an infant, then as a young child. In this iteration, he is played by seven-year-old Nigerian actor Folajomi “FJ” Akinmurele, who made his acting debut in Beyoncé’s music video for the song “Spirit.”

If you were alive when the original The Lion King premiered, Black is King might feel revelatory. While Disney’s first iteration, the animated version which starred white actors in many of the starring roles, was visually spectacular and hugely successful, watching this may make you wonder why we tolerated it.

Casting Jonathan Taylor-Thomas and Matthew Broderick in their respective roles as Simba at different ages de-Africanized a movie literally set in Africa. But Black is King imagines a future in which that never happens again, or possibly reverts time to rewrite the past so it never happened at all.

“Look at the stars,” you hear James Earl Jones say over the image of Akinmurele’s slight body twisting in outer space, a silhouette against the glowing blue globe of our own Earth, “If you ever feel alone, just remember those kings will always be there to guide you.”

In this moment in the film, Beyoncé makes her relationship to Afrofuturism, a cultural aesthetic and philosophy that explores the intersection of African diaspora communities and technology, indisputable.

While she’s toyed before with the aesthetic and theme, in this work she’s dividing a beloved childhood story from its precious, cutesy beginnings and thrusting a more robust narrative around it. This work seems to be demanding a future where Blackness will not be ignored, nor divorced from African-ness. What many have seen as the ignorance to the trauma that Black people have faced seems more like the acceptance of and commitment to Afrofuturism, which Beyoncé, now clearly a multi-disciplinary artist, seems unlikely to steer from going forward in her career.

Maybe the most poignant passage in the film comes just about an hour in when we find the story reverting back to before where we began, with Beyoncé gently placing an infant in a basket, the same one we see rescued in the beginning, and set him afloat down the river. Next we see the camera arch over the edge of a waterfall, replete with a lens-flared rainbow. But as we peer over its edge, in what is somehow the most Kubrickian shot of the entire film — though we’ve already seen a young Simba as a literal space-baby — we cut to a grown Simba splashing into a sea-foam pool, his thick, gold chain suspended delicately about his neck in the water. He grips an artifact in his fist, and we are suddenly transported to the center of Johannesburg’s infamous Ponte City.

There we see the late South African actor and icon Mary Twala waiting there to greet him. Simba gives her the artifact; she looks shocked. But her arms rise into the air, and by whatever magic she instills into him, Simba’s well-heeled feet begin to rise gently from the ground, and then he’s propelled up, up, through the core of the Ponte and into the bright sky. “Salutations,” you hear Beyoncé monologue over the imagery, “to the survivors of the world. Our elders are tired.”

This was Twala’s second Disney film, having played Serafina’s grandmother in the eponymous 1992 musical. But despite her passing before the release of the final movie of her long and storied career, Twala’s son, Somizi, may have summed it up the best: “I remember Mama,” he wrote, accompanying a clip of his late mother in Black is King, “she lives in me.”

Nigerian artist Burna Boy also makes an appearance in the film. In 2019, he notably vowed he’d never return to South Africa in response to the xenophobic attacks in Johannesburg and Cape Town he experienced in September of that year, thus scrapping his chance to play at Constitution Hill on New Year’s Eve. But in a powerful reversal of his earlier renunciation of South Africa, Burna Boy appears in Black Is King alongside the likes of South Africa’s Moonchild Sanelly and Busiswa, with whom he was supposed to share that stage at Constitution Hill. In a year so fraught with turmoil, it makes you feel as if we’re on the verge of some kind of resolution.

But the release has not been without controversy.

Leading up to the film’s release, there was a growing backlash to Beyoncé’s portrayal of African people in the trailer for the project. The criticisms included objections to the use of white face paint, the rural landscapes, and the reliance on traditional African themes rather than contemporary ones.

“I wanted to present elements of Black history and African tradition, with a modern twist and a universal message, and what it truly means to find your self-identity and build a legacy,” Beyoncé wrote on her Instagram. Those influences are clearly represented in the jewel-toned colors of their dresses and monochromatic body paint, a clear nod to Ethiopian photographer Aïda Muluneh. The feel of the set dressing throughout feels as lush and regal as an Ebony G. Patterson installation. When Jay Z finally appears we feel like he has stepped freshly from a Kehinde Wiley portrait, and at one point we even see Pharrell dancing around inside a real-life Jeremiah Quarshie painting.

