Taiping is among the top 3 most sustainable cities in the world, according to the 2019 Sustainable Top 100 Destination Awards, right behind Ljubljana, Slovenia and Vancouver, Canada in the “Best of Cities” category!
ITB Berlin hosted the most prestigious Awards Ceremony for Sustainable Destinations. This event is dedicated to recognizing innovation and good practices in tourism management: islands, towns, regions and whole countries. The award winners have been selected by a Jury representing 12 international organizations.
Taiping rated as one of the top green destinations.
The town’s Municipal Council president Datuk Abd Rahim Md Ariff received the award.
Taiping Municipal Council president Datuk Abd Rahim Md Ariff said, “This is the first time we received a prestigious international award. This achievement is due to the hard work of the community and all relevant governmental agencies.”
“The council always works hard to make Taiping a popular tourist destination,” Abd Rahim added.
The “Best of Cities” category of the awards recognizes cities that show leadership in urban sustainability and in avoiding disruptive over-tourism.
Taiping is the second largest town in Perak after the state capital Ipoh. The town also is known as the wettest town in Peninsular Malaysia. Its unusual rainfall has also blessed its Lake Gardens with a fertile and splendid collection of flora and century-old rain trees. Itis characterized by aging buildings and clear blue skies with high chances of rain.
Green Destinations, a non-profit organization that focuses on the efforts of creating sustainable tourism, leading global cooperation between experts, listed Taiping on its 100 Sustainable Cities list in December 2018.
Taiping used to be a thriving tin-mining town that lost its luster with the rise of Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur as cities.
Taiping has previously been recognized as the Best Destination Manager 2016 by the Tourism Promotion Board for the Asia Pacific; besides having received the Malaysia Tourism Council Gold Award 2017 in Best Heritage and Eco Travel Destination Category and Malaysia Tourism Council Gold Award 2018 for the Best Tourism Promotion Campaign.
For those who have not visited Taiping, it is time to consider visiting this beautiful city!
Switzerland’s largest city is on the shore of its glistening eponymous lake. Zurich attracts travelers with activity day and night with its countless events, diverse museums, own food festival and Switzerland’s most vibrant nightlife.
Zurich is Switzerland’s center of economic life and education.
Let’s explore together the top 10 things to do in Zürich:
More than 50 museums, among them the Museum Rietberg, Museum Haus Konstruktiv, the Helmhaus, and the Landesmuseum, attract many visitors with traditional and experimental exhibition formats accompanied by a cultural program that actively seeks to engage with the diverse cultural background of Zürich’s population as well as its visitors. Film and theatre are also important to Zürich’s cultural life.
Your kids won’t be bored in Zurich in any of the fourteen museums specifically designed for children.
Lake Zürich
The range of activities in, on or around Lake Zurich is varied and offers something for everyone to enjoy, whether water sports, swimming, relaxing on the verdant lakeshore, family activities or thrilling festivals complete with a lake view.
Lake Zurich can be explored in many different ways. You explore the lake yourself by renting a boat or joining one of the many organized boat tours.
You may also choose to rollerblade around, which is a very popular way to get around as are skateboards. You can enjoy swimming in some of the designated swimming pools built into the lake.
The lake curves past the wooded peaks of Pfannenstiel to the east and the Albis chain to the west. We recommend taking the scenic promenade, which starts at Bellevue and extends for three kilometers down to Tiefenbrunnen. Along the east shore in the Seefeld quarter, you can look over to Uetliberg and see the hundreds of yachts and other craft breezing across the lake in summer.
The charming, car-free Altstadt, or old town, is the city’s historic heart. Its quaint squares and medieval alleyways are home to cozy bars, traditional Swiss restaurants and small clothing shops. Cultural spots include the Opernhaus and Schauspielhaus for performing arts, while European artworks are on display at the Kunsthaus museum.
The medieval and early modern streets of the Altstadt are where much of the city’s culture, nightlife and shopping is concentrated.
There are medieval alleys and small squares as well as beautiful Renaissance buildings, to admire as you are walking through the old town.
The district in the west of Zurich is full of contrasts, boasting an unpolished charm.
If you’d like to tap into Zürich’s creative and stylish side this former industrial zone is the go-to. More than a decade ago this was an unpleasant place to be. Today The showpiece in Zürich-West is the Viadukt, a repurposed railway viaduct where the brick arches have been filled with stylish bars, restaurants, and shops.
It is a former industrial site, stretching between the track leading away from Zürich Hauptbahnhof and the Limmat, and experiencing a gradual conversion into a new quarter, including offices, apartments and arts venues.
Climbing over Bahnhof Hardbrücke is another symbol of Zürich-West’s renaissance, the Prime Tower, Switzerland’s second tallest skyscraper.
The two towers of this Romanesque church are one of Zürich’s prominent landmark. The Grossmünster is a Romanesque-style Protestant church in Zürich, Switzerland. It is one of the four major churches in the city. Its congregation forms part of the Evangelical Reformed Church of the Canton of Zürich.
Legend has it that the church was built on the graves of the city’s patron saints, Felix and Regula.
In the first half of the 16th century, the Grossmünster church was the starting point of the Swiss-German Reformation led by Huldrych Zwingli and Heinrich Bullinger.
It is considered as one of the best zoos in Europe. Opened in 1929, the zoo has 4,000 animals representing 340 species, from emperor penguins that you can follow as they walk through the park, to domestic animals.
