Welcome to this edition of the Carnival of Cities, and let’s give a HUGE shout-out to last week’s host, Pam at the Nerd’s Eye View blog.

Thanks to some carnival administrative glitches, she ended up with a honking big pile of posts, but still arranged and published them all.  Thank you, Pam!

Next week’s host is the excellent Less Than a Shoestring blog (”Budget Travel Tips for People With No Budget,”) so send in your one, non-spammy post about any aspect of a single city by noon Tuesday, August 26, using our carnival submission form.

We have an exciting and unique batch of cities this week….

Cities in the Middle East

Damascus, Syria   Caitlin Fitzsimmons gives us Photo Friday: Pilgrims at Sayyida Zainab Mosque from her Roaming Tales blog, saying, “Religious tourism - Shia Muslims mainly from Iran and Iraq travel to pay homage to the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammed at Sayyida Zainab Mosque in Damascus, Syria.”

Cities in Europe

Malmo, Sweden   Anna Etmanska says to join the fun at Free events - Malmö City Festival posted at Europe A La Carte Blog, saying, “The Malmo Festival is the largest free cultural carnival in Sweden.”

The Hague, the Netherlands   Dutch writer Happy Hotelier presents The Hague Revealed - A Local’s Perspective posted at his blog Happy Hotelier.

Munich, Germany   Jul helps you watch your budget (cheap beer, of course) with 10 things to do in Munich for less than $5 posted at This non-American Life.

Paris, France   Not to be outdone in saving your Euros, Jack Norell has 5 free things in Paris (free fashion show!) posted at Eyeflare - Travel Articles and Tips, saying, “Paris can be expensive, so here are 5 things you can do without spending a single Euro cent.”

Milan, Italy   For a unique tourism perspective, Jessica Spiegel reveals Milan for the Blind from her BootsnAll Italy Travel Guide, saying, “I happened upon this “braille” version of the city of Milan, and loved looking at the parts that were more well-worn and shiny.”

Å, Lofoten Islands, Norway   Mark presents Fish, Fjords and Fantasy (Lofoten Islands, Norway) posted at Travel Wonders of the World, saying, “Impressions of a special location (to me) that I have traveled to in past years. Lofoten Islands is an extraordinarily beautiful and wild place where you feel a real dose of nature and the magic of Norway.”

Cities in Africa

Cape Town, South Africa   Janine Smith presents Cape Town’s best kept Secret…. posted at Cape Town Holiday Accommodation.

 Cities in the Americas

Austin, Texas, USA   Caterina Christakos describes Bat Sightings in Austin Texas posted at travelgetway.com Blog.

San Francisco, California, USA   CatSynth presents Festival of Contemporary Music, San Francisco posted at catsynth.com mp3 kitty cat synthesizer music, saying, “We haven’t had a chance to participate [in Carnival of Cities] in a while - but we’re back, and have another music review from a recent concert in San Francisco”

Atlanta, Georgia, USA   Silicon Valley Blogger goes east to write Sell Your House, Downsize and Give The Proceeds To Charity? posted at The Digerati Life, saying, “This story is about a family who lives in Atlanta, Georgia.”

Denver, Colorado, USA   Janelle Nanos at National Geographic Traveler takes reader suggestions on where to eat in Denver, and she’s glad she did. Check out Delectable Dining in Denver posted at Intelligent Travel.

Chicago, Illinois, USA   James Hills asks, Blackhawks and Red Wings Hockey Game at Wrigley Field? posted at Man Tripping - Guys Getways and Mancations. A January outdoor hockey game is pretty, um, authentic.

Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA   Mike Bergin talks about the Birds of Virginia Beach posted at 10,000 Birds, saying, “Here’s a piece about a popular mid-Atlantic vacation destination. I believe Virginia Beach qualifies as a city!” It sure does….

New York, New York, USA   GrrlScientist presents a detailed discussion of The Horse at the American Museum of Natural History posted at Living the Scientific Life, saying, “A review of the special horse exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC.”

Washington, District of Columbia (DC) USA   sarah says I definitely need to plan a trip to D.C. to see Jim Henson’s Fantastic World (at the Smithsonian). She writes at SARAHSPY.

Fort Bragg, California, USA   Nancy Brown presents Fort Bragg - Come for the fun, stay for the food posted at WhatATrip, saying, “If you find yourself in Fort Bragg, California, make sure to check out these great places to eat.”  Handmade candy - yum.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA   becauseemilysaysso says give it up for the gut, because a Beer Gut is the New Sexy posted at Because Emily Says So.

Cities in Asia

Tokyo, Japan   Vigo Mak takes the train and checks out the cosplay in Harajuku ‘08 posted at Amerikajin: Life & Travel in Asia.

That concludes this edition, and thanks for visiting the Perceptive Travel blog (if you like our work, subscribe to our RSS feed.)

Past Carnival posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: carnival of cities, blog carnival.

