Towards the end of October, the cobbled streets of Oaxaca are not only filled with the usual stream of tourists who come to enjoy the rich culture and cuisine. Around ever corner and every alleyway lurk papier-mâché skeletons bedecked in their finery, and otherworldly beings setting out to spook. Shop windows are filled with skulls and bony beings carefully crafted in sugar or chocolate, and decorative altars to the dead are erected in hotel lobbies.
But don’t be afraid. This annual festival of the dead, Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is an uplifting celebration. While the evenings buzz with frantic street parties, the traditional activities centre mainly around homes and cemeteries as families welcome back those who have passed on for this briefest of visits. The spirits of the town’s children are the first to return on 31 October, with 1 November the time of the adult spirits and 2 November marking the night of farewell. As important a feature on the calendar as Christmas, this annual event coincides with Halloween, but is quite different from the witches and ghouls you may be familiar with – instead merging the traditions of All Hallows’ Eve, brought to Mexico by Spanish colonisers, with the pre-Colombian traditions of Mexico’s indigenous peoples.
The dead are depicted as smiling and dancing, and are greeted with music and a selection of their favourite foods piled high on the decorative altars. Graves in the cemeteries are decorated with flowers and candles by the friends and families, with many spending the night there to reflect and reminisce.
The Gobbins cliff path wraps its way around the dramatic coast of County Antrim in Northern Ireland – and you’ll find the highway to exhilaration if you take up the challenge of this mile of wonder.
The magnificently restored Edwardian attraction features a series of tubular and suspension bridges, a staircase, caves and tunnels carved through the basalt. It offers a white-knuckle mix of adventure, rugged beauty, spectacular views, heritage, flora and fauna. In all, walkers must brave 23 metal bridges and water-splashed gantries installed along sheer cliff faces. Strictly for thrill-seekers and those who can handle a bracing climb, the route offers not just a walk along a cliff top but also below sea-level experiences of the caves and bridges.
Just a short drive from Belfast, the Gobbins is in Islandmagee, a welcoming peninsula just off the start of the Causeway Coastal Route, and another jewel in its crown. The site also boasts a visitor centre featuring an exhibition on the building of the Gobbins, its history from Edwardian times and the geology and ecology of Islandmagee. If you are not up to the walk, a more relaxing way to see the entire Gobbins Cliff Path is on one of the boat tours from Islandmagee. Near to the celebrated sites of the Giant’s Causeway, the Glens of Antrim, Bushmills Distillery, Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge and much more, the Gobbins is a reimagined triumph waiting to be explored.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens may be set in a galaxy far far away, but you don’t need a spaceship to reach the craggy peaks of Skywalker’s secluded hideout. With the help of a sailing ship, or just a small boat, sci-fi fans can sail 12 kilometres off the west coast of Ireland to Skellig Michael, a rugged outcrop that transformed from medieval Christian monastery to Jedi hermitage for the film.
Rising improbably from the Atlantic, one of the highlights of Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way, the island has attracted both admirers and those seeking solitude for centuries. Monks moved ashore in the sixth century, enduring isolation and the occasional Viking rampage over the next 600 years, before abandoning the lonely outpost in the late twelfth century. During their time on the island they carved hundreds of stone steps to the summit, where they established an isolated monastery.
The Skelligs’ charms are not only confined to past glories. Along with their sister group, the Blaskets to the north, the Skelligs support some of the largest collections of manx sheerwater and puffins in the world.
Skellig Michael – and neighbouring Little Skellig – have featured in ancient Irish legends, but it wasn’t until 2014 that these remote peaks welcomed their strangest visitor yet… one of the biggest movie-making phenomena in history.
The World Heritage-listed ruins that sit on the island have remained incredibly well preserved thanks to their remote location and little interest from travellers until The Force Awakens hit the screen.
The neatly stacked shelves and colourful displays of Nishiki Market’s 126 shops and stalls inspire both curiosity and hunger. Although camera-clutching foreigners can be found wandering the 390-metre strip under the shelter of the checkered stained-glass roof, this is no tourist trap – it’s a functioning market packed with fresh, locally produced and procured goods, known by some as the ‘kitchen of Kyoto’.
Glittering fish and gnarled molluscs are carefully laid out on beds of crushed ice, vast wooden barrels are filled with rice to one side and green tea on the other, and trays of crayon-bright sweets add blasts of colour to the scene. Less easy to identify are the yellow-smeared bulbs crammed in wooden crates, or the wood-like sticks stacked side by side. Although its name literally means ‘brocade market’, Nishiki actually started off as a fish market, with the first store opening as early as 1311 and others soon springing up around it. You can still find an incredible array of seafood here, but there are plenty of other items also on sale, as well as several small restaurants close at hand, serving dishes that are just as exciting as the raw ingredients.