It’s worth pointing out, however, that many Africans felt the representations of their culture they had seen so far in her work were too stereotypical. But among what some viewers might deem the appropriative use of traditional Africanisms is also the clear, legitimate influences of contemporary Black and African artists.

Beyonce has also been called out for the fact that she has never launched an African tour and only played a handful of events on the continent, most recently Global Citizen in Johannesburg. That oversight came up again when viewers noticed that Disney+, where the film is streaming exclusively, is not available anywhere in Africa. This problem was eventually rectified, striking a deal with several African distributors to air the film beginning August 1, one day after the Disney+ premiere.

Despite what 2020 has dealt us, it’s hard to not feel Beyoncé’s optimism when you watch her film. It’s difficult not to feel the infectious charge of the connections within the Black diaspora. And if nothing else, you can be assured that as you’re watching, that millions of other Black people around the world are watching, too.

And hey. Maybe that’s enough.

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Teardrop tents in Belgium

Humanity as a whole has shed a lot of tears in 2020. Now, your lodging can accurately reflect your state of mind. In the park surrounding Hex Castle, in Belgium’s Limburg province, part-tent, part-balloon, and part-treehouse accommodations called Tranendreef have been built to resemble teardrops.

Photo: Visit Limburg

Although they are as much art pieces as they are shelters, Tranendreef were originally designed for activists fighting against the construction of highways through forests in England. While they were trying to prevent the trees from being cut down, the tents would provide a safe and comfortable place to stay, in the trees.

teardrop shape tent Visit Limburg

The tents are fitted with windows, a mattress, a bench, and storage ledges. The tents are also close to two cycling initiatives in the Limburg area. The first, “Cycling through Water,” is a trail cutting through a pond in Bokrijk’s woodland. “Cycling through the Trees” is a trail through the forest in Bosland where cyclists bike in a circular pattern up 2,300 feet to enjoy views of the forest’s canopy.

Photo: Visit Limburg/Facebook

Travelers are able to camp in the unique tree tents through September 30, and prices start at 70 euros ($82) a night.

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The post These teardrop-shaped tents are the coolest way to camp this summer appeared first on Matador Network.

Isle of Rum looking for residents

Right now is the perfect time to move away from cities to less-densely populated spots, and there are few better and more remote places than Scotland’s Inner Hebrides islands. The Isle of Rum, a small island in the archipelago located 30 miles off the coast of Scotland, is looking for new residents to add to its current population of around 30 to 40.

Photo: Coatesy/Shutterstock

The island’s community trust is seeking applicants to rent four two-bedroom eco-homes — currently under construction just outside the village of Kinloch, which is the island’s only settlement. Rent is a modest $590 per month and ideal applicants would commit to stay two years or longer. The houses will be available by September 2020.

The island is looking for individuals and families who are eager to contribute to the small community by volunteering and helping organize events. Particularly, the trust is looking for hard-working applicants who are either currently self-employed or are keen to become self-employed in the fields of food production, catering, tourism, and child care. Skilled workers in construction are also in high demand.

Photo: Henner Damke/Shutterstock

The Isle of Rum is a National Nature Reserve, with an abundance of deer, wild goats, ponies, and golden- and white-tailed eagles. Kinloch, where the houses are located.

The application deadline is August 28, 2020, and you can download the form online.

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Bikaner Camel Festival in Rajasthan

In Rajasthan, in northwestern India, camels are not mere desert dwellers: They’ve long been a source of income, transportation, security, status, and even companionship for Rajasthanis, who in turn have a near-reverence for the mammal. Every January in the city of Bikaner, this respect and admiration is channeled into a multi-day camel fest filled with parades, races, beauty pageants, fireworks, and much more revelery. A tribute to Rajasthan’s camels, the annual Bikaner Camel Festival is also a big draw for tourists. This is everything you need to know about it, from where to join in the festivities to what to expect when you do.