I’ve got festivals on my mind. I found a copy of Great Festivals of the World in the local library a couple of weeks ago and since then I’ve been reading about festivals here, there, and everywhere. Immersing myself in Nevada’s Burning Man festival in the desert and then Spain’s Tomato Festival, aka the world’s biggest food fight, is just the thing to warm up these cold winter days here in New Zealand.

This little book provides a ringside view to fifteen extraordinary festivals. Every chapter features a different festival. Some, like the Munich Oktoberfest and the Running of the Bulls, are well known and easily accessible. Others, like the Takubelt Tuareg Festival in Northern Mali and the Timkat Festival in Ethiopia, are relatively unknown and extremely hard to access.

My favorite chapter is ‘The Greatest Festival on Earth’, written by our own Steve Daley who used to blog here at Perceptive Travel. Steve writes about the six week Kumbh Mela in India, the largest gathering of humans in the world, all intent in bathing at certain sacred spots on certain auspicious days. 

Books like this are pure magic for armchair travelers such as myself.

If you’ve had the news on for as long as five minutes recently (and managed to skip the endless US presidential election coverage), you noticed that the Big Bear (Russia) is once again making headlines for inserting its aggressive bulk into neighboring Georgia.

It’s no wonder the world has such a love-hate relationship with Russia. The country never seems to grow up, stuck in permanent insecure adolescence. It bullies its neighbors and, its wealth temporarily secured by lashings of oil money, likes to thumb its nose at the rest of the world.

Yet despite its bullying, its swaggering, despite its constant infatuation with making money at the expense of the environment (not to mention any sort of stable social and financial future), despite Russians’ determination to frequently act as stupid as possible, I still love the place.

While I can’t excuse the Russians for their love of strong, authoritarian leaders like Putin, I understand it. Russia has never had a chance to grow up. It lurched from suppression under the tsars directly to a bizarre kind of depressing, unimaginative dictatorship after the first throes of communism.

And then, after decades of doublethink existence and long lines for sausages and bread, Russia got rich and free at the same time. It went to the country’s head and it made itself ridiculous in many ways, and then someone came along who promised to make their beloved country the envy of the world.

Like a kid thrown around the social welfare system, beaten down by abusive foster parents and despised by all, only to finally find security and some sense of purpose in the charismatic leader of a criminal gang.

Russia has never yet had a chance to discover what — or who — it really is. It has an abiding spirituality that outsiders rarely see. The complex messianic mission of its religious and self-belief is almost mythic in its proportion and ancientness.

Its people are just as easily brainwashed as the rest of the world. When condemning its almost universal love of Putin, remember how many Americans still believe wholeheartedly in the way George Bush runs things, or how many French people supported the xenophobic Jean-Marie Le Pen.

But if you want to see the real Russia, you aren’t going to get it from the news, nor from the stories of mafia and glitzy nightclubs so many writers are fascinated with. As with so many cultures, you have to go there. You have to spend time with these fiercely private people, get invited to an apartment, walk around in floppy, worn house slippers, drink tea and eat blini and potatoes. What you’ll hear is confusion and kindness, passion and prejudice. Underneath the surface chaos, what you’ll find is a country desperately trying to remember what it believes in.

Following up on Antonia’s interesting post about ‘Costa Rica’s bold environmental move’, I’d like to point anyone interesting in visiting Costa Rica to a book giveaway being running over at Traveling the Green Way’.

There’s a copy of Explore Costa Rica by award winning travel writer Harry S. Pariser up for grabs. This comprehensive guide of all things Costa Rica is a must for anyone considering visiting Costa Rica.

Want to win it? Head on over and leave a comment before 22nd August 2008.

It’s been close to two decades since I tried to phase bananas out of my life. Sometime in my teens was when I first saw pictures of marine life suffocated off the shores of Costa Rica because of the sheer quantity of blue plastic bags afloat. Those bags were the detritus of banana plantations, used to protect the yellow potassium bunches from insects and weather. Like America’s use of cheap plastic grocery sacks, the waste made me slightly ill.

But Costa Rica is turning things around. They’re starting to rethink those blue plastic bags as part of an ambitious environmental project. As the BBC reported this week, Costa Rica has become the first developing country to proclaim its desire to become completely carbon-neutral by the year 2021. Last year the government said it planted 5 million new trees, with hopes for 7 million this year, to drastically offset its carbon emissions. They’re working on news ways of addressing transport and integrating renewable energy into people’s lifestyles. And agricultural practices, such as those plastic banana bags, are coming under scrutiny. My father, who runs a Russian coffee roasting business, was blown away two years ago when he toured the coffee plantation his business buys beans from. With water recycling and shade planting, “I’ve never seen anything so efficient,” he said.

Costa Rica was in the vanguard of eco-tourism efforts, and it’s looking like the country will nab more of that market. The BBC report says that over 30% of the country’s land has been given over to national parks, an attraction that makes nature-lovers like me sit up and start searching Expedia for flights to San Jose, preferably with connections to Costa Rica’s Nature Air, the first airline to work towards becoming carbon neutral itself.

This is the sort of home-based environmental policies that travelers can support simply by going there. But I’ll wait on the bananas until they’ve found a way to nab and recycle all that blue plastic.