The sacred River Ganges has long been a massive tourist drawcard because of its immense significance – both spiritual and practical – to the people who live along it. Fittingly, the vast majority of visitors keen to have an encounter with the river god tend to head to the city of Varanasi to glimpse its grey waters and the throng that surrounds it. But this arm of the river, called the Hooghly, is just as fascinating.
Take a cruise along the water and pray for a sighting of one of the river’s resident Gangetic dolphins as you take in the crumbling edifices of the British Raj, the Howrah Bridge, the funereal burning ghats and temples such as the Dakshineswar Kali Temple. You can also take in some fascinating scenes of daily life – the vibrant fabrics laid out to dry on the river banks, the bullocks wading through the khaki shallows or the mischievous children splashing their way through bath time.
A cemetery isn’t your typical setting for a summer night’s entertainment, but Cinespia at Hollywood Forever Cemetery isn’t your typical cinema. Thousands of people flock to the cemetery when the weather warms to catch classic films under the Californian night sky against the backdrop of a historic Hollywood landmark.
Picnic on the open lawn lined with LA’s signature palm trees and listen to DJs play until sundown. Then sit back with a bottle of wine (no spirits allowed) for a surreal cinematic experience at the final resting place of some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. If you’re lucky one of Hollywood’s A-listers might even make an appearance (in the flesh, not the film). This is a BYO event, bring a blanket or chair – just make sure doesn’t surpass the 68-centimetre height limit.
Forget tourist-heavy Angkor Wat. Some 40 kilometres east you’ll find Beng Mealea, a large unrestored temple that’s completely overrun by nature. Built in the twelfth century, the temple is surrounded by a 45-metre-wide moat (mostly dry) and once marked the centre of an Angkorian-era town.
Now in a state of disrepair, the maze-like ruins are best navigated with a guide. To access the most interesting parts you’ll need to climb over large stones, up walls and around dense foliage. It’s sweaty work but worth the effort.
Equal parts eerie and amazing, this underwater gallery of more than 500 life-size sculptures brings new meaning to interactive art. Occupying 420 square metres of seabed off the coast of Cancún, the Museo Subacuático de Arte is a haunting garden of human faces and bodies. The sculptures, created by dive instructor and graffiti artist Jason deCaires Taylor, surrender to the marine environment over time, transforming into a unique artificial reef that is constantly evolving.
The reef is a magnet for snorkellers and divers, and also helps promote the recovery of sensitive ecosystems by luring visitors away from natural reefs vulnerable to human impact. The museum can also be enjoyed from a glass-bottom boat.
This monument to one of Germany’s favourite foodstuffs is as interactive as it is interesting (if sausages are your thing).
It is exactly as you would picture a museum that pays homage to hotdogs to be, with bun-shaped couches, artistically sculpted fries and glass cabinets explaining spices, flavours and all the other specifics of making the perfect currywurst.
Snag tastings are included in the tour and there is even a van set up inside for anyone who has ever dreamed of what being a street vendor must be like.
This is food and fun right in the heart of Berlin, and a must for all those who consider themselves sausage connoisseurs.
There is nothing on earth like Tasmania’s MONA. From the rumours surrounding its enigmatic, casino-busting creator, David Walsh, to its cavernous spaces more akin to a Bond villain’s lair than an art gallery, Australia’s largest privately funded museum has fast become one of the country’s seriously hot spots.
If you’re thinking it’s not worth hopping Bass Strait just for a museum, then think again. Twice a year, Walsh and his minions bring Tassie to life with MONA’s dual festivals: Dark Mofo in June and MONA FOMA in January. The two seven- to 10-day events are extensions of the museum’s bacchanalian themes, fusing international and local art, music, food and drink into a defiant and ballsy contradiction to any festival Australia has on offer.
In one day you can fill your stomach with locally sourced food while listening to Tibetan throat singing, experience sensory overload as international composers choreograph a giant industrial laser, and lose your mind to The Presets as they blow the roof off Macquarie Wharf.
The best part, however, takes place after the sun goes down. Without a doubt one of the highlights of both events is Faux Mo, the festival’s after-party. Held on each evening of the program, this sweaty, hedonistic communion will have you cheek to cheek with transvestite burlesque dancers, throwing your hands up in the air in a converted coin laundry and wishing on everything you hold dear that they don’t announce last drinks.
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