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Featured Articles Los Angeles

Pink’s Hot Dogs

pinks.jpgHot dog stands rarely share clientele with the most exclusive restaurants in Los Angeles, but Pink’s Hot Dogs earn the business of even the most discerning patrons. Owned and operated by the Pink family since 1939, Pink’s Hot Dogs is considered a “locals” place that the whole city can claim.

What makes their hot dogs so special? It could be the special “family secret” chili-dog recipe, or inventive hot dog concoctions named after the celebrities that frequent their establishment, or the long line that gives you time to work your craving into a lather of lust for these one of a kind frankfurters.

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Croatia Featured Articles

Ivan Mestrovic

sculpture_poet_261462_l.jpgIf you don’t think that Ivan Mestrovic deserves a place among the greatest sculptors in history, perhaps because you’ve never heard of him, consider the following: Mestrovic created over fifty monuments in only two years in Paris, he sculpted throughout his whole life, from the discovery of his wood hand carvings that he had created while tending a flock of sheep as a boy though his apprenticeship and University and two World Wars, even through his retirement to the countryside in Croatia. He was also the first person to have a one man exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Beyond that, Mestrovic’s sculptures appear in a great number of public squares throughout Croatia, including sculptures in Dubrovnik and the Grgur Ninski statue with the lucky big toe standing outside of the gates at Diocletian’s Palace in Split.

Considered one of the best sculptors on religious themes to come out of Europe since the Renaissance, Mestrovic is something of a national icon in Croatia. His statues appear widely and have become valuable throughout the country and his former workshop in Zagreb is now a monument to his work and a place for exhibitions and art shows. In sculpting, Mestrovic combined the themes of symbol and myth because of their importance to the European spiritual climate. His work went through several periods and bursts in theme, from dark imagery and shapes to lighter and happier themes characterized by women holding musical instruments.

Born in 1863, Mestrovic tended sheep in a small village before a local artisan noticed his talent and brought him to be an apprentice for a year at his shop. From there, Mestrovic went on to study in France and Switzerland and, although he expressed wishes of returning to Split, stayed abroad during World Wars I and II. Before World War II, Mestrovic when through a period of producing public monuments almost exclusively, as if he felt he needed to leave public works behind before the war started. Mestrovic, however, made it through the fighting unscathed.

Mestrovic’s prolific artistic output influenced the art world greatly. Today his work is on display all over America and Europe and his name is synonymous with excellence in sculpting. But Mestrovic was not limited to one convention. His work also included the production of several major literary works and participation in some of Europe’s most influential political movements.

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Featured Articles Los Angeles

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

painting_paint_closeup_277362_m.jpgThe Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) features a little bit of everything in displaying more than 100,000 pieces of art from around the world and across many different disciplines and time periods.

From Africa to Europe to Japan and China and America, the only unrepresented region seems to be Antarctica, which has never had a very prolific output anyway.

The LACMA opened in 1910 as part of the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art. The museum did not have an art collection at the time, nor did it have the ability to acquire one, so artists loaned their work to the museum on a temporary basis so that they could be displayed.

Since then, its mission has evolved to include the display of a wide selection of art from around the world and, more specifically, to display that art and make it interesting and relevant for as wide an audience as possible.

Admission

Visiting the LACMA costs $9 for adults, $5 for students and seniors and children 17 and younger get in free. The museum is also free to visit after 5 p.m. every day until it closes at 8 p.m.

Special exhibitions require tickets for admission that are roughly double the regular ticket prices, but children are still free and ticket prices are reduced on weekdays.

The biggest trick to visiting the LACMA is figuring out parking. There are three paid parking lots around the museum campus charging varying rates from $5 to $8. There is also metered parking on 6th Street, Wilshire Boulevard and adjacent neighboring streets. Parking is limited during certain hours.

Location

The LACMA is located at 5905 Wilshire Blvd, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits. It closes on Wednesdays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, but is otherwise open throughout the year noon to 8 p.m. on weekdays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekends.

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Croatia Featured Articles

Rafting in Croatia

river_falls_niagra_246351_l.jpgThe big rubber rafts that Dalmatia Rafting supplies for your trip down the Cetina River are comfortable and soft and you might be reminded of the deck chair or lounger that you left behind on the beach in order to come out for a drift down the river. The similarities will soon leave your mind.

While the first few hours of the trip start on a lazy, winding river, the second half of the trip takes you down serious rapids that require group maneuvers, life jackets, and helmets for everyone on board.

Even so, most of your time is spent drifting down the beautiful river canyons of the Cetina river and like Croatia rafting in general, the point of the trip is to enjoy the outdoors rather than prove anything to yourself or the river by going through the biggest or toughest rapids.

