Travel information on shopping and places of tourism information

SHOPPING

The Connecticut River Artisans Cooperative, Chester, features one-of-a-kind art and craft pieces including clothing, folk art, furniture, jewelry, paintings, photographs and pottery. The shop is open 10 am to 5 pm daily except Monday and Tuesday; from January to mid- March, it's open Friday through Sunday. Connecticut Coast Connecticut's coastline on Long Island Sound is long and varied. The western coast is crowded with industrial and commercial cities and suburban bedroom communities, all within the magnetic influence of New York City. The central coast, from New Haven to the mouth of the Connecticut River, is less urban, with historic towns and villages.

The eastern coast includes New London and Groton, both important in naval history, and Mystic, where the Mystic Seaport Museum brings maritime history to life. Here are the most interesting points along the coast, from west to east. NEW HAVEN Although it is home to one of the USA's most prestigious universities, this is no mere 390 Connecticut Coast New Haven college town.

Both business and industry shipping, manufacturing, health care, telecommunications power New Haven's economy more than student dollars. As you roll into town along 1-91 or 1-95, New Haven appears bustling and muscularit's still an important port, as it has been since the 1630s. But at the city's center is a tranquil core: New Haven Green, decorated with graceful colonial churches and venerable Yale University. History The Puritan founders of New Haven established their colony in 1637-38 at a spot where the Quinnipiac and other small rivers enter Long Island Sound. The new town was to be no haven of religious freedom: This was a theocracy, so only believers could be citizens, and the Bible was the law. The strictness of religious law was softened somewhat in 1665 when New Haven reluctantly joined the larger province of Connecticut.

It served as joint provincial capital (along with Hartford) from 1701 to 1875, testifying to its prominence during that time. Its prominence first came from the town's port, but by the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Yankee ingenuity had made New Haven an important manufacturing city as well. In 1702, a collegiate school was founded in nearby Clinton by James Pierpont. It soon moved to Old Saybrook, and in 1717 went to New Haven in response to a generous grant of funds by Elihu Yale. In l718, the name was changed to Yale in honor of the benefactor. Re-chartered in 1745, Yale grew extensively during the following century, adding 73.             

On July 2, 1839, the slave ship Amistad was sailing along the coast of Cuba with its 'cargo' of 55 Africans who had been abducted and forced into slavery. One of the captives, known to history as Joseph Cinque, managed to remove his shackles surreptitiously and led a rebellion of other captives against the European crew. The captain and cook were killed, but the mutineers spared the Spanish navigator so that he could guide the ship back to Sierra Leone for them. The navigator had other plans, however. Though he headed the ship eastward during the day when the sun's position made its course evident to the mutineers, at night he used the stars to head west, hoping to bring the ship to a port where he could get help. For two months the Amistad sailed back and forth, exhausting its supplies of food and water.

Finally it was sighted by a US Coast Guard ship, seized off Long Island and towed to New London, Connecticut. The Africans were accused of rebellion, transported to New Haven and imprisoned awaiting trial. The plight of the Amistad abductees became a cause célèbre among abolitionist forces in the state and the nation. A committee of concerned Christian abolitionists was formed to aid in their legal defense. The Amistad abductees' case went all the way to the US Supreme Court, and former President John Quincy Adams was persuaded to emerge from retirement to plead their case. The court found that they had been abducted illegally and therefore could not be held liable for mutiny when they sought their own freedom. 

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It still uses the historic vertical grills, and serves other sandwiches as well, most for less than $4.50. It's open 11 am to 4 pm (until 1 am Friday and Saturday); closed Sunday. Yankee Doodle Sandwich Shop  is a classic hole-in-the-wall American lunch counter Formica countertop, chrome and plastic stools with prices to match: hamburgers for $1.75, ham and cheese sandwiches for $3. It's open for breakfast and lunch daily except Sunday. Restaurants Claire's, at College, is the local favorite for vegetarian cuisine, eat-in or take-out. Bright and airy, it's always busy with students picking up healthy light meals ($5 to $7) or gooey desserts. Clear your own table when you're done. Bangkok Gardens  just off Chapel, is the center's most popular Thai eatery.

At lunch, big plates of pork, beef and chicken with vegetables cost only $5 to $6, and the special three-course lunch is only $7. At dinner, main courses range from $9 to $1l. It's open daily. Tibwin Grill at the corner of Crown, is an upscale New American bistro just a short stroll from the green. Grilled beef, lamb, pork and fowl turn on the spits as diners nibble exotic appetizers and quaff select wines and beers. Lunch comes to around $15 to $18, dinner $25 to $40. Despite the red-meat emphasis, it does have a few vegetarian dishes (this is a college town). It's open daily for lunch and dinner, Sunday for brunch only (noon to 3 pm). Want to try something different? New Haven is one of the few cities in New England with an Ethiopian-Eritrean restaurant. It's Cafft: Adulis a few doors north of the Tibwin Grill.