Visiting the land of camels

Photo: Zzvet/Shutterstock

Bikaner sits in the middle of the Thar Desert, or Great Indian Desert, a few hours from the Pakistan border. It’s known throughout the region as the “land of camels.” Historically, Bikaner was the biggest camel breeding center in Rajasthan, and today, its National Research Center on Camel conducts important studies on everything from camel genetics and ailments to fertility and dairy potential. Visitors also come to interact with the camels there.

Photo: Roop_Dey/Shutterstock

Bikaner is also famous for its architecture, notably the 16th-century Junagarh Fort, which serves as the backdrop for the annual camel festival. Rajasthan’s Department of Tourism stages the fair every January to honor the region’s camel population and attract tourists. Small celebrations are held throughout the region, but in Bikaner, there’s nothing small about the camel festival.

Experiencing the annual blowout

Bikaner’s camel festival spans two days. A lot happens in that time: Camels are dressed in colorful blankets, bridles, and accessories and paraded through the streets of Bikaner, from the Junagarh Fort to Dr. Karni Singh Stadium. Other camels may have their fur shaved into intricate patterns, mirroring the ornamentation found within the fort complex.

Photo: AbhishekMittal/Shutterstock

This camel-decorating and fur-cutting is not just ceremonial, however: It’s competitive. Once dressed in their desert best, Bikaner’s camels are entered into beauty pageants and judged on their adornments, as well as entered into dancing competitions. The people of Rajasthan also participate in pageants of their own to name that year’s Miss Marvan and Mr. Bikana.

Photo: Andrey Gontarev/Shutterstock

In the past, the festival’s second day has kicked off with a heritage walk through Bikaner’s old town from the 15th-century Rampuria haveli to the Bikaji Ki Tekri fort. Other activities might include camel races, music and dance performances, and puppet or acrobatics shows. During these puppet shows, viewers will get a glimpse of Bikaner’s history and folklore. At the end of the second day, a fire dance and fireworks show traditionally close out the festivities.

Participating in the festivities

While the Bikaner Camel Festival is a spectacle, there are also activities designed to encourage participation: Think tug of war, water-pot races, folk dance lessons, and turban-tying competitions for foreigners. Festivalgoers may even be allowed to help decorate the camels. In between, they can get an even more literal taste of the festivities by sampling delicacies made from camel milk, notably tea, candies, and ice cream. Food stalls are set up throughout the city center alongside souvenir stands selling jewelry, leather goods, and a variety of handicrafts.

Before you leave

Photo: Nicola Pulham/Shutterstock

If you plan to attend the Bikaner Camel Festival in January, consider staying at the Laxmi Niwas Palace or Lallgarh Palace, both royal residences turned hotels. Lalgarh Palace is also a museum. There, you can arrange a visit to the National Research Center on Camel or get more information about attending the annual camel fair.

When you’ve had your fill of camel fun, be sure to make time for Bikaner’s historic sites. Beyond the Junagarh Fort, visitors would be remiss to skip the Seth Bhandasar Jain and Shri Laxminath temples. To learn more about the region and its royal family, make time for the Prachina Museum and Cultural Center and Sri Sadul Museum, as well. Even after the camel festival has ended, visitors can tour the local bazaars to stock up on mementos from their trip.

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Positive sustainability news July

This is The Climate Win, the most positive sustainability news around the world every week.

This week we look at sustainable alternatives to plastics and other disposable travel gear. Single-use plastic use is up during the coronavirus pandemic as businesses and citizens try to minimize physical contact with each other. But sentiment about single-use plastics continues to sour. In January, IBM and the National Retail Federation released data from a study showing that 69 percent of consumers in the United States and Canada prefer to buy products from brands viewed as sustainable. A third of those surveyed said they would stop buying a product if they viewed the producer as not in line with their belief system, and the same number stopped buying from at least one of their favorite brands in 2019 for the same reason.

The American Marketing Association echoed the sentiment with study results showing that “mass media — through coverage of climate change or global warming — helps the generation and enforcement of a social norm regarding desirable socially conscious behavior.”

