Travel news bites

5th Mar 2010

Under the Sea

An under­wa­ter art museum off the coast of Mex­ico has announced that they are soon to sink more than 400 con­crete sculp­tures down onto the seabed. The project started over a year ago, and is due to be fin­ished in 2011, mak­ing it the world’s largest under­wa­ter sculp­ture garden.

Part time monk

A monastery in Aus­tria is open­ing up its doors to men look­ing for a week­end free from sin. They are offer­ing the chance to become a monk for a week­end, in the hope that the men will be con­verted to the lifestyle and stay. The scheme started last Octo­ber and is com­pletely free of charge. So far three men are con­sid­er­ing the per­ma­nent change.

Mickey Mouse degrees?

A Uni­ver­sity in Bologna, Italy really takes the bis­cuit or wafer if you will, when it comes to ridicu­lous degrees. The Gelato Uni­ver­sity attracts 6,000 stu­dents a year and is the world’s only uni­ver­sity teach­ing the art of ice-cream producing.

Eurostar endorse employ­ees’ use of mobile phones

Unfor­tu­nately the Eurostar’s bad luck con­tin­ues, with break­downs occur­ring fre­quently. A recent power fault called for staff to use the light from their mobile phones to evac­u­ate a train con­tain­ing more than 740 pas­sen­gers, as no torches were available.

The Pope’s stance on ‘vir­tual’ nudity

Pope Bene­dict XVI has entirely unex­pect­edly entered the row on air­port body scan­ners, claim­ing that the integrity of pas­sen­gers is being breached. The high-tech scan­ners have the abil­ity to strip pas­sen­ger vir­tu­ally naked, and have pre­vi­ously been protested about by civil lib­er­ties campaigners.

Rugby World Cup 2011 tick­ets on sale

Tick­ets for the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand have been released for sale online. Pack­ages start at around £1,849 per per­son includ­ing flights, accom­mo­da­tion and entrance tickets.