Eritrean cooking is distinguished by the use of sun-dried hot peppers called berbere, which are simmered in some dishes. An exotic dinner might cost $25 to $40 here, lunch half that. Scoozzi Trattoria at York next to the Yale Repertory Theatre, serves trendy Italian fare with strong New American cuisine accents. Their little pizzettes and other appetizers arc favorites with the beforeand after-theater crowd, who combine them with wine by the glass to make a light supper. More substantial fare includes creative pasta combinations and new variations on traditional Italian meat courses. Lunches cost $12 to $18, dinners $20 to $40. Scoozzi is closed Sunday. The Union League Cafe Chapel Sty is an upscale European bistro in the historic Union League building.

Expect a menu featuring continental classics along with those of nouvelle cuisine for about $15 to $22 per person at lunch, twice that at dinner. On weekends, only dinner is served, and the Sunday dinner is a fixedprice ($24) repast. Wooster Square, six blocks east of the green, is a mostly residential neighborhood, but it's famous for its pizza parlors. Frank Pepe's Wooster Sty serves good pizza, just as it has for decades, in spartan surroundings. Prices range from $5 to $20 per pic, depending on size and toppings. A nearby challenger to Pepe's is Sallie's Pizza 237 Wooster StY, younger but even more highly regarded by many New Havenites. Sweets Chapel Sweet Shoppe  at High, is every candy lover's pearly gates. High-quality sweets, chocolate and coffee beans fill the windows, the display cases and the loyal customers.It's almost impossible for children to walk by without walking in. Entertainment As a college town and a city of some size, New Haven has a lively evening entertainment scene. Theater & Ballet The well-regarded Yale Repertory Theatre and the Yale University Theatre companies both perform in a converted church at the corner of Chapel, with a full and varied program of performances fromOctober to May. The famous Long Wharf Theatre  at 1-95 exit 46, is down on the waterfront near the Howard Johnson, with a season extending from October through June. 

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Knowing the destination well would reduce the cost of journey and boarding charges. Understanding Places of travel interest and Travel packages, hotel information and hotel bookings procedures as well as hotel facilities and charges saves your money. Here are some travel information for you to explore the country.

The Inn at Iron Masters, on CT 44 in nearby Lakeville, can provide moderately priced lodging for $95 on weekdays, $135 on' Friday and Saturday nights, breakfast included. SALISBURY This pristine New England village is Connecticut's answer to the gracious towns of Massachusetts' Berkshire hills, just to the north across the state line. Salisbury prides itself on its beautiful inns, its good restaurants and its wealthy real estate brokers. The 23-room White Hart Inn on the village green right where CT 41 and US 44 meet, has the perfect front porch for watching the minimal activity in the town, and frilly chintz-filled rooms for $119 to $199. The dining room, called Julie's New American Sea Grill, serves all three meals. Just across US 44 is the 10-room Ragamount Inn open from May through October, which also has a good restaurant. Under Mountain Inn  is an 1.8th-century farmhouse that's perfect for a country getaway.

Rates for the seven rooms are $350 to $410 double for two nights, breakfast and dinner included. Tea-lovers will want to know about Mary O'Brien's Cbaiwalla which serves many varieties of tea, especially unblended Darjeelings (un blended teas are a tea-drinker's equivalent to estate-bottled wines, brewpub beer and single-malt scotches). Traditional accompaniments such as open-faced sandwiches, scones and shortbread are also served 10 am to 6 pm daily. Vermont Vermont is one of the most rural states in the union. We're talking rolling farmlands as green as billiard felt and littered with cows; backcountry roads where the only traffic is the local farmer's tractor; and the backbone of the Green Mountains standing tall. (In fact, the name Vermont is drawn from the French vert mOI1I, which means 'green mountain.') Vermont is small, with a population of only about half a million people.

 It has only one city worthy of the name Burlington with a population of a mere 50, 000. It's a land of towns and villages, self-sufficient in the way of the old-fashioned USA before jet planes and interstate highways. Some of its towns bear the scars of the Industrial Revolution: Once-proud 19Theentury brick factories sit by the riverside now somewhat forlorn and dispirited, recycled for storage or retail space. But many Vermont towns and villages are proud inheritors of the New England traditions of hard, honest work, good taste and staunch patriotism. Some could be virtual museums of pristine New England architecture and town planning. Vermont is busiest with visitors in winter, when its many ski slopes draw enthusiasts from Albany, New York; New York City; Boston; Hartford, Connecticut; and Montreal, Canada. But if you want to see lush green pastures, summer is the more splendid time, and fall foliage is positively glorious. 

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Sydney Travel information and Australia tourism Guide with in-depth information

SYDNEY GENERAL INFORMATION

Britain later decided to establish a penal colony in New Holland, as Australia was then known, Cook proposed Botany Bay as an ideal site. But on arriving with the First Fleet in 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip was apparently not convinced of Cook's choice. The fleet waited six days while Phillip explored the surrounding coastline, until finally, on January 26, 1788, he declared Port Jackson to be "the finest harbor in the world" and sailed the fleet through its headlands.