In other words, the public knows it wants to buy green — and businesses need to listen if they want its money. The “win” here is that across many industries, entrepreneurs and established businesses are listening, especially when it comes to single-use plastics. Even as the pandemic has stifled many efforts to curb these disposables, many businesses continue to move ahead with them in their long-term planning.

For travelers considering a summer road trip or post-pandemic vacation, one thing is clear — buying eco-friendly travel products has never been easier. Both established and upstart product concepts are helping us change not just the way we travel, but what we bring along with us. EarthSuds is one such company, tackling head-on the issue of travel-friendly shampoo and conditioner. The brand produces tablets of dry shampoo, conditioner, and even body soap, sold in recyclable boxes. The user crushes the tablet in their hand, adds water, and applies, eliminating bottles that, even when marked as recyclable, typically aren’t. “[The bottles] are filtered out at recycling facilities because the bottles are too small, have a low-quality grade of plastic, and are often still contaminated with soap,” the company says on its website. Its tablets were originally found only in hotels, but are now available for direct sale due to customer demand.

Travel brands like EarthSuds that start with a mindset of sustainability should absolutely be applauded. But equally deserving of recognition are those that audit and call out detrimental facets of their own supply chain. United By Blue did just that. The 10-year-old clothing and travel products brand built its reputation on being green; it hosted beach clean-ups, produced clothes made of organic materials, and sold its popular line of soaps in a recyclable cardboard container.

But then the brand conducted an audit of its system, with a heavy focus on plastics. The company did an internal review and publicly pledged to quit single-use plastics for good.

“When it became clear to us that, although we have been actively cleaning up our world’s oceans and waterways for 10 years via our cleanups, our supply chain was also contributing to the problem in the first place by using unnecessary plastics,” founder Brian Linton said to Matador Network. “We conducted our plastic audit in 2019 by reviewing all sources of plastics in all stages of our supply chain and performing a review process that quantified the outputs. We then began working closely with our suppliers and service providers to remove all single use plastics.”

Following the review, the company stopped using plastic polybags to wrap its products, swapping them out for “a paper sleeve held tight by a sticker,” Linton says. “This same process has been repeated with our all vendors, and hence we have been able to drastically reduce our plastic consumption in less than a year.”

This is a win for the company as well as a win for big-picture business thinking — even in the year of takeout dining.

More Climate Wins

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced this week that the UK will build thousands of miles of curb-protected bicycle lanes that will “kick off the most radical change to our cities since the arrival of mass motoring,” as he was quoted in Forbes. The plan aims to build on London’s curb-protected cycleways and will include cycling training, bicycle “prescriptions” from the country’s health service, and major overhauls to the country’s Highway Code.

The newly-minted permanent funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund could lead to consistent protections for large swaths of land in the US, the Colorado Sun reported this week. Using the recent protection of 10 ranches along the Navajo River Watershed in southern Colorado — an effort 30 years in the making — conservationists are optimistic that the importance of waterways and their surrounding watersheds can be legally emphasized to create protected spaces.

Greta Thunberg has been busy during the pandemic. The Swedish climate activist was awarded the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity for her efforts to spur action to combat global climate change. It comes with a one million euros ($1.178 million) prize package, which Thunberg will donate to organizations working to further her cause.

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The history of the gin cordial

Few spirits are as English as gin. In the 18th century, England experienced a period of dangerous consumption known as the Gin Craze. Then, in the mid-1800s, British sailors began mixing it with tonic water, inventing the now ubiquitous gin and tonic. Today, gin is still the most popular spirit in England — outselling even whiskey.

That’s the history of gin that most people know. But there’s another, less-recognized, layer to the story. It starts with sloe, a marble-sized plum-like berry that grows in blackthorn bushes all over England. In the 17th century, these thorny bushes became hedgerows that naturally fenced and protected private property.

One upshot of this sudden proliferation of hedgerows is that an abundance of sloe berries grew among the leaves. The ever crafty British country person, typically a woman who would have been in charge of all domestic matters, took full advantage of the annual sloe harvest — often by soaking the berries in alcohol. Thus, sloe gin was born.