Rafting is popular on the Cetina river, but the best place to go if you want to drift through canyons and hit the whitewater is Karlovac. With three rivers converging within just a few miles, there are multiple trips you can take from your base camp at Karlovac.

If you do decide to run the rivers around Karlovac, your first day trip should be the Kupa river. The Kupa runs through Risnjak National Park, allowing you to see the park from the inside out and see the complete path of the river as it winds its way along. Unfortunately, the Kupa river is only high enough to raft during the spring.

Your second day of rafting should be on the Dobra River. The Dobra was the first river in Croatia to have commercial rafting trips grace its waters and is one of the most popular places to get wet with whitewater. It is also one of only two rivers in Croatia with category IV rapids, the other being the river Una which makes up part of the Croatia/Bosnia border.

Rafting in Croatia typically runs between 20 and 40 Euros per person per day. Longer trips get more expensive and a lot of the rafting companies compete with each other for the lesser number of tourists during the late spring and early fall, before and after the rush of tourists come to join their river expeditions.

If you only have one day or have limited time in Croatia, you may want to try combining a tour of the Plitvice Lakes park with a rafting trip down the Korana river. Tour Plitvice first for a day and be amazed by the marvelous waterfalls, then follow the water that you watched cascade the day before down through the river and toward the ocean. There may be no better way to feel like you really saw one of the most impressive sights Croatia has to offer.

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Los Angeles Things to Do

Muscle (Venice) Beach

muscle-beach.jpgJoggers, runners, walkers, swimmers and dogs all go to the beach to work out, but none exercise quite like the guys and gals at Muscle Beach. With their comic book bodies, weightlifters come to Venice to perfect their ripped abs, swollen pecs, tree trunk sized legs.

Muscle Beach is part of Venice, although the original location was a few miles north in Santa Monica. The beach side weight room has been home to many famous bodybuilders including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Joe Gold, who founded Gold’s Gym, and a long list of world bodybuilding champions.

Weightlifting at Muscle Beach used to be restricted to the feeble equipment built in 1952 and placed right on the sand by the parks and recreation district. Now that the beach has gotten some notoriety, however, it has undergone a massive renovation and now features bleachers for spectators, a massive arch displaying a barbell over the entrance, and padded weightlifting, tumbling and jump-rope areas.

The original muscle beach held tumbling and gymnastics performances and competitions and most have now been moved to the Venice location. Each year, a bodybuilding championship is held at Venice Beach with the winner appearing in Iron Man Magazine. The contest is open to anyone for the $75 entry fee and attracts some of the top bodybuilding talent in Los Angeles, which can stack up with most places around the world.

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Croatia

Finding cheap hotels in Croatia just got easier

hotel croatiaRecently I’ve been confronted with having to look for cheap hotels in Croatia and the entire process proved to be time consuming and rather frustrating. But not anymore! We are proud to announce a brand new hotel search function on this site which allows you to get results from multiple travel-booking sites all at once. Finding cheap hotels in Croatia will sure be much easier from now on.

Once you get to the page, select the city you want to stay in and then you’ll have two options. There is a complete list with the hotels available in that area or you can input your travel details and then search multiple travel sites at the same time. Doing that enables you to quickly find hotels which have available rooms when you want to visit and to compare prices at a glance. This means you will be able to take your decision easier and faster.

Check out the new Croatia hotels section and you’ll easily see that the system is a very big help if you want to be sure you are getting the best price for the hotel of your choice.

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Articles Croatia

Random Croatia Photo of the Moment

Here’s a random photo from our Istria page of our Croatia photos page.

A glimpse of nature at Motovun castle.

Motovun castle

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Guatemala travel guide

Staying Safe in Guatemala

safety.jpgWhile Guatemala has a higher crime rate than some of the other countries in Central America, many tourists travel here every year without any problems. Staying safe in Guatemala is an easy thing to do if you follow a few simple rules and keep your wits about you. If you have traveled safely in other third world destination, you should have no problem staying safe in Guatemala.

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Guatemala

Chiminos Island Lodge

chiminos350One of the most popular eco lodges in all of Guatemala, has to be the Chiminos Island Lodge. The Chiminos Island Lodge is located about six and a half hours from Guatemala City, but most people come here from the nearby city of Flores. From Flores, is only about a one hour drive to Chiminos Island Lodge. Once here, be prepared to experience the nature of Guatemala in a very unforgettable way.

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travel guide Vietnam

Hoi An

japanese bridge hoi anHoi An was a very important seaport in the 16th century. Today it’s a small city on the coast of South China Sea and has been declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1999.

How to get to Hoi An

The closest airport to Hoi An is Danang. There are frequent flights from Hanoi and Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) into Danang, as well as some flights from the near-by countries.