One of its popular events is the penguin parade, which is performed daily after noon if the outside temperature is below ten degrees Celsius.
The Botanical Garden of the University of Zurich was opened in 1977 and is located at Zollikerstrasse in the Weinegg quarter of the city. It has more than 8,000 plant species at indoor and outdoor displays.
The Uetliberg is a mountain in the Swiss plateau, part of the Albis chain, rising to 870 m. The mountain offers an impressive panoramic view of the city, the lake and the Alps.
In the winter, the hiking trails to the summit are converted into sledding runs.
There is a lookout tower on top bringing you to exactly 900 meters and offers a panoramic view of the entire city of Zürich and the Lake of Zurich and lies on the boundary between the city of Zürich and the municipalities of Stallikon and Uitikon. The mountain is a popular local recreation area all year round.
There are more than 500 videos to watch, while kids can play a host of football-themed games.
The FIFA World Football Museum was created in honor of the most popular team sport in the world. The museum presents the fascinating history and development of international football.
The museum opened in 2016 and takes you back to football’s earliest days and documents every World Cup since the first in 1930.
Zürich Opera House is an opera house located at the Sechseläutenplatz, it has been the home of the Zürich Opera since 1891 and was conceived by the prolific Viennese architects Fellner & Helmer, and also houses the Bernhard-Theater Zürich.
In 2014 picked up the prize for Best Opera Company at the International Opera Awards. It offers over 250 performances each year.
Dominica is an island of volcanic origin located between the French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Eastern Caribbean. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of the island.
Dominica has plenty to offer for vacation destinations in the Caribbean such a scuba diving, whale & dolphin watching, hiking, bird watching, exploring a pristine tropical rainforest along our Waitukubuli National Trail, discovering the unique culture or simply relaxing on one of Dominica’s secluded beaches.
Dominica enjoys a mix of cultures, African language, foods and customs mixed with European and Caribs traditions. The largest and most mountainous of the Windward Islands, it has an area of 751 sq km and it is largely covered by rainforest and is home to the world’s second-largest hot spring, the Lesser Antilles mountain with volcanic peaks of lava craters, the largest of these are Morne aux Diables, Morne Diablotins.
English is the official language, but Creole or French-based patois is still spoken by a big part of the population. The local currency is the Eastern Caribbean dollar, but you can use US dollars, which are accepted at most businesses, as well as major credit cards and traveler’s checks.
The Waitukubuli Trail located in Dominica is the longest hiking trail in the Caribbean at 115 miles. The trail showcases the best of the culture and heritage as well as its extraordinary rugged interior.
The Waitukubuli National Trail is part of the Morne Trois Pitons National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Dominica’s Hot Water
Dominica has the highest concentration of dormant volcanoes in the world, which created a number of natural spas and hot pools from the healing sulfur springs. The hot springs offer a relaxing and reviving experience.
Wotten Waven is well-known for its natural hot sulfur springs and mud pools that are believed to have medicinal qualities. Local villagers have created spas with its own special charm and amenities, from private sulfur baths and mud pools.
Dominica offers some of the best diving in the Caribbean with warm and clear water and great visibility. Most dive sites are located along the western side of the island.
You can explore calm shallows with curious seahorses and over 20 species of whales that frequent visit these seas. The sperm whales can be explored from November to March.
Some other underwater attractions are the La Sorciere fantastic wall dives or the volcanic ridge of Crater’s Edge, where can make appearances barracuda stalk, tuna, and snapper.
Canyoning
Dominica is packed with some of the mother-natures most exceptional and the impressive canyons and water pools. Canyoning is basically a sport where you navigate a water-filled canyon using abseiling, climbing and jumping.
You can join tours where professional guides take you on a tour of a lifetime with a unique experience to explore the rivers up close, under a rainforest canopy, climbing, swimming and splashing in a cool, fresh river.
Whales and dolphins are plentiful in the crystal blue waters along Dominica’s coastline throughout the year. Dominica is the only country in the world the Sperm Whales can be sighted year round with a peak season is between November and June.
Sperm whales are the largest predator on earth, reaching up to 70 feet long, and weighing 60 tons. They can dive more than 6,000 feet deep to hunt in the dark with echolocation for a large and giant squid.
Other species that can be found year-round in the waters off Dominica, includes the pantropical spotted dolphin Stenella attenuata, the Fraser’s Dolphin, Lagenodelphis hosei, the bottlenose dolphin
short-finned pilot whale.
The Boiling Lake is situated in the Morne Trois Pitons National Park, Dominica’s World Heritage site. It is a flooded fumarole 6.5 miles east of Roseau. It is filled with bubbling greyish-blue water that is usually enveloped in a cloud of vapour. Dominica’s Boiling Lake is the second-largest hot lake in the world. The largest is Frying Pan Lake, located in Waimangu Valley near Rotorua, New Zealand.
If you visit Rosalie Bay, Bout Sable, Cabana Bay, Wesley and Calibishie beaches between April and June, you may observe one of the most fascinating rituals – turtle hatching. Dominica’s shores are visited by four of the seven known species of sea turtles – Loggerheads, Hawksbills, Green Sea Turtles, and the huge Leatherbacks.
The female sea turtle will come ashore to lay her eggs and in a few months, the hatchlings will try to make it back to the sea. Unfortunately, there are many hungry predators waiting for this moment and only a few reach out to the sea.