“It was just another way of preserving the fruit,” says David T. Smith, author of How to Make Gin and Forgotten Spirits & Long Lost Liqueurs. “Now a lot of people in the UK have their own recipe for sloe gin, how their mother made it or like grandmother made it. It’s very much a family kind of thing.”

Women typically harvested and preserved the sloe berries and other fruit around their homes for recipes throughout the year. Women also hosted social events where sloe gin and other fruit-infused alcoholic beverages would have been served. If you were to attend a social gathering in England around the late 1700s, there’s a good chance a woman — either the head of household or her housekeeper — had a hand in every element of the cocktail you sipped while socializing with your neighbors.

“Some of the first cocktail ingredients, and some of those recipes for liquors and cordials we now see as essential to a lot of traditional classic cocktails, evolved from women making recipes for the home,” says Nicola Nice, founder of the gin brand Pomp and Whimsy, which aims to recognize the contributions of women in distilling and bartending.

There was a reason that fruit-infused gin cordials — a low ABV, sweetened gin that was sipped neat as often as it was mixed into a cocktail — proliferated during this time: Up until the mid-1800s, gin was often distilled at home and by companies like Plymouth (which was established in 1793) in pot stills. Early distilling methods often resulted in a low-quality, harsh gin. Added sugar and fruit helped smooth out the taste by hiding the gin’s impurities.

Smith explains that the Brits used many different types of fruit, including apples, strawberries, and blackberries, to flavor their spirits, as evidenced by recipe books of the time. The most famous of these is probably Mrs. Breeton’s Book of Household Management, published in 1861, though there were many others, including Eliza Acton’s Modern Cookery for Private Families and Elizabeth Raffald’s The Experienced English Housekeeper.

Isabella Beeton, the editor of Mrs. Breeton’s Book of Household Management, aimed her encyclopedic, nearly 2,000-page manual at the emergent middle class — people with a disposable income and time on their hands because they were no longer spending every free moment working but who still weren’t wealthy enough to have servants that could take over day to day management of the home. It included recipes for vanilla and strawberry liqueurs, cider, and Pimms cups, among other cocktails, that women had not only been serving in their homes and passing down to their daughters for decades, but which were also written down in their own private household manuals.

Beeton’s book solidified the housewife’s status as the “chief entertainers,” as Nice puts it, of the era. Women were mixoglisists in their own right, developing cocktail recipes enjoyed by their immediate social circle. Women remained arbiters of the domestic realm for much of history, but the gin cordial was unfortunately destined to become old-fashioned.

In 1831, Aeneas Coffey popularized the patent still (also called a column still), which uses a process called continuous distillation. The result is a much cleaner, purer spirit that is cheaper to produce, although its use is limited to commercial distilleries. Though sweetened gins were still popular in the mid-to-late 1800s, as evidenced by those household manuals published throughout the 19th century, continuous distillation did signal that eventually cordials would fall out of favor, because the higher quality spirit meant fewer off flavors that had to be masked.

But Smith says that fruit-flavored gin cordials experienced a renaissance in the 1920s, ‘30s, and ‘40s. During this period, which included prohibition and the decade after, the cocktail party became an institution of American high society — and that’s where the gin cordial found it’s audience across the pond.

“I think the cocktail party, which emerged in the early part of the 20th century, is really an extension of what [people], especially women, were doing anyway, which was having this kind of ladies’ gathering in the window between afternoon tea and the dinner party,” Nice says. “The earliest published reference to [the cocktail party] was in 1917s, [hosted by] a woman in St. Louis named Clara Bell Walsh. This new phenomenon was a smashing success in society.”

In 1920, just three years after Walsh’s sensational social event, Prohibition hit the United States. The alcohol ban lasted 13 years but didn’t squash the cocktail party. In fact, it only made it more popular. According to Nice, Prohibition pushed drinking from the bars into the home, solidifying the cocktail party as the most popular way to socialize of the era. By the time prohibition ended, the cocktail party had spread from the cities into suburban areas.