Once ashore, Phillip raised the Union Jack and proclaimed the Colony of New South Wales in the name of King George, and himself Governor of it. Phillip established his colony on lands controlled by Yura (alternatively spelt Eora or lora) clans some of the rock carvings in Sydney are over 40,000 years old. Although he endorsed a policy of non-violence towards the Aborigines, the settlers cleared the Yura's forests, restricted their access to traditional hunting and fishing grounds, and even pilfered their fishing nets and baskets and eventually their women.

Retaliation was inevitable. Isolated attacks were prevented from escalating into full-blown warfare by a smallpox epidemic in'1789, which almost annihilated the Aboriginal population (influenza, pneumonia and tuberculosis added to the devastation). Guerrilla attacks continued, though, led by angered warriors likePemulway, who speared the Governor's gamekeeper in 1790 and fought against the New South Wales Corps until he was killed in 1802. Although Britain continued to transport convicts to Sydney until 1840, the colony's steady growth owed more to land grants and other schemes that attracted thousands of free settlers. Convicts provided necessary labor (just below convicts on the social scale, young Aborigines were employed as servants and farmhands). Pioneers built homesteads up and down the coast, and in 1813 a track was finally cleared through the Blue Mountains, opening up the ferThe plains to the west.

In 1850-1851, the news of sizeable nuggets of gold found near Bathurst changed the face of the new colony. Fortune-seekers the world over set sail for Sydney Harbor. Sydney’s population doubled over the next 10 years. 

The first fleet of convicts and settlers arrived at Sydney Cove in 1788, and the colony of New South Wales grew rapidly to cover over half of Australia -encompassing modern-day Queensland, Victoria and parts of South Australia. Although today the state occupies only 10°;', of the continent it's roughly the size of California over a third of Australia's population live here, 96% of them within an hour’s drive of the coast. Geographically, New South Wales has a bit of everything.

The rugged Great Dividing Range stretches along the state's eastern seaboard. Marked by vertiginous outcrops, deep gorges, and rich soil supporting diverse cultivation, it rises to form the 74 For many visitors New South Wales is a land of perfect beaches, great surf  and outstanding nature (its 70 national parks cover nearly 40,000 sq km, or 15,400 sq miles). Yet the state has a rich, multifaceted and often brutal history. Archeological relics, Dreamtime stories and rock paintings remind visitors of the complex culture of the numerous Aboriginal clans who lived freely on these lands until 1770. The early penal colony, which eventually became the city of Sydney, constructed solid Georgian buildings that remain today inmates' quarters, churches and government buildings.

The subsequent era of exploration, free settlement and westward expansion, followed by the colorful gold rush years, left in its wake historic townships and tall tales throughout the state. BACKGROUND Captain Cook sailed into Botany Bay in 1770, naming it after botanist Joseph Banks' excitement at the strange and lush plant growth. Cook noted what he thought was a smaller harboring a little further north, .1I1d named this Port Jackson.

Canada Travel and tourism Hotel bookings travel packages air ticketing

TILLSON BURG & DELHI

These two small towns are in the centre of a flat, sandy, tobacco-growing region. The number of smokers has been declining rapidly in Canada so various crop alternatives are being sought to keep the area productive. One of them is hemp. On Hwy 3 west of Delhi, there is the Ontario Tobacco Museum, with displays on the history and production of tobacco. It's open daily through summer, and on weekdays only the rest of the year. For males, casual work picking tobacco starts in mid-August. Ask at the Canada Manpower offices in these towns. Jobs last roughly a month. It's hard work, but room and board are often thrown in with the wage and you can have a good time. Watch your valuables in the bunkhouse.

LAKE ERIE SHORELINE WEST

As the shallowest of the five Great Lakes, Erie long suffered the most with pollution. However, continuing environmental work has brought the waters back from the brink. Scattered along the lake's Canadian northern shoreline, from Windsor to Fort Erie, there are government parks, some with camping, some for day-use only for the tourists and travellers from across the world. Most are busy on summer weekends. Port Dover is a busy little summer resort with a beach, riverboat tours, numerous tourist shops, a lighthouse and the large, attractive Erie Beach Hotel, with popular dining rooms, right in the heart of town.

This is also a centre for commercial lake fishing. Local restaurants specialise in Erie perch and walleye although some people are leery of eating any - Tillsonburg & Delhi of the lower Great' Lakes catch due to possible chemical contamination. The Harbour Museum details the lake's fishing industry for Canada travellers. Turkey Point Provincial Park, and even more so, Long Point are good and popular. Despite an excellent beach at Long Point, the parks along the Lake Huron shoreline are superior for swimming. Also, beware of deer ticks at Long Point; be sure to read the available information on these serious pests.

Apart from these Lake Erie recreational orcas, the region is mainly summer cottages, small towns and farmland. The shoreline itself is surprisingly scenic at points with cliffs edging turquoise waters. Port Stanley has the agreeable atmosphere or an old, second-rate summer tourist town that doesn't care to be overly pretentious. It also has enough happening to not need to pander obsequiously to its visitors. It has a fine summer programme at the Port Stanley Theatre, 302 Bridge St, several low key restaurants, cafes and a pleasing waterfront location.