Just as in 1800s England when the cheap needed sugar to mask its flavor, Prohibition-era bootleg gin needed to be sweetened. Gin cordials and other fruit-flavored or sweetened cocktails would have almost certainly been served at these gatherings. Today, the cocktail party is still a beloved and widespread tradition — though most people are expected to bring their own bottle of wine.

Because women ruled the kitchen in the era when gin became the go-to spirit in England, they touched every aspect of its production: They were among the first people to infuse home distilled gins with fruit, developed the recipes that were passed down through generations of women and were eventually published by enterprising homemakers, and helped solidify the tradition of serving drinks and food at social gatherings through their duties as hostess that would eventually lead to the cocktail party. Their contributions were confined to the home simply because women of the era were excluded from most professional fields, but it’s safe to say that without their savvy minds and hardworking spirits, the gin cordial simply would have never become a widespread and popular drink that still appears on cocktail menus today.

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JetBlue UV cleaning system

The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a wave of innovation when it comes to new sanitation measures. Airlines and airports specifically are creatively finding new ways to give guests a safer travel experience and the peace of mind to actually book a trip. JetBlue, for example, has already started using a new robotic disinfectant machine that claims to clean the whole cabin in under 10 minutes with the aid of UV light.

Photo: Honeywell

The Honeywell UV Cabin System shines a UV light from the ceiling to the floor and works up and down the aisle. The system disinfects high-touch areas like the bathroom and is designed to thoroughly clean the cabin in 10 minutes or less.

UV lights are thought to be able to reduce viruses and bacteria, including COVID-19, though no testing has yet been completed. The ease of wheeling the machine on and off the aircraft means the entire disinfecting process can be done quickly, greatly reducing downtime between flights.

Photo: Honeywell

In a press release, president and COO of JetBlue Joanna Geraghty said, “As we look to add additional layers of protection by utilizing cutting-edge technology, we have identified the Honeywell UV Cabin System as a potential game changer when it comes to efficiently assisting in our efforts to sanitize surfaces onboard.”

JetBlue is currently testing eight of the UV Cabin Systems at JFK Airport and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International airport as part of a 90-day pilot program.

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Berlin wants to transform its parks

Avid partygoers are hurting this summer. Berlin is one of the world’s most famous destinations for clubbings, but since the start of the pandemic, Germany’s capital has been party-free. Despite the loosening of restrictions, the nightlife industry can’t rebound in full right now, but city authorities are trying to revive some of the city’s legendary energy by converting outdoor spaces into open-air venues.

The proposal calls for streets, squares, and parks to be converted into open-air areas that nightlife venues can rent. Ramona Pop, senator for economic affairs, sent a letter to Berlin’s district mayors encouraging them to consider this creative use of space. Last week, she told Berliner Morgenpost, “Berlin misses its diverse club scene. That’s why…we want to create legal opportunities to party in public areas for clubs and Berliners.”

Pop hopes that the new open-air venues will be usable in the next few weeks, since summer is the perfect season to promote outdoor events and parties.

The open-air campaign is partly a response to the increasing number of illegal raves taking place around the city recently. Open-air clubs would give Berliners a safe, legal outlet to party in a time when people desperately need to blow off steam.

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Venice wants to introduce entry fees

Tourism numbers in Venice have been down dramatically since COVID-19 gripped Europe, but the city is already looking ahead to when tourism rebounds and overcrowding once again becomes an issue. To mitigate overtourism, local officials are already devising a plan to curb the number of day visitors.

The plan calls for charging an entry fee to anyone not staying overnight in Venice, to better control the number of people coming in and out of the city each day. The plan was supposed to take effect this summer, but has been delayed a year due to the pandemic. In high season daytrippers would be charged $12, while the low season cost will be $3.50.

In a press conference last week, Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said that the city may also install electronic turnstiles to help enforce the new measure. The fee, however, would only apply to tourists, with residents, workers, and students able to enter for free with a virtual key on their phones.

To ensure entry, tourists would have to book their spots in advance, and scan a ticket at one of the entry points. Although tourism likely won’t return to normal levels for a little while, the city will be prepared once it